Impacts Of Narrative, Style, Star Performance And Spectacle In Hollywood Films

Analysing two films from these films, write an essay that responds to one of the following questions:

1. Gilda (Charles Vidor, Columbia, 1946).
8. The Bling Ring (Sofia Coppola, A24, 2013) 90 min.
9. The Hunger Games (Gary Ross, Lionsgate, 2012)
10. Wonder Woman (Patty Jenkins, Warner Bros, 2017) 149 min.

1. Why do Hollywood films tend have happy endings?

2. To what extent does the industrial organisation of Hollywood shape its entertainment products? Focus on a specific period in Hollywood cinema.

3. What are the ideological effects of Hollywood’s tendency to construct its female stars as erotic spectacles?

4. How does Hollywood manage its audiences’ pleasures? You could consider the impacts and effects of style, narrative, spectacle and star performance..

Introduction: Role of Hollywood Films in Satisfying Audiences' Pleasures

Films that have been analyzed:

1. The Hunger Games (Gary Ross, Lionsgate, 2012) 
2. Wonder Woman (Patty Jenkins, Warner Bros, 2017)

Films are a way of holding the attention of the audiences by satisfying their fantasies. Especially, Hollywood movies always use innovative thinking to understand the techniques and settings that can give visual pleasure to the audiences. In this context, it can be mentioned that popular Hollywood films are generally more successful in meeting public demand. ‘Hunger games’ and ‘Wonder woman’ are two such films that perfectly understood what the audiences want to see and what can satisfy their subconscious fantasies. There are various elements of a film that help the whole film to be successful in being connected with the audiences. In order to be more specific, narrative, style, spectacle and performance of the actors are the key factors that help a Hollywood movie to delve deeper into realm of public fantasies. Thus, this study has focused on role of Hollywood films in satisfying pleasures of the audiences through analysis of two above mentioned movies. For this reason, the study has illuminated the impacts of narrative, style, performance and spectacle in satisfying audiences and their fantasies.

Hollywood movies are the one permanent source of entertainment for its audiences. Although there are other purposes of making a film but entertainment is the sole purpose of any commercial Hollywood film. This is so because entertainment is one such thing that people will never cease to seek ever. People seek entertainment for getting aesthetic pleasure and nothing else. Aesthetic pleasure of any person is directly connected with the fantasies that people grow subconsciously in their minds. There are other kinds of pleasures, such as social activity, ogling at actors, interaction with the past, distraction from real life and many more that Hollywood movies try to satisfy. Human psyche holds greater significance in setting those pleasure fantasies in human mind. For this reason, audiences judge a movie by its ability to satisfy their fantasies. In this regard, this can be mentioned that Hollywood films either reassure pleasures or create scope for new fantasies and new pleasures. As a result, some Hollywood movies promote dominant ideology of the society to reassure aesthetic pleasures while some movies defy from the dominant ideology to give another kind of aesthetic pleasure.

Both the films namely ‘Hunger games’ and ‘Wonder woman’ fall under the category of Hollywood movies that defy dominant ideology and at the same time set a new and upgraded ideology for the youth. For this reason, both the movies have been successful in providing the above mentioned pleasures and more. ‘Hunger games’ (2012) is a movie that has been adopted from a highly acclaimed series of novels written by Suzanne Collins that has created strikingly new pleasures in minds of the audiences. Spectacle and narrative are two key elements that helped the movie or chain of movies to force an impact on the audiences. Best part of this movie is that the movie has not used a setting of ‘where’ but rather used a setting of ‘when’ Future is the place where the movie takes place.

Analysis of 'Hunger Games'

In this context, it can be stated that future oriented movies, in Hollywood industry, are expected to be successful because these movies satisfy urges of the audiences to feel the unknown. Another important element lies in its narrative that sees the future world through the eyes of one protagonist that is Katniss. The original novel used a first person narrative to portray chain of events or the story from a single perspective. Similarly, ‘Hunger games’ movie also focused on its heroine’s perspective to see the battle between the haves and the have-nots in this movie. This implies that the narrative is structured in a way that the audiences see what the protagonist sees and nothing more. This point-of-view narrative allows the audiences to be a part of the movie themselves. In this context, this can be said that people seek scopes so that they can relate to the movies that they see because this connection gives them aesthetic pleasure.

