Monday, April 4, 2011

Rowdy Viewers

While I found many aspects of Steven J. Ross’ “Working-Class Hollywood,” interesting, his accounts of audience participation got me thinking: when films transitioned from silent to talkies were the voice’s of the audience replaced by the voice’s of actors? Ross describes a typical theater in the silent era: “a communal atmosphere in which audiences regularly booed, cheered, or applauded scenes that reflected harshly or kindly on their lives and politics” (25). This seems very different from a typical movie going experience of today, at least in most cases, but I suppose the films are also very different. Now they are longer, and some (perhaps badly) rely on dialogue to move the plot forward. Maybe instead of comparing the theater going experience of the past to today, we should find a more compatible comparison: YouTube Sessions. When friends watch YouTube videos they react and talk about what they are being shown.

However, I can even think of other situations today where silence is not imposed on a theater going audience. For example, at 5th Ave Cinema’s (student run Cinema at Portland State) there was definitely a “communal atmosphere” wherein students would react to the film and comment on what they were watching. The Cinema showed a variety of film genres, from art house films to cult classics like John Carpenter's The Thing. The films were hand selected by “film people” and tended to draw a knowledgeable audience who had already seen the film before. So because of the type of audience, the price (free for students, $3 for guests), and the films being shown, there still exist pockets of rowdy viewers.

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