Misinterpretation & Audiences

In the workshop about audiences, we talked about how content can be misinterpreted by audiences. The example given was a sketch from The Chaser that lampooned the Make-A-Wish foundation.  I thought this sketch was hilarious. I wasn’t so much as surprised that it was criticised  but that someone actually got sacked over it.

In the day of youtube and sharing clips via social networks – you never know who your audience will end up being.  I don’t know if The Chaser’s sketch is so much an example of being misinterpreted by audiences but rather an example of content falling into the hands of the wrong audience.

When it comes to content being misunderstood by audiences I often think about films where the storyteller’s version of events is vastly different from the mainstream audiences.

One example of this is 500 Days of Summer. When I first saw this movie I thought “Man, JGL is adorable, how could Summer ever dump him”. I was viewing the film from a very naive view. A view I think many have watched this film with. It’s also a film that has been criticised for portraying it’s title character Summer as the ‘manic pixie dream girl’ trope ¹

When, if you ask me, this film is a much better example of  a manic pixie dream boy ‘than anything else.

JGL affirms my opinion in this quote:

“The (500) Days Of Summer attitude of ‘He wants you so bad’ seems attractive to some women and men, especially younger ones. But I would encourage anyone who has a crush on my character to watch it again and examine how selfish he is.” 

FOOTNOTES