Psychology at the Movies

by Skip Dine Young

  Field of Dreams received a mixed response when it was released in 1989 and has maintained this contested status today; it is considered a classic by some and an object of ridicule by others. The story focuses on Ray (Kevin Costner) and his mission to build a baseball diamond in his cornfield in hopes of giving the ghosts of the 1919 disgraced White Sox team an opportunity to redeem themselves from accusations that they threw the World Series. Critics who liked the film took Ray's quest to be a celebration of redemption through ritualistic reenactment. This take, however, glossed over the fact that at the time of the scandal, major league baseball was racially segregated. Since Field of Dreams was made in the 1980s by a liberal leaning star, this situation was awkward. The solution of casting James Earl Jones as Terence Mann, a political activist from the 1960s, only inflamed the controversy; this was a significant change from the book where Mann was a fictionalized version of J.D. Salinger. Jones was aware of the contrast between Mann and Salinger, but did not address the racial implications in interviews. Critics maligned the character's willingness to collude with Ray's quest to mythologize an all-white team. The conflicted reception of Field of Dreams shows how a film can both “evoke and deny race simultaneously.”26

  Reactions to movies are often divided along political fault lines. In response to Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ, Christian conservatives focused on Christ's faith-affirming sacrifice while liberals pointed to the negative portrayal of Jews and Gibson's obsession with sadomasochistic violence. Sometimes a film's reception does not fall along such clear divisions. Silence of the Lambs was hailed as being empowering to women, particularly its portrayal of FBI agent Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster). As she pursues a serial killer who is targeting young women, she is strong, determined, and able to succeed in a male-dominated environment.

  Others criticized the film as reinforcing stereotypes of sexual orientation and gender identity by showing the killer as effeminate and demented (using victims’ skin to fashion a female body suit). Gay activists were so bothered by Jodie Foster's decision to hide her sexual identity that she was “outed,” a situation that was greeted acrimoniously by feminists: “Like their straight brothers, the gay men who condemn Jodie Foster and Lambs are out to destroy a woman who doesn't put male interests first and doesn't conform to their ideas of what a woman should be.”27 While both the praise and criticism of the film may be justified from its contents, it's clear that different members of the audience are more likely to key in on certain aspects of the film than others.

  The debate over Thelma & Louise was primarily related to gender.28 It is a rare that a Hollywood film includes two female leads (Gina Davis and Susan Sarandon). The script, by Callie Khouri, offers dialogue that highlights the gender roles of both male and female characters. Reviews and opinion pieces were roughly divided into three categories. Those who loved the film viewed Thelma and Louise as interesting, sympathetic characters whose adventures were by turns funny, disturbing, and exhilarating. Not everyone saw them as standard bearers of feminism, but supporters of the film tended to voice their appreciation for the characters’ culturally determined predicament.

  Another group despised the film based on the perception that the male characters were all “pigs” or “cretins.”29 Seen from this perspective, not only were Thelma and Louise violent criminals, but the movie was viewed as justifying their behavior by holding up a lens of man-hating feminism. Though some assumed this reaction broke down along gender lines (men hated the film, women loved it), this was not the case. Many male reviewers liked the film; not every female critic did. The most vociferous critics, however, tended to be male, such as the newspaper columnist who claimed that “male-bashing has flushed like toxic waste into the mainstream.”30

  The third reaction was also negative, but these reviewers saw Thelma & Louise as an example of false feminism. They saw the film as a typical buddy film with a revenge theme, which attempts to be subversive by inserting women into roles traditionally played by men (e.g., Newman and Redford in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid). For these viewers, the film didn't ring true because Thelma and Louise often relied on macho solutions (guns and fast cars) instead of dialogue and self-revelation (presumably women's problem-solving tools of choice). As the reception of Thelma & Louise is explored further and further, it's clear that any “he said/she said” characterization of the debate is far too simplistic.

  Cultural Studies

  In the essay Encoding/Decoding, Stuart Hall (1980) argues that complementary processes are involved in understanding any cultural product (television, movies, advertising, etc.). Encoding is the process by which creators imbue, either intentionally or unintentionally, a product with signifying codes (meaning). Decoding is the process by which the receivers of the product (in this instance, movie viewers) interpret that code and extract meaning from it. Decoding is not simply the mirror image of encoding, because decoders do not always share the same social views as encoders. It is not that the decoders are wrong; they simply have different backgrounds and sets of motivations. Decoders will adjust their interpretations to make them consistent with their worldviews. Since decoders come from different social circumstances, there will invariably be many different interpretations.

