‘Nowadays, everybody consumes media texts in the same way.’
Media texts have become a staple for creativity. Films can become a representation of someone's culture, ideas, or art. However, it all depends on how the audience consumes it. The consummation of a media text can be thought of as how the way the audience receives the text and where they receive it.
To begin with, each film can earn very different amounts in the box office. The consumption of a film can be related to how much the movie earns because of the sheer amount of people it attracts. Sometimes the audience watches a film and recommends it to their friends and family. A joint liking of a film can cause a mass conversation on social media platforms that motivate other people to go watch it. More people in the theater means more box office revenue. For example, largely popular films such as Spiderman: Homecoming, earned approximately 880 million dollars in the box office. Before the film was released much talk on social media platforms speculated how the new actor, Tom Holland, would play the character. After the movie was released, it was a must-see. The early watchers took to platforms to share their opinions which increased the number of people who went to watch it and therefore increasing the box office. However, we see other films like Fast and Furious 7 which did not perform as well in the box office although it also had a considerable amount of social media hype around it. To compare numbers, Fast and Furious 7 made approximately 400 million dollars. This movie had just as much conversation around it as Spiderman: Homecoming did because of the death of one of its main characters (Paul Walker), however, Spiderman did twice as well. This shows just how differently audiences consume different films. The difference in consumption can be due to how the audience sees different production companies. Spiderman: Homecoming was produced by Marvel Studios, a Walt Disney production branch, and Fast and Furious 7 was produced by Universal Studios. It could also be from the fact that Spiderman was the start of a new sequel and Fast and Furious is a long-running series of movies. Whatever the reason, the fact remains that people did not consume the same way.
Additionally, the way different people are attracted to different films displays how they consume them differently. For instance, different methods of marketing are used to attract the audience that's most likely to want to watch the film. An example of this would be the live-action movie of Beauty and the Beast. To target female audiences, Disney had some of the actors host an episode of The Bachelor. This act of synergy promoted the movie to the largely female audience that tunes in to watch The Bachelor. Another way Disney marketed itself was with merchandise for little girls; this includes new costumes released for little girls. Disney also collaborated with Morgan Taylor to make movie-themed nail polish colors. Overall, Disney was quite successful in their promotion of this film. However, notice that most of their marketing strategies target mostly females. The reason for this is that different social groups interact differently with movies. In this case, Beauty and the Beast is a love story, these types of plots do better with a female audience; therefore, the marketing is targeting them. These products can sometimes motivate people to go watch the movie. For example, if a young girl is bought a costume and she grows to love playing in it, she'll want her parents to take her to see the movie, buy the movie, or constantly stream the movie when it's made available. We see marketing used in a different way to appeal to many different audiences with Universal Studios' increasingly wider range of films. For example, in recent years they have released thrillers like Get Out and Us, children films like Despicable Me 3, as well as comedy films like BlacKkKlansman. By expanding the types of audiences they are causing more people to watch Universal's films. In the future, the diversity of films will cause the audiences to branch over into other genres. The way people consume films is quite complex. However, we can see that different types of films attract different audiences differently, whether it's the genre or the way it is marketed.
In conclusion, we see that people interact with films in different ways. Whether it's how much the audience watches the film, or they come across watching the film, people have their own ways of consuming films. Alternatively, they also all interact with people. Without an audience, filmmakers would cease to exist. What is the point of art if there is no one to appreciate it?
