Stuart Hall - 'Media seems to reflect reality, but in fact they construct it'
Stuart Hall's reception theory explains the logic within movies. This means that it is a way of unpicking a film to understand it better. The filmmaker has intentionally placed hidden messages within their film, these could be religious or political, which allows audience members to decide upon either or. 'Encoding' is a term used to translate the directors meaning to what is happening in the film, the opposite to this 'decoding' is where the audience take this intended idea and convert it into their own preferred way of understanding. An example that i could give is say in a film we see a character and they are only allowed to drink half of a drink, the encoded message is that the director wants us to think that this character is redistricted in their life and only allowed therefore of half or certain things. However, a decode of this would be the audience seeing it in a completely different light, where they say actually this character is being tested to see whether they will drink the other half of the drink, and therefore the message is that we're all being tested throughout life and the outcome of the test is what we put in it from the start.
A preferred or dominant reading can be described in a similar way as encoding , the director has placed a message/moral/meaning in the narrative in order for the audience to understand or learn something. It is the 'preferred' way a director wants viewers to see something, in other words- the way in which they themselves see it or interpret it, however this is not always the case. An oppositional reading is a way for the audience to 'read' a message in a completely different way, or even rejecting the preferred reading of the code. A negotiated reading is where the audience have control over the preferred reading, whether they want to accept it as their own or not, they may read the film through their own agenda. Although, the audience may accept or welcome the dominant reading, their interpretation will be mainly occupied with their opinion on a particular social group. Hence the negotiated reading is the most peculiar one, because the audiences decisions is usually swayed away from the dominant reading based on their ideas on representation, which is always interesting to hear.
The film I've chosen to analyze is Bhogal's 'Sket'. I have to say although it is not your ideal system calmer, the true grit of this film made it really enjoyable for me personally, and I feel as though it is really suitable for this essay as there are many things that happen in the film which conform to Hall's theory. Below I will be providing various examples where appropriate for when I feel there has been a hidden message or a teaching/ moral from the director. The audience's uses and gratifications is a very important thing to consider and I will also be discussing what possible pleasures people get after watching this film.
Sket: Nirpal Bhogal
A 2012 release which talks broadly about, the North West of London, taking us through a chilling experience of the people and the environment there. In the film we meet many characters, some of whom are young teenagers or adolescents strictly involved with terrifying things like drugs and sex. The main character in the film is 'Kayla' 16 years of age and a rebellious teenager seeking revenge for her older sister who has been cruelly attacked by a gang of boys, led by the other man character 'Trey'.
In this scene we see the young girl, get into a bus and sit down on the top deck. Soon a group of noisy, rude girls also come and seat themselves on the back chairs- vaguely they chit chat about sex and parties, the young girl hears their conversation and smiles, indicating that she is impressed by what they're saying. I reckon this is a good example of where the director has hidden a message. We learn from this scene that the directors dominant reading is that he wants us to see how care free teenagers have become these days. This could be considered the encoded message. We as an audience have a decoding to this or a preferred reading, for instance a teenage audience member may look at this and not think much of it, simply because they can personally identify with these girls through the similarity in age, so we also discuss similar things amongst ourselves, therefore we go against the intended reading. Another, reading which could be the negotiated reading is where an audience member such as a parent who when they see this may remember when they were a similar age and they also used to say this, it all becomes memories for them. This offers them escapism as they're strayed away from realistic truth of the reading.
Another thing we see happen in this scene is where two males enter the bus and make their way upstarts, they head straight to the back where the girls are sitting. Again one of the boys says ' I wanna have sex with you, and you , but not you , you're butters' now the fact that they randomly turn up and talk in such a way tells us that the director again has a hidden message he wants us to figure out. A dominant reading to this would be that the director wants us to embrace the fact that the London transport system is not very safe, especially for young children. It is a commentary on the way that youngsters are abusing the transport they travel with for free. The audience however may have a different take to it.
