Cinema Trumps the Imagination

Think how much different movie theaters would be if the lights weren’t turned down. The sound of our neighbors munching on their popcorn, chatting on their cell phones, and quelling their weeping babes would be deafening! We’d demand to rent! But what if that wasn’t an option? Welcome to traditional theