B4. ‘Most media texts target a range of different audiences.’ How true is this for your chosen texts?
Neil Marshal’s British horror feature film Dog Soldiers is a typical horror film. It involved werewolves, gun fire, action and gore. And yet it received strong attention at the box office from a range of audiences, including young women as well as men. The film did particularly well within the United Kingdom as well as being very well received within the United States too, something almost unheard of for a British horror film.
Dog Soldiers manages to attract its multiple audiences in a number of ways. The action is set around a group of British marines who are sent on a training exercise in a remote part of the Scottish countryside. Soon they realise that all is not what it seems and a pack of hungry mythical creatures are after them. By setting the action within Britain, with an entire British cast, enables the film to grab the attention of the aforementioned, not just British audience, but a foreign one too. British audiences wish to see this film because it has a strong, likeable British cast, whilst Americans wish to view it because the idea of a successful horror film coming out of the UK was almost unheard of in this decade at that point.
Dog Soldiers received both praise and higher audience figures because of its gritty realism, which had begun to disappear in the American horror figures, which favoured over the top gore over reality. The film touches not only on the horror genre, but of the survival, thriller genre too, gaining wider recognition from audience members who perhaps would not have normally gone to see a horror picture.
The film manages to attract a female audience by including the female character of Claire. She is the only female featured within the film, and is portrayed as sensible, strong and courageous., subverting horror stereotypes that all women must be weak, damsels in distress, which appeared to be a female audience drawing them in to watch the film. As a whole, this film works well to attract different types of audiences, both genders, as well as overseas viewers.
Bridget Jones’ Diary, which follows the title characters mishaps and triumphs within her love life was a box office hit, and managed to target a wide range of diverse audience members. The film achieved this in many ways, starting with its initial stages such as casting the film. To attract a female audience, the casting team had to select an actor that would entice to women. They found already formed British heartthrob Hugh Grant, whose success with previous box office hits such as ‘Four Weddings and a Funeral’ and ‘Notting Hill’, guaranteed them an audience percentage. The director and costume designers then constructed Hugh Grant to make him seem even more irisistable to a female audience, by dressing him in well tailored, expensive suits and made him look perfect on screen with the aid of clever make up and lighting. Finally, to anchor the preferred reading of the character to the audience, Hugh Grant is given, as the character of Daniel, seductive lines which he will read in his coy British accent, guaranteed to entice a female viewer. The male audience is attracted both by casting Renee Zellwegger in the lead role, already a hit with the male audience, but also by advertising the film with such slogans as ‘the perfect date film’ ensuring that men take their girlfriends to see this film.
Finally, Edgar Wright’s zombie comedy ‘Shaun of the Dead’, released in 2004, was a worldwide hit, managing to target a vast range of audiences including men, women, horror fans, comedy fans, as well as fans of his previous television series, ‘Spaced’ broadcast several years previous on channel 4.
Whilst the script was certainly strong enough to attract a large majority of audiences on its own, the film did not just rely on the strength of its plotline. Special attention was taken to construct a strong cast of likeable personalities that would appeal to the public, as well as different audiences, gaining a higher profit at the Box Office.
The central protagonists are Shaun and Ed, played by Simon Pegg and Nick Frost already fairly well known for their work on aforementioned television series ‘Spaced’ and whilst were not ultimately household names at the time, their likeable personality and ability to play off one another proved vital to attracting a young male audience, whose relationships with close male friends were not unlike that of characters Ed and Shaun. The character of Dianne is portrayed by actress Lucy Davis, acclaimed for her work as character Dawn Tinsley Ricky Gervais’ hit comedy ‘The Office’, already a great success. Her well known face helped to secure Shaun of the Dead, both a female audience as well as fans of The Office. Penelope Winton and Bill Nighy were cast to give an older perspective within the plot, and aided the film as they managed to secure the film with an older target audience, who enjoyed the more mature characters outlook on the stories zombie attack.
The film worked well to target both fans and of the horror and comedy genres, giving equal measures to each within the film, providing light comical relief within moments of terror and vice versa. This is reflected within the films advertisements; where the film posters and trailers are both comical as well as chilling, appealing to both audiences drawing them into watch the text. The fact that one of the films tag lines was ‘a comedy with zombies’ ensures that it will receive the target audience it requires whilst including the older and female characters on advertisements too will also ensure that a larger target audience is received.
In conclusion all three film texts work well to gain a large diverse, target audience gaining both genders, different ages and different countries to create a stronger box office total.