The preferred reading here would be looking at it from the teenagers point of view, perhaps they have no place to go, is the area they live in unsafe? a teenager would argue that if they had a local community center to keep themselves busy, then perhaps they wouldn't have time to bother girls or even think about sex and other issues. The negotiated reading would come from a parent again arguing that their kids are not safe on London Buses , although they would totally be against what happened to the boy who fell down the stairs they still want safety for their children. I think if someone who hasn't lived in London sees this film their initial reaction would be that the government is poor (as a law-making body, weak) and cannot find solutions for situations like this, they gain 'bad' information about London, and its transport.
This scene shows us the same girls as before, this time Kayla decides to join them after they quite successfully saved her from boys. Here we see the ring leader, coerce Kayla into being like them by telling her to steal from an off licenses shop.
The scene can convey two different types of messages, one to each of the targeted active audience. The message in this case I think is a moral about friendship. It is trying to show us how people who you might think are good and help you out , turn out to be horrible and a bad influence on you. In the scene Kayla is being pressurized to break the law, teenagers watching this may personally identify with it, as they were once in this situation (because everyone has been) and stole even if they didn't mean it - another way of looking at it from a more mature audience member. A parent may see that it is also a comment on crime in London, the fact that these characters are easy going with robbery and it doesn't seem to move a hair on them. Also, it is quite important to notice the choice of gender, these are young females who are committing crime-not the usual group of males. The directors choices make us question his ideas on the different behaviors of both genders. I would say that a negotiated reading here would come from someone who has had similar life experiences , someone who can personally identify with them. Their take on this would be that the they're justified to go around robbing because they have no job- the employment for young people is scarce, so they are forced into acting in such way.
Again, this is a good example to illustrate Hall's theory because clearly the hidden messages here are all moral and political readings of the youth in the North West of London.
the next...--- females as sexual objects --- female character is standing up for her friends social / human rights ,, her friend mentions the man didn't give her a choice -- the dominant reading is that sex has become a norm amongst teenagers and girls are almost selling their bodies to boys , for their satisfaction. I think the character named 'Danielle who defends her friend who is being sexually objectified is the voice for this director -- also something interesting to note is that the director is a female , does this mean she might have went through these terrors and is a strong face against female rights? A preferred reading is that you're young and reckless so why should you not be free to do as you wish, another preferred reading would be that the girl is justified to do that because the law makes it legal for her decisions as she is past the age of 18. A negotiated reading would be that because we never see whether these girls have parents it allows us to imagine what life at home would have been like for them, we also then imagine how different their lives would have been , had they had a parent along side them, the difference would've been massive.
Finally, this scene talks about the troubles both females face, where they tell each other about these situations. Death of family members is mentioned during the conversation , and in particular the death of both their mothers. Danielle explains how her mum lived an abusive life with her dad - he often beat her brutally and the mother stayed quite and never spoke out. The girl feels no sympathy for her dead mum , she is completely cold blooded and cold - hearted. Through this we can understand the meaning , we interpret this scene as a broad comment on abusive relationships. The dominant reading here says that the director wants us to encode the message as, not to stay in an abusive relationship with a partner and always speak about it if it happens. Quite a simple message right? Well , I think an adult watching this trying to decode this message would think differently, they may see this scene as a lesson on family values , if this girl was so concerned about her mum not speaking out , she should have spoken out. This gives us the impression that she perhaps didn't have the relationship value with her mum, to intuitively help her out.
Another audience member , such as a teenager who perhaps doesn't realize the importance of value within a family just yet, may simply not read into so much, and concentrate on the two females, their way of speaking and their carelessness of the society they live in. This too can be a preferred reading. However, a negotiated reading would come from some who can personally identify with the hidden meaning , they know what being in an abusive relationship is like , so they moralize the scene themselves if you like. The good thing about negotiated readings is that the audience member is free interpret the scene (message) how they want.
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