  Hall's essay had a huge impact on cultural studies because it added a twist to ideological criticism.31 Interpreting cultural products as reifications of a culture's ideology becomes problematic if we acknowledge that cultural products can be decoded in multiple ways. With Hall's argument in mind, some scholars turned their gaze toward the audience and started asking about their reactions to popular media in personal interviews and focus groups (a group of 8-10 participants gathered to discuss specific research questions).32

  A seminal audience study done in the late 1970s showed two episodes of a British news program to 29 focus groups representing different socioeconomic classifications in the United Kingdom (university students, technical apprentices, management trainees, and shop stewards).33 The researchers found that each group responded to the show in different ways. The variations were based on the attitude participants had about the program's messages. Bank management trainees and technical apprentices expressed a “dominant” attitude; they didn't agree with everything, but accepted basic assumptions that the program was accurate. The student teachers and trade union officials expressed a “negotiated” attitude: cynical about the tone of the program, without rejecting it. Black university students and shop stewards took an “oppositional” stance toward the program by rejecting it as intentionally misleading or by being apathetic.

  Daytime dramas (or “soap operas”) have received a lot of attention from cultural scholars, thanks to the exaggerated picture of dominant cultural patterns they present. In the 1980s Dallas was a particularly fruitful object of study because of its popularity around the world.34 One might speculate there was something universally appealing about the nighttime soap opera, but cross-cultural focus groups failed to identify any silver bullet that provided universal entertainment.

  Instead, the insights that emerged revealed an array of culturally dependent interpretations that suggested different notions of selfhood. Arabs and Moroccan Jews tended to focus more on story events. These were evaluated through a moral filter regarding the family roles played by the various characters. In contrast, Americans and Israelis were focused on individuals and displayed a heightened concern for their psychological motivations and their own emotional reactions. Finally, Russian respondents enjoyed the program, but took a distanced, critical stance to the characters’ behavior and the production itself. They questioned the intentions of the producers and distributors of the show and were concerned about the potential for certain messages manipulating the audience toward consumerism.

  Other Interpretive Studies

  Reader response criticism highlights the importance of the reader in understanding the meaning of literature.35 In some ways, this approach parallels the spectatorship approaches in film studies: such c
ritics approach the reader's experience indirectly through close analysis of written texts. Some reader response critics however have looked directly at the experience of readers. Norman Holland's accurately titled Five Readers Reading (1975) offers an in-depth look at five of his student's readings of short stories by Faulkner, Fitzgerald and Hemingway, while Janice Radway's Reading the Romance is an influential audience response study that, like cultural studies, focuses on a form of popular culture, romance novels.

  Radway identified a group of women who were avid romance novel readers and used questionnaires and interviews to gain a deeper understanding of the meaning that romance novels had for these women. She documented the functions the books had in their lives (relaxation, escape, education, mood management, self-care) and made the surprising observation that the act of reading was often experienced as an act of defiance, given the various pressures in the women's lives that made taking time for themselves difficult.

  Radway also interpreted the women's interpretations. They preferred romances with strong-willed, determined heroines and seemingly brutish heroes. The ultimate purpose of these relationships was to bring about change in the man, provoking the emergence of dormant capacities for tenderness and sensitivity. Radway viewed this as a quasi-feminist attempt to undermine the destructive aspects of masculinity and replace them with virtues associated with femininity (the capacity for intimacy). At the same time, the women's need to find intimacy in romance novels suggested it was not being met in their day-to-day lives.

  While Radway offers a global reading of the participants in her study, other approaches emphasize the idiosyncratic psychological position of readers. Since every reader is different in personality and background, every reading is different. Focusing on film, Holland takes an individualized approach in a study that features three viewers viewing a controversial erotic movie from the 1970s, The Story of O36 where O, the heroine, sequestered in an isolated castle, submits to painful and degrading acts in order to win the commitment of her lover.

  One study participant, Agnes, related O's oppression to her experiences at a strict Catholic girls school, but ultimately found O too emotionally cold to connect to. A second participant, Norm, did not identify with any of the characters but instead, treated the castle as an exotic realm which operated by alternative rules that were his job to figure out. A third, Ted, brought his moral code to the film, making judgments about O's willingness to submit or dominate. Holland concluded that these different readings were related to variations in the participants’ personalities and motivations—Agnes sought connection, Norm sought intellectual mastery, and Ted sought to maintain interpersonal control.

  My investigations into audience responses to Thelma & Louise complement the historical approach. A year following its 1991 theatrical release, I interviewed people about their reactions after watching it on video. The film aroused strong opinions, but they did not fall along clear gender lines. Women enjoyed the film slightly more frequently, but a fair number of the men mildly enjoyed the film. Some men thought the film did portray men negatively yet still found reasons to value the beautiful scenery or exciting action sequences.37 I have continued to show the film in my courses through the years and give students an open-ended questionnaire afterwards. By the end of the 2000s, there was no noticeable difference between the genders in terms of the frequency of liking the film. Today's male students don't find the film particularly threatening toward men, perhaps a reflection of the Angelina Jolie era in which women action figures are an accepted part of film-going.

  A few subtle differences in gender reception of Thelma & Louise remain, at least among college students. Women report loving the film more often than men; female students identify strongly with Thelma and/or Louise. Men report they most strongly identify with one of the male characters (Detective Slocum: Harvey Keitel or Louise's boyfriend Jimmy: Michael Madsen), and their level of identification with the female leads is minimal. While young men are not threatened by the idea of Thelma or Louise as gunslingers, they are still reticent to consciously identify with a female character.

