This post is inspired by two separate Twitter conversations over the last two weeks
between myself and Michelle Goode & Claire Yeowart and then Hina Malik – so
stand by for some serious musing.
Years ago I attended a conference held by The British Board of Film Classifcation (BBFC). It was a very interesting - and of course the notion of film
censorship reared its head. Since the majority of us in the room were students,
many of us expressed outrage that censorship existed at all; we claimed that as
artists we should be “trusted” to make the “right” stuff. The chap speaking –
I’m afraid I don’t remember who it was – accepted our point with the weariness
of someone who had had this point put to him OVER AND OVER again and made the
very good counterpoint:
“Is it actually the makers or the audience who is important
here?”
I didn’t know what he meant at the time, I just remember
writing this, circling it and adding “WTF?” in bright neon pink letters next to
it with the highlighter I had bought especially for the occasion. Then I
promptly forgot all about it.
Fast forwards approximately a decade and I know EXACTLY what
that guy from the BBFC whose name I cannot remember means:
It’s the audience that is important.
Without a shadow of a doubt. Here’s why: without an
audience, nothing we write or make matters. NOTHING. And yes, this includes
niche as well as mass audiences. Basically, as long as you have an audience,
however small, what you do matters. Without an audience, we are shouting into
the wind.
Well, durr: you say. That’s obvious. But is it? After all I
have already written countless times on this blog about the specs that don’t have a discernible audience, thus lack an identity. I have also written
about how Hollywood knows its audience very well and caters for them, despite
being maligned for it (and the audience being maligned too). I have even
written about how there are *obvious* elements that take movies out of various
audiences’ reach, like excessive swearing.
What I have NOT written about is WHAT an audience wants can
CHANGE and not only that, our RESPONSE changes to that AS WELL.
Let’s take a movie as a case study: BEETLEJUICE. This movie
came out in 1988 when I was approximately 8 or 9 years old. The movie was rated
15, but my parents were liberal and besides, it looked pretty fun with a
cartoonish Michael Keaton on the front, a house and a spooked Geena Davis
and headless Alec Baldwin, where’s the harm??
·
Geena and Alec dying
·
Multiple corpses
·
Creepy statues
·
Multiple depictions of suicide or murder (a
hanged man, a woman with slit wrists, another woman with a slit throat)
·
Mulitple depictions of the occult, especially
séance and voodoo
·
Depictions of brothels and prostitutes
·
Depictions of smoking
·
Monsters, particularly snake-like monsters
·
One instance of swearing (“Nice FUCKING model!”)
·
Michael Keaton grabs his crotch (“HONK HONK!”)
·
A 14 year old girl marries a monster
Perhaps I was an odd child, but I didn’t find any of this
weird or scary. In fact, I loved it. I thought it was hilarious. So hilarious I
went and fetched my Dad and told him he should watch it. He did and also
thought it was hilarious (maybe that was where I got it from? SORRY DAD). I did
however feel naughty for watching a 15 film and felt that, yes, 15 was
the “right” classifaction for such risqué stuff on the list above.
Anyway, fast forward about twenty years (ahem) and I watched
it again, expecting to feel the same way I did aged 8 or 9 in that “15” was the
RIGHT classification.
I didn’t.
These days, BEETLEJUICE wouldn’t be a “15” – it would be a
12A. Hell, as long as it got rid of the
crotch-grabbing and depictions of suicide/murder (I’d bet no film would
have as much smoking in nowadays, regardless of classification), it could be a
12, no “A” even. Why?
·
Swearing is no big deal when done for comedic
effect (compare “Nice Fucking Model!” to Bruce Almighty’s (12A) “Over to you…
FUCKERS!”)
·
Lydia might have to marry Beetlejuice but Geena
Davis saves her from that fate and no sex is involved or even hinted at,
Beetlejuice doesn’t even try and kiss Lydia or feel her up
·
Whilst the statues and corpses and monsters are
indeed creepy/scary, they’re no creepier or scarier than anything The Moff has
served up to kids in the recent DR WHO
·
Whilst there is a brothel in the model town with
working girls blowing kisses to Beetlejuice, again there is nothing explicit
here and could be kept in as a Simpsons-style joke only the adults would get:
“Adam! Why did you build that?”/”I DIDN’T”
In 1988, BEETLEJUICE was a distinctly adult film. Yet by
2012, its tone had CHANGED. One of the reasons arguably could be this:
That’s right, kids today knew Beetlejuice first as a
CARTOON, not a 15+ film. Except I’ve never watched the Beetlejuice cartoon, yet
I feel the same – its tone had
changed, BEETLEJUICE should be a 12A maximum.
So … how come?
Let’s go back to the BBFC guy. It’s the audience that’s
important … And if our expectations/beliefs of what’s “risqué” has CHANGED,
ergo the tone of movies we previously found risqué has ALSO CHANGED. This is
why we can watch ALIEN with one chestburst and call it an 18, yet by the time
we get to ALIEN VERSUS PREDATOR, we need multiple chestbursts to feel even a
hint of the same scariness… and yet call it a 15.
So this is why it’s so important to stay UP TO DATE with the
notion of tone and what your audience finds risqué, horrifying, unacceptable, etc.
Another element to consider in terms of the tone of
BEETLEJUICE is the relationship between its female characters Barbara (Geena
Davis) and Lydia (Winona Ryder). Barbara is the mother figure Lydia craves and
does not get in her *actual* stepmother Delia (Catherina O’ Hara). Lydia is a
schoolgirl and rebels because she is otherwise not noticed by her
larger-than-life stepmother and overly hen-pecked father: Barbara provides
support and then love, summed up in her reticence to haunt the Deetzes out of her
house “I just want to be with Lydia.” It’s also important to note it’s Barbara
and NOT Adam who saves Lydia from Beetlejuice (and saves the day, in fact –
it’s Barbara who is the hero).
So here is probably my most controversial point in
suggesting BEETLEJUICE is now suitable for a much younger audience: Lydia is
approximately fourteen years old, meaning there’s a strong chance young girls
can identify with her (I know I did aged just eight or nine). Age is a great
SHORT CUT in getting a similar-aged audience to identify with a character and
thus a story (though not strictly necessary – check out the likes of DR WHO,
THE SIMPSONS or indeed any cartoon you care to mention, as well as Superhero
movies which all attract audiences of varied ages, proving age-of-character is
greatly overrated on this point, tone goes way deeper. It’s worth remembering
Lydia in BEETLEJUICE is the only child in a veritable SEA of adults in this
movie).
Concluding then, BEETLEJUICE shows screenwriters how
important tone is in defining
audience and that tone can change over the years for whatever reason, so we
must strive to stay up to date in order to have our best chance of finding that
audience for our films.
On a related note, I see that BEETLEJUICE is going to be remade. Do you think it will be a 15 and if so, what will be included? Or do
you think it will be a 15, a 12A or even a 12? I will be watching with interest …