Representation
Active and Passive
When audience theories first began in the 1930's, Theodore Adorno developed the "hypodermic syringe" theory by stating that media has a negative impact. This meant he thought the mass audience believed everything they saw or heard, and this theory assumes that the audience is passive. This means the audience in terms of media, don't think for themselves, and are very heavily influenced by the media without having their own opinions about it.
This brought up many questions like the issues of violence, sexual content and representation. If audiences were being fully influenced by the content in media, wouldn't the ideas presented in media products instantly start appearing in audiences?
Later into the 20th century, people realised the audience isn't completely influenced by the media they see. They don't believe everything they see or hear, and are able to develop their own opinion about what is portrayed in the media. This is called an active audience, and is generally the idea we use with audiences today. However, there are still ideas of the audience being influenced by media because of cases like the Jamie Bulger case, in which two young boys murder a toddler. Afterwards they stated the reason they did it was because they saw it on a film. This is an example of copycat violence, in which the media portrays violence that an audience is heavily influenced by and copies it. The copycat theory can be applied to other ideas such as body image and ethnicity.
This applies to HTTYD 2 as there are scenes of violence, where people are fighting, dragons are attacking, one kills another and there is even an on-screen death. However, no blood is shown to keep the film within the PG rating.
The BBFC regulations for HTTYD 2 state that there are moments of threat and violence.
This means that the film is rated PG - Parental Guidance - as there may be some scenes which might be upsetting for young children.
The poster, advertising a family film, obviously is appropriate for everyone. There is no violence, reference to drinking or drugs or any show of threat. It simply connotes the idea of adventure and displays the characters as exciting in their colourful, interesting setting.
HTTYD 2's effect on audiences
As it's a family film, it doesn't have any extreme graphic violence, bad morals or mature content. However, representation is still an issue in all films.
The problem with representation is mainly stereotypes. Not all stereotypes are bad, but most go on the dominant ideology of the mass audience. A dominant ideology is an idea that everyone shares.
One of the most common stereotypes is with women and their body shapes. In the majority of films, women are always represented as thin beautiful women, and any women who are overweight or not so pretty are considered gag characters like Pitch Perfect's "Fat Amy". In httyd 2, body image is also an issue, as all of the main featured women have thin waists and none are overweight or overly different in any way.
However, their face designs go against what is conventionally pretty, with unusual features and lots of variation. This goes against the stereotype which most films, and animated ones too, comply to, using overly attractive women with perfect bodies and faces.
One way httyd 2 is daring in terms of family films is how they reveal a character is gay. This came as a shock to many people, and how I see it, this is a good thing. That's because no one had any idea that he would be gay, because he isn't represented with the stereotypical characteristics of a gay person.
Another way httyd 2 represents social minorities is by portraying a disabled main character. This character isn't pitied or idolized, he is just seen how everyone else is seen, as an equal. This goes against media and society's ideologies of how disabled people should always be treated differently. Even though he's not idolized for this reason, he is still a good role model for audiences as he is the main character, with good morals and realistic, likeable qualities.
One issue httyd 2 has with representation is the lack of variations in race. All the characters are white and voiced by white people... Apart from the villain.
There are still many issues with race in today's films. Part of the reason most of the characters are white is because the film is set in the north, where it would be unlikely for there to be people of many different races. Another reason could be the fact that it is set hundreds of years ago, when there wasn't as much variation, race-wise, in any given country.
These reasons still don't target the fact that it's only the villain that's voiced by a man of a different race. This representation could influence audience ideas of ethnicity and race, especially in children, in a negative way.
How the product reaches the audience
In this day and age, there are many more ways of viewing a film than there was 100 years ago.
In the 20th century, before advanced technology, people had to go to the cinema to watch everything: there were no televisions at all until the 1930s. As technology advanced, televisions were invented, allowing people to watch things right in their own home. By the end of the seventies we were able to watch films at home too, with video cassettes.
As technology has advanced, more and more ways of watching films have surfaced. Even though there aren't many people that watch films on video cassette any more, the amount of other methods just keeps on increasing.
Nowadays we can watch a film as a DVD on television or digitally on Netflix or Sky Movies, on our tablets, smartphones, games console, computer... the reason there are now so many different ways to watch a film is down to technological convergence. This is when all sorts of different types of media come together to create different forms. For example, now rather than having to buy a newspaper to read articles, we can find news articles online. Now we can browse the web and watch YouTube on an Xbox. We can use document apps on our tablets to write documents like we would in Microsoft Word.
Watching httyd 2 on Netflix on an Xbox is a form of converged technology. It's being watched digitally, which means we don't need a DVD to watch it as it's streaming live from the internet. This is convergence because it's using a games console, to stream something over the internet, with Netflix which is also an app in itself.
Another way we can watch httyd 2 is on a laptop or computer. There are different ways to do this, as you can also access Netflix from computers and laptops. Apart from Netflix, other ways we can watch httyd 2 include buying the DVD to put into the laptop or computer. Nowadays, most computers and laptops have disc ports that don't only install programs, but also play CD's and DVD's. This is technological convergence because only televisions used to be able to play DVD's with a DVD and video player. If a person doesn't want to buy the DVD, they can also buy the film in digital form online, from websites like Amazon and even YouTube.
