audience negotiation and les revenants

Audience negotiation and Les Revenants

Explore how TV shows can target and attract a niche or specialised audience. Make reference to both the Black Mirror episode San Junipero and The Returned to support your answer [30] 

Who's is the audience for les revenants?

1. fans of the zombie genre

2. educated middle class audiences

3. fans of mogwai

4. foreign media fans

5. moody teenagers


Casting - thinking about Julie

by selecting a hegemonically average woman to play the role of Julie, the producers position the audience in a more relatable mode of address 

Audience positioning - how the audience are placed by the producer of a media product (ex. placed in a certain situation)

Examples of positioning:

  • we can position ourselves through narrative, we may know something g that the characters within the media product don't, we are essentially helpless in their situation
  • the use of pov shots are the most explicit way of positioning an audience


Key scene - Victor and Julie

How are we positioned in this scene? How can audiences negotiate this scene? Who are we positioned with? How is positioning used both typically and atypically?

Les Revenants addresses a number of niche audiences through its highly atypical mode of address. An excellent example of this appealing to niche audiences can be seen in the character Julie. Even the casting of the actor who plays her is fascinating and atypical: Julie is hegemonically average looking, which is surprising to see in a mainstream, mid budget TV show, and the MES of her heavy set eyes and sickly demeuneour allows the producer to construct a relatable mode of address. This is further anchored and emphasised through the striking scene where Julie returns home. in the establishing shot of this troubling montage, the audience is positioned in a distant and even ghostly manner as we follow Julie to her workplace. The use of the extreme long shot here positions the audience in a voyeueristic mode of address and hermeneutically invites the niche target audience to relate to Julies experience of helplessness. However Julies slouched posture and bored facial expression form a binary opposition to the potentially terrifying experience of being isolated and alone at night. We cut to an interior mid shot of Julie on the bus far from seeming scared or relieved Julie once more appears, distant and exhausted. this is anchored. this is anchored through the MES of her messy hair and her p[prominent eye bags, which symbolically demonstrate the difficulty of her job. the camera Ange positions the Audience uncomfortably close to Julie, and through its proximity, the out of focus victor is in the background. this shallow depth of field emphasises Julie even though she averts her gaze from the camera. Julies thrown together look subverts Lisbet van zones argument that women function as a spectacle for a heterosexual audience, which allows the show to target a niche audience of feminists who will take delight in seeing the representation of a woman who subverts stereotypical assumptions


Positioning shifts from Julie to Victor to a voyeuristic onlooker
Themes of depression are empahiosed through being closely positioned with julie, without ever explicitly being asked to ideneitfy with her
Julie’s representation is realistic and relatable through her unglamourous construction
A realistic and relatable mode of address that rejects hyprreal representations of caregiivers and women
Julie rejects stereotypical representations of women as automatic caregivers, which is highly relatable to certain niche audiences
Through her contradictions and flaws, Julie has a rich personality and character which can be negotiated by the target audience


Stuart Hall - audiences negotiate the dominant ideological perspective encoded by the producer

What is the dominant ideological perspective of Les Revenants? What is this show ‘all about?’

possibiliteis 
reality and falsehood
depersonalisation anxiety and drepession
trauma 
the dead coming back to life
suicide
questioning the existence of god and heaven 

Themes of depression

Victor is often in the background, and is incapable of interacting with the world
Sjimon is unable to return home, and the world has changed completely around him. He is alienated. 

the soundtrack is bassy and anxiety inducting, and sounds like a panic attack

themes of trauma rehabiligtation and self help

the colour scheme is bleached dark and muted as if optimism has been washed away

the show is essentially targeting people who are struggling with their mental health


Cultivating polysemy - extreme audience negotiation

Anchorage - where the meaning of a media product is weighed down by media language. For example a gesture, caption, costume or so on can make clear to the audience the preferred reading

What is notable about Les Revenants’ utilisation of anchorage?


 

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