For example, characters like Haymitch have been introduced only when the heroine has been introduced to them and not earlier. This first person narrative does not use voice over scenarios to establish the fact that audiences are seeing the movie from perspective of Katniss. On the contrary, the movie has used the protagonist to lead the film from its first scene to the last so that the audiences get closer to the movie. Audiences get pleasure when they are transported to a land of fantasies through films. ‘Hunger games’ does the exact thing by making the audiences see the unknown world of Panem. In this way, the audiences explore the surreal world of fear, battle and uncertainty with awe. Another important thing in the movie is that this movie has been set on the background of the bizarreness of the reality shows and their horrific point of view. The movie challenges the audiences to see the bitter side of the media to show anything bizarre just to satisfy the sadistic subconscious selves of the audiences.

Apart from the narrative, style is another thing that helps the movie to engage its audiences. Movies, especially Hollywood movies, are renowned for setting style statements through their character portrayal and more. For example, in this movie, Katniss has been seen with same type of hairdo throughout all the series of this movie. In fact, the clothes have also shown a consistency for all the characters throughout all the series of hunger games. This has been done so that audiences get closer to each character and do not get distracted by a meaningless selection of clothes and style statements. For this reason, even simple clothing and minimal make up of Katniss and of other characters attract the audiences because they start identifying themselves with the characters.

This film enlightens the bitter reality of imbalance of capital among higher and lower economy class citizens. Apart from this, the movie utilized brilliant performances of the actors as key factors of giving pleasure to audiences. Only the actors can make any movie look realistic through their acting skills. This aspect is equally important in managing audiences’ pleasures. This is relevant as the interrelationship between characters intrigue the plot and keeps the attention of the audiences intact. For example, in this movie ‘Hunger games’ all the main characters are connected in a way that audiences feel the sense of victory when the positive characters win at the end of the series. Movies have the power to manipulate the sense of right and wrong in the minds of audiences.  For this reason, Hollywood movies have always contributed in shaping new perspectives for their viewers.

Analysis of 'Wonder Woman'

There are certain aspects of fiction that attracts audiences the most. For example, viewers spend their money for movie tickets so that they can experience adventure virtually. For this reason, popular movies make use of science fiction, classical myths, adventures and more to satisfy this urge of audiences. In this aspect, it can be said that ‘Wonder woman’ is another movie that has dealt with all of the above mentioned aspects of fiction that attracted attention of audiences. Unlike ‘Hunger games’, which have been based on a novel, ‘Wonder Woman’ makes use of popular super hero culture to manage audiences’ pleasures. The best part of the movie is that the movie only picked the character of Wonder woman from comics series of DC but put her on a different context of Second World War. Both these two movies show adventure that is female driven.

Just like ‘Hunger games’, ‘Wonder woman’ also uses a great narrative that includes popular fiction, drama, action and romance at the same time. It is the impact of the narrative that forces the audiences to see what happens next on the movie. This is highly needed in super hero movies as the most of the audiences are well accustomed with the comics already. Thus, the restructured narrative, story line, new contexts and new spectacles never allow the audiences to get bored while watching the movie.

One striking similarity between these two movies lies in the fact that both the movies use female protagonist but do not portray them as erotic objects. Despite the fact that character of Wonder woman has always been eroticized in the past, the 2017 version of it does not simply dress the female lead with erotic costumes without giving her a female perspective as well. Another interesting thing in this movie is that this film teases the history with a touch of fiction. As a result, the minds of audiences get involved in the setting of the movie to unfold the unknown. Audiences always expect the right party to win at the end because that satisfies their subconscious sense of right and wrong.

Thus, Wonder woman, Diana, succeeds at winning the battle by fighting the evil God (Aries) of war. This sense of certainty justifies the plot of the movie and at the same time justifies expectations of the audiences. Both these films make use of two strikingly intriguing setting that are both surreal and mysterious. From Hunger games’ Panem to wonder woman’s Themyscira, audiences get pleasure while having these visual treats. War is a dominant theme in both these movies that have attracted more adventure and action for managing audiences’ pleasures. Viewers fantasize a world that is totally different from their mundane real world. ‘Wonder woman’ transports the audiences to the gods’ world. Apart from that, style and performance of the main protagonist Diana have also played an important role in giving the audiences aesthetic pleasure. Moreover, the use of a combination of myth and history works as a key factor of success for this movie.

Thus, this can be said that Hollywood movies play an important role in satisfying public fantasies through experimenting with newer plots, narratives and perspectives. ‘Wonder woman’ and ‘Hunger games’ are one of those popular movies of this era that have been successful in clearly understating what the audiences want to see on the silver screen.

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