Making the Audience Care
Something I was thinking about while watching Akira -
Is it easier to get a message across if you start from a place of emotional investment? I think that's definitely true for me, but I'm wondering if it's universal.
Something like Akira, that starts off with establishing characters and making us emotionally invested in the world, ends up delivering what I think is a much more powerful message than something like the short we watched in class where everything was logos. I'm forgetting the title at the moment, apologies.
Even a show like South Park - it often has a message, but you're not really supposed to like the characters or feel particularly bad when something bad happens to them. Does that undercut the things the creators are trying to say?
I feel like when an audience can't empathize with a story, it puts them in a defensive place that could lead to them rejecting the message regardless of whether or not they actually agree with it. Maybe comedy is a way to build that same connection to an audience without making them feel bad.
What do you guys think? Do you find things that hit you in the heart more impactful than things that hit you in the brain (or sometimes the stomach, with gross-out humor)? Or does it not make a difference?
Is it easier to get a message across if you start from a place of emotional investment? I think that's definitely true for me, but I'm wondering if it's universal.
Something like Akira, that starts off with establishing characters and making us emotionally invested in the world, ends up delivering what I think is a much more powerful message than something like the short we watched in class where everything was logos. I'm forgetting the title at the moment, apologies.
Even a show like South Park - it often has a message, but you're not really supposed to like the characters or feel particularly bad when something bad happens to them. Does that undercut the things the creators are trying to say?
I feel like when an audience can't empathize with a story, it puts them in a defensive place that could lead to them rejecting the message regardless of whether or not they actually agree with it. Maybe comedy is a way to build that same connection to an audience without making them feel bad.
What do you guys think? Do you find things that hit you in the heart more impactful than things that hit you in the brain (or sometimes the stomach, with gross-out humor)? Or does it not make a difference?
I 100% agree with your statements. Actually I was thinking about this a lot lately. In our Film A&A class we watched this film called Battleship Potemkin, I'm sure you might have seen it already, and although our professor deemed it as "the greatest film in film history," it was the most boring thing that I have ever seen. I was talking to my friends after and we were discussing why the film was so boring and so uninteresting, we realized that it was because we didn't connect to any of the characters because all the characters were so insignificant. Like you said, this is something that Akira and many other great films have done. The audience needs to feel some type of emotional or spiritual connection to the story, whether it's through the character or the message.
ReplyDeleteYes, this is such a good point! I remember watching Lost and really empathizing with a character and then the character goes and does something horrible. It was really hard to figure out how I should feel as an audience member. Should I forgive this character because he's just a character in a movie and so what if he torchered someone. Or should I condemn the character and everything i like about him because he crossed an ethical line. And, should I condemn the show and the writers because they set me up to care for someone and then say, by including this, that it's ok to still like someone who torchers or even, it's ok to tocher as long as you're a "good guy."
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