LO4 - Task 5: Ethical, legal and regulatory issues

LO4 Task 5 - Ethical, legal and regulatory issues:

A) Impact and effect on the audience

There are two types of audience that will watch a film like The Day After Tomorrow; they are the active and passive audiences. Active audiences take scenes from a film as fictional so for example in a scene with an innuendo, this audience would take it more seriously and dismay it or raise questions but the passive audience would accept it and not raise any questions. As my film is produced for a mass-audience, both of these kinds of audiences would be viewing. I can relate this to Theodore Adorno’s 1930 theory of ‘the hypodermic syringe’. In his theory, Adorno states that mass audiences believe everything they hear and that media has a negative impact on society. This could be due to the issues in films like The Day After Tomorrow of violence, sexual content or representations.

There are examples of where The Day After Tomorrow can have a negative impact on the audience. One example is when all the people of Los Angeles are scrambling to get into the public library; here people are selfishly scrambling over each other, pushing and shoving through the water to reach the land. The audience would feel uncomfortable as it is a position that they would not like to find themselves in. This would also be a negative impact on a passive audience to copy. A second example is when the wolf is shut out of the building so that the characters are safe and aren’t harmed; the audience would feel sorry for the wolf as it whimpers from the outside and inevitably freezes to death. 

However there are also examples of where The Day After Tomorrow can have a positive impact on the audience. One of the main characters, Sam played by Jake Gyllenhaal, could be seen as a role model for the younger audience as he is someone who they could aspire to be like. Sam is portrayed as a kind, heroic young adult who would do anything to help out others. The younger members of the audience can be related to Carl Roger’s 1980 theory of Ideal Self. The younger boys could either start speaking or acting like Sam and incorporate this into their daily lives. Another positive impact that the film could have on the audience is the wrapping up of the story at the end of the film where we learn that Sam, Laura and their friends survive the ordeal and are rescued.

B) Representation

In Stuart Hall’s 1980 theory of mediation, he talks about how all representations are ‘mediated’. He identified three positions from which we can respond to a media text; preferred meaning, the meaning that the maker intended the text to have and is the ‘preferred’ meaning for the audience to take. Oppositional meaning, the viewer disagrees and takes an oppositional stance to the preferred meaning of the text. Negotiated, the meaning where the viewer doesn’t accept the preferred reading but doesn’t fully oppose it either. This last meaning is otherwise known as ‘sitting on the fence’. The preferred reading is the battle of survival which has been exaggerated through the use of special effects and green screens to create a spectacle for the audience.

Stereotypes are also used in films like The Day After Tomorrow. In Tessa Perkins 1979 theory of stereotypes, she states that ‘not all stereotypes are false’. One prominent example that she highlights is that of the ‘dumb blonde’ stereotype. One positive stereotype in my film is that the male is the hero in the film; Sam saves Laura from the oncoming rush of waves that would’ve most certainly killed her. If Sam hadn’t been the hero then he and the audience would’ve lost a well-liked and loved character and person. However, the effect this could have on the female audience in particular is that they could feel less powerful than the males in the room. There are little to no negative stereotypes in The Day After Tomorrow but an instance where there is one is when the males are dominant over the females in the conversation in the weather monitoring building. The male interrupts the female during the talk and consequently attempts to take charge.

There is a countertype in my film, this is that an actor from an ethnic background is playing one of the lead roles; Arjay Smith plays Brian, one of Sam’s friends. He is a positive role model in the film as he looks out for the safety of others. An example of this is when Sam went back to help Laura get into the safety of the public library, Brain was shouting at Sam to stay for his own safety. This challenges of the stereotype of non-white people being dangerous. Normally in Hollywood Blockbusters the screens are dominated with mainly white actors and actresses so the fact that there is an actor like Arjay in one of the main parts in the film shows that films don’t have to be made up of predominantly white people.

C) Legal and ethical issues

Copyright infringement is where a piece of media or content is used in a project without permission from the owners. An example of what could be used in this situation is a piece of music in a scene. In The Day After Tomorrow, they would need to get permission for songs to be used in the film. An example of this is a song called ‘Do You Really Want to Hurt Me‘, written by Boy George and performed by the band Culture Club. The song itself is owned by Virgin Records but was licensed to be used in The Day After Tomorrow by EMI Film & Television Music. This would have been very expensive as to license a professional song requires a lot of investment and money. Throughout the film there are frequent shots of news broadcasts from FOX 5 TV, the producers would’ve had to ask for permission to use the station but as the producers, 20^th Century Fox and FOX are both owned by the same company, it is easy to share the rights and requires less expenditure.

In my film there are a few scenes with intimate sexual content, mild bad language and violence which earns the film an overall BBFC rating of a 12A. According to the BBFC, The Day After Tomorrow contains extended scenes of threat, images of blood, injury and dead bodies, mild sex references and mild language.  The film has not been censored in any way as it is not too extreme and has been approved for ‘appropriate audiences’ instead with the age rating it has been given.

There are examples of sensationalism in The Day After Tomorrow. The most notable examples are the CGI and Special FX that are over-exaggerated to give the audience the “sensation” of how climate change could impact the earth in the future, which could ethically change the audience.

D) Regulatory Bodies

There is one main body that classify films; they are the BBFC. The BBFC (British Board of Film Classification), are an independent company that rate films for cinema and DVD release; they give ratings ranging from U – R18. The age rating of my film is a 12A and this is the same in the UK as the US. The age rating has always been a 12A for the cinema and a 12 for DVD’s and this hasn’t been changed at any time. The Day After Tomorrow keeps to the BBFC’s regulations for a 12/12A by using the bad language only infrequently, keeping the sexual content to a minimum and only using enough gore and violence to maintain the 12/12A rating. This film could be inappropriate for younger audiences as there are situations of extreme danger and in some cases death, which could scare and potentially have a negative impact on this audience.

The second of these regulatory bodies is the ASA (Advertising Standards Agency), they are a company that “write and maintain the UK advertising codes”. There are 22 CAP Codes that regulate print material as listed on the ASA website. Before The Day After Tomorrow was released, there was a Billboard that promoted the film that changed the weather to produce rain or snow. On this board was fake snow, a 3D picture of the statue of liberty, the film title, a slogan, the directors other credits and the date that the film will be released. Some of the ways that the billboard sticks to the regulations of the ASA are that there are no children featured on the board (Number 5), there is no content that could harm or offend any viewers (Number 4) and there is no political advertising on any part of the board (Number 7).

Thanks for watching this video, I hope you enjoyed it and I shall see you next time for another one.