  For women who identify strongly with Thelma and Louise, two scenes are cited as powerful instigators: the sexual assault in the parking lot early on in the movie, and the ending in which Thelma and Louise drive off a cliff to escape capture. While some viewers see the latter scene as a consequence of the former, female students report feeling anger and helplessness during the assault, but exhilaration and freedom when they watch the leap into the canyon. Most participants see the act as an affirmation of friendship and a refusal to surrender, not suicide. The students’ interpretation of the final scene appears closely entwined with their emotional engagement with the narrative.

  Audience studies focused on viewer interpretations provide a means of extending other forms of research. Movies that fall into the category of the “new brutalism”38 (Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, Casino, Natural Born Killers) challenge Zillmann's dispositional theory in which the enjoyment of violence is based on justice and bad characters being punished.39 Such movies feature a combination of gruesome violence mixed with witty dialogue and imaginative cinematic techniques. Characters and actions are morally ambiguous compared with typical mainstream films. In Pulp Fiction, when Butch (Bruce Willis) kills the sadistic neo-Nazis, it could be seen as justified revenge and self-defense, yet his collusion with Marcellus (Ving Rhames), a brutal drug dealer who had been trying to kill Butch, is morally convoluted. Is he being merciful by aiding his enemy? Is he being self-serving in trying to procure a favor from Marcellus? Is he being irresponsible for releasing a man who is arguably more dangerous than the neo-Nazis? Such questions make the straightforward application of disposition theory difficult.

  Asking what meaning viewers derived from films like Pulp Fiction can provide alternative reasons for valuing them. Some viewers are willing to justify or applaud the use of violence because, as one interviewee put it, “The whole point [is] getting a glimpse of the other side of life that you don't see very often.” Viewers can also judge whether a film's use of violence is warranted in terms of a particular theme. A fan of Baz Luhrman's Romeo + Juliet remake commented, “I thought the violence was valid because it showed the senseless results of groundless family bickering and it shows the tragedy of young men killing each other for no reason except their father's argument.”40 Experiences like these are not just a matter of enjoyment but are acts of meaning making.

  Closing Shots: The Challenges of Audience Response

  The study of film reception aims at a place somewhere between traditional humanities and social science approaches.41 A tension remains when it comes to integrating audience response studies.

  Most social science research into reflective processes has been limited to movies as entertainment. Researchers ask people “Did you enjoy this movie?” and reliably evoke such answers as yes, no, a little, or a lot, that are manageable using statistical procedures. Meaning-making, on the other hand, is more elusive to measure. If one asks, “Did you find this movie meaningful?” an affirmative answer then begs the question, “In what ways did you as an individual find this particular movie meaningful?” Given the infinite number of answers, a controlled experiment would be difficult to conduct. Nonetheless, recent research into the importance of meaning-making as a form of gratification suggests possible overlap between social scientists and film scholars, for whom interpretation is a key issue.42

  It is not that film scholars are not interested in viewers. While attention to close textual analysis generally prevents them from directly encountering audiences, the study of spectatorship has been prominent in film studies.43 Core concepts like identification, voyeurism, and suturing refer to viewers’ mental activity. Ambiguous films like Psycho or Blow Up are frequently analyzed for their contradictory messages and how they frustrate the audience in its search for meaning. However, such insights are generated by looking at the movie and then extrapolating to viewers without ever confronting the experi
ence of a particular viewer. Meaning (including ambiguity) is derived from the film, not the viewer.

  Compare the following statements:

  Because readers are superior in wisdom to the heroine at the same time they emotionally identify with her, the reading process itself must lead to feelings of hypocrisy … We consider the heroine's emotions important only insofar as they subvert themselves. Reading Harlequin Romances, one has a continual sensation of being in bad faith.

  I am 25, a wife and mother. Sometimes, like so many other people, I get low in spirits … I can pick up one of [Essie Summer’s] books and see the goodness staring out at me. The heroine makes me feel it's a lovely world, people are good, one can face anything and we are lucky to be alive.

  The first quote is from a film and literature scholar. The second is a letter to the editor written by a fan of Harlequin romances. One might wonder if they are reading the same books. Radway's study of romance readers carves out a position somewhere between these poles.44 While Radway doesn't take her subjects’ perspectives at face value, neither does she imply that the emotionally distanced opinions of the world of academics is the definitive word on the matter.

  Some scholars worry that film critics do too much interpreting.45 Studies that solicit the interpretations of audience members multiply this potential. One could see this as a reason to prioritize the study of comprehension and not return to the chaos of interpretive processes. Yet the fact is that all of us, not just film critics, interpret the movies we see. Film interpretation may be confusing and difficult to study, yet it is an essential symbolic process that resonates with the instability of everyday life.