APPLYING AUDIENCE THEORY

RICHARD DYERThe use of utopian solutions in the genre spy are very prominent. The use of good vs evil often allows the good spy to conquer against evil. This is often used in the James Bond films as he is portrayed as the perfect action man finding many love interests beating baddies and having a happy ending.

However Richard Dyer doesn't always apply for example The Bourne identity films often present a dystopian representation of the world. Audiences may choose to watch these types of films as it thrilling and may allow the audience to feel better about their own lives.

Utopian- Perfect idealised representation of the world.(can be used for escapism)

Dystopian- presents the world as a paranoid place full of secrecy this is a bad representation of the world often used in horror and thrillers and people live through the characters possibly re-leaving stress. You could argue that the James Bond films does offer a dystopian view on the world also.

THE FRANKFURT SCHOOL

The Frankfurt School believe the audience are passive and that audiences are told how to think and believe.

This does apply to spy films, the audiences own personal thoughts and emotions are not challenged.

They are manipulated by music and fast paced editing into feeling certain emotions. When the bad guy is seen the use of loud low pitched sounds often show the bad guy in a way which presents them to be evil and nasty, however if they used a high pitched happy tune would the audience still feel like that is the bad guy?(most likely not)The use of only showing the bad guy doing bad things EG: blowing up buildings with an angry face and often beating up the good guys helps present them this way. They are never shown with a family or wife or even helping their own allies. This manipulates the audience into seeing them in a specific lighting.

BLUMLER & KATZ(Entertainment & Diversion)

The audience are very active in the genre of spy. They choose their film choice often in a way where they can often meet needs by watching this genre of film which brings them tension and excitement. This allows an audience to be consumed by a world of action and adventure for a few hours and helps with escapism.

(Personal relationships/social interaction)

The James Bond series offers social interaction as it has a wide fan base and is very well known this allows a massive buzz to be created around the films and they become the hot topic of conversation.

(Personal identity)The Kingsman allows audiences to compare their lives to characters in the Kingsman. Eggsy a lower class teenage boy often gets into trouble however by the end of his film he has turned his life around. This allows audiences to feel like they can relate to his situation and feel motivated by the fact that if he can turn his life around so could they.

(Information/ Education)Spy films such as Tinker Taylor Soldier Spy allow educational purposes about historical intelligence wars. This shows more of a true representation of how a real spy might live and what they would do. They also allow a moral education of the audience as they show good vs bad etc..

DAVID BUCKINGHAM

David Buckingham's theory is that teens use films to fill up their down time and do not have much meaning to their everyday lives. It is just a “Wallpaper” which fills there empty time to free them from boredom.

For example the comedy spy film “Spy” has no real educational purpose only meaningless comedy which teens can use to fill their spare time up with.