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The Mass Audience

© Ken Nared

That the movies have from their beginning been wrapped up in the psychology of the human mind come as a surprise to no one. The daring exploits of men and women on screen captive audiences because we so closely identify with our favorite heros successes and failures. Early filmmakers were quick to recognize that certain audiences liked certain kinds of films and they began to tailor their fare for the individual taste of each group of movie goers. That is not to say they made one movie for romantic movie lovers and another movie for lovers of action. The producers of films learned that reaching all the people they wanted as customers would take combining each of the varied taste of the public in every film they made.

As the curious jockeying of theme and story lines meant to both please and draw the masses to the box office came together in later films, directors and writers were able to use the need for movies that would appeal to all to build a psychological understanding of just who it was they were trying to entertain. Like Shakespeare who used buffoon characters in his plays so the hero wouldn't have to dilute his quality of character to provide comedy, screenwriters used characters to quickly delineate who was who in a film. Audiences didn't have to watch an early film long to know who the villain, hero, or love interest, were going to be. Our modern vocabulary, good guys, bad guys, springs from this hard edge use of character types.

In trying to reach a mass audience however movies can lose their way. Obligatory love, nude, or car chases scenes, that were included solely to bring in bigger bucks at the box office, destroyed the continuity and pacing of many movies. Fortunately most obligatory scenes have been dropped from films and filmmakers have found better ways to fill seats at the theaters. Using strong dramatic construction films in the last decade have broken box office records because the best draw a film can have above stars and special effects is a strong story and script.

Art may be the soul of film making but the box office is the life blood. The movie industry has learned that to fill seats you have to give the people what they want, but in an ever increasing sophistication the industry is reaching audiences with film that in years past would have been considered art house fare. Romantic films with female leads are brining in decent and sometimes high returns. Science fiction once only haunted the realms of B-movies, now is a high gross staple of Hollywood. The reality is audience numbers have grown to a point where the combing of theme is no long forced upon filmmakers. Horror and say romance can be put into separate movies and still reach large audiences. While films of course will always combine themes where appropriate movies no longer have to artificially splice story lines together. This makes for better films and happier audiences.

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