Hypodermic Theory

Hypodermic Needle Model Theory

In media I am researching the 'hypodermic model theory' and creating a hand out of what it is, where it stemmed from, recognition for/against the theory and how it relates to horror. Below is the idea of the hypodermic theory.

The theory suggests that media is injected into our heads and influences us in what we believe. It also suggests that the media influences us quite a lot and as an audience we are quite gullible when it comes to media.

Paul Wells

Paul Wells' research (2000) Wells got together a small focus group looking at the difference between audience and the horror genre. This focus group involved 12 members of each of the following age groups: 16-25, 26-40, 41-55, and 56-80. He asked them what the earliest horror film they had seen was and what was the most recent horror film they had seen.

This table shows some results:



What conclusions are drawn from Wells' theory?
• The relationship to being frightened changes with age.
• Audiences between 1970s and 1990s are more anaesthetised to explicit special effects.
• Young audiences are aware of artificiality and are becoming harder to shock.

The question we now have to ask is whether Wells' theory is out of date and is it relevant and how reliable is this now? Because horror is always changing e.g. getting scarier, becoming more comedy like rather than scary and it is also becoming more unrealistic is the research still reliable? Wells' focus group also only consisted of 48 people which isn’t enough to draw such conclusions from because you can’t generalise age groups. More people need to be involved in the research in order to make sure that results and conclusions are accurate and more valid.

Halloween

Halloween (1978)

In Friday’s lesson we watched Halloween which is an independent film which was made on a budget of $325,000 and we focused on 'what you think you see and what you actually see' an example of this was when I thought I saw the psycho brother but it was the police officer that Laurie bumped into. Another example was when I thought I heard someone crying but it was children trick or treating and laughing.

We then focused on the opening trick or treat scene in which we watch the whole scene through the eyes of Michael. Halloween uses lots of conventions of horror films like the psycho stings that start playing when the light is turned off in the beginning and the use of voyeurism when Michael kills his sister. It is also a dark location which is also a convention of horror.

2 Quotes And Opinions From Carol J Clover's Final Girl Theory

Analysis of two quotes from Her Body, Himself

In the beginning of the extract Clover says that ‘the relation between the sexes in slasher films could hardly be clearer. The killer is with a few exceptions recognizably human and distinctly male; his fury is unmistakably sexual in both roots and expression; his victims are mostly women, often sexually free and always young and beautiful.’ This quote expresses the roles of females and males in slasher films. It suggests that the typical male role is normally that he is the killer but is distinctively a male and his reasons are mostly sexually orientated. It also expresses that the woman is often he victim and she is normally young aged between 16-30 and is beautiful and she is often victimised for her sexual status. I agree with this quote and I think that the theory said is true and it does relate to most slasher films. I think that this is displayed in the film Carrie because she was young and beautiful when she wasn’t angry or violent but all of her problems started in the shower when her menstrual cycle began and this is when it went horribly wrong, however she wasn’t killed be a male character but she was nearly killed by her mother who men normally pretend to be when killing someone in a slasher film so it’s the same conventions.

 ‘I like women, especially beautiful ones. If they have a good face and figure, I would much prefer to watch them being murdered than an ugly girl or man.’ In this quote it is obviously expressed from a male point of view and I think that many people share this view. I disagree with this quote because I think that if the horror film is that good the death of the victim will be interesting to watch whether it is a male or female being killed and it will be equally as good. Psycho is a good example of this quote because Marion is killed and she is beautiful and has a good figure. I think that is it was Norman Bates being killed it would have still been a good death if the director portrayed it in a good way.

 

Carol J Clover - Her Body, Himself

Final Girl Theory by Carol J Clover summary

Throughout Carol J Clover’s extract on ‘The Final Girl’ she explores many different horror films such as Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Psycho and Alien. Lots of the extract is discussing the role women have in horrors and how they are viewed sexually and how their appearance is put across. The death of women in horrors is discussed as well mainly focusing on Psycho. Clovers extract is about slasher films and how women are perceived and the roles in which they are given to play by directors.
Clover then goes on to talk about ‘The Male Gaze’ which is basically the audience watching a horror film through a males eyes. The extract explores a glimpse of ‘the gender-identity game’ which is not just in horror it is also in films such as Tootsie (1982) and Switch (1975). The idea of this is that in most horrors we do not know whether a specific character are who they say they are e.g. in psycho we think Norman is a nice young man trying to be helpful however we didn’t know that he dresses up as his mother and murders someone and then become ‘nice Norman’ again. It’s about playing with your mind and making you believe they’re a complete different character to what they actually are. The extract also explains the differences between the deaths of both males and females in slasher films.
Male deaths are not common in slasher films as females are often the targets mostly depending on their sexual status. However the extract explains that when males are killed in slashers they are often killed swiftly or off screen. I think this might be so that males can still maintain the dominant role throughout the rest of the film. Overall the extract explores death, purity and roles played in horror films and it explores different horror films to explain the points that have been said.

The Male Gaze

The Male Gaze Theory

Today in our double lesson we covered 'the male gaze'. We spent quite a bit of time looking at female representations in general not just in horror and we concluded that in most films the audience watch it through the eyes of a male which backs up Laura Mulvey's theory of 'the male glaze'. Laura Mulvey wrote an influential essay on the male gaze which included her saying horror is 'visual pleasure and narrative cinema' Some films such as Halloween and Psycho have examples of the audience watching through the eyes of a male for example when the girl in Halloween gets killed she is naked and she’s young and beautiful and in psycho Marion is young and beautiful and she is also naked when she gets murdered.

Below is the triangle that is used to explain 'the male gaze'.

Friday 27th September lesson.

Carrie (1976)

Last lesson we focused on 'Carrie'. We learnt that Carrie is similar to 'Psycho' especially the shower scene because of the way she was showering and the camera shots that we saw e.g. a close up to the water and a close up to the shower. We also learnt a new keyword 'Hedonism' - the pursuit of pleasure e.g. drugs, alcohol and sex etc. We also compared Psycho and Texas Chainsaw Massacre, when doing this activity we learnt that its similarities are things like editing, location, both of them are slashers, etc. The differences were things like ones in colour the others black and white and its psychology vs. monstrous themes.