HTTYD 2 earned $618.9m in the box office.
As of February 2015, 7.5 million home entertainment units have been sold worldwide.
How it is advertised and promoted
As well as having more ways for the audience to watch the film via new converging technology, the company had more ways to actually advertise the film. Ways the film has been advertised includes billboards, trailers (television and cinema), magazines, posters and on websites.
Convergence
In terms of media and technology, convergence is the merging of different mediums rather than them staying separate. An example is television and e-media: it's becoming more and more common for websites to be able to be accessed on a television as well as a computer.
Technological convergence is when technologies come together which provides new services for the audience, like smartphones: these can act as both a phone and a computer that can access the internet.
How the Product Reaches the Audience
This is how the film gets to us. Ways we can watch a film include:
- In the cinema
- On a television
- On a laptop
- On a phone
- On a tablet
This is a moodboard describing the general audience for the film How To Train Your Dragon 2:
This family would fall under B in the ABC1 classification of socio-economic groups. This means they are middle class. The father is a professional which brings the family income. In the National Readership Survey's lifestyle classification, they would come under settled suburbans. This is because they are quite well off with older children, and live in the suburbs.
There isn't really any sort of gender-bias as to the audience for this film. It's a family movie, meaning dads and sons, and mothers and daughters too. It's got aspects of genres that boys usually prefer - like the action - and a little bit of romance, too, for stereotypical girls - and also themes both genders can get excited about like adventure and fantasy. It doesn't sexualise the female characters (FAMILY film...), but also doesn't show the protagonist - the hero - to be some indestructible guy who will always be able to save the day. There are really no gender-specific preferences to this film, as its themes, characters and story can easily appeal to anyone.
In terms of age, a person could look at the poster, trailers and merchandise for this film and instantly label it as a kid's film. However, there are certain aspects of this film that lead me to think it's not so much just kids but families with older children.
Sure, it's got its light-hearted humour and pretty dragons, but there are also dark themes in this film which include death, mutilation (maybe exaggerating there) and even mind control. (NOT exaggerating there.)
These sorts of things could potentially terrify some young kids, and when it originally came out in cinemas there were even some parent complaints that they had to leave because the film was too frightening for their child.
That being said, this film seems to appeal to most other ages, with a huge fan base ranging from 10-year-olds to people in their twenties and older. It can easily keep most adults and teenagers engrossed as well as children, because of the exciting action and adventure. There are also more mature - even though not frightening - themes that could potentially click with adults more easily than children. For example, a reunion scene between a man and his wife after being apart for 20 years is just as sincerely heartfelt as any similar scene would be in live action. There's no false-feeling instant happiness, but raw emotion that animated films aimed at kids are sometimes too frightened to show. This is what I think can appeal to an adult audience properly, instead of just being some kiddie cartoon for the children.
The lifestyle of a person whom might enjoy How to Train Your Dragon 2 would obviously be someone who enjoys watching films. Maybe even that can be narrowed down further, to a person who is an avid fan of animated films. Another way we can narrow THAT down is to say said person could be a dedicated DreamWorks fan.
This person could be someone who loves to go to the cinema, and has plenty of free time to do that. Or they could have a huge DVD collection which they needed an addition to.
They could be a parent whose child desperately wanted to see it, and ended up quite enjoying it themselves. There is quite a varied idea of the stereotypical lifestyle of a person who'd enjoy this film, only that they'd have to have the free time to be able to want to watch it.
The target audience for any big film are people with enough disposable income to be able to afford to see the film in cinema, or buy it on DVD, or rent it digitally or however they would get it. If their spending power allowed them enough disposable income, their NRS (National Readership Survey) grade would be somewhere in the ABC1 category.
The NRS grading system is a socio-economic system that grades people according to their income and career. The sections go as follows:
- A - Higher managerial, administrative and professional
- B - Intermediate managerial, administrative and professional
- C1 - Supervisory, clerical and junior managerial, administrative and professional
- C2 - Skilled manual workers
- D - Semi-skilled and unskilled manual workers
- E - State pensioners, casual and lowest grade workers, unemployed with state benefits only
People in grades A to C1 are the people who are most likely to choose to spend money on How to Train Your Dragon 2, because they are the people who can afford it the most.
Uses and Gratifications
The most obvious use of How to Train Your Dragon 2 is escapism. It's not real life, it's clear fantasy and adventure, and it allows the viewer to escape real life temporarily and relax.
Because it has a large fan base it can also be used for building personal relationships. (Surprisingly for some, it has a very large fan base, ranging from 12-year-olds to young adults in their twenties, both male and female.) There are fans on most social networking sites like Tumblr and Instagram. This means fans can communicate with each other and meet other people who are fans of the film and franchise, therefore building personal relationships.
For younger children, HTTYD 2 can also be used for surveillance. It's a classic tale of good against evil, like in most animated films. This means children find out information about how we have to side with the "good" people as opposed to the "bad" people. Most animated films have an aspect of surveillance as they nearly always have a moral of some sort to teach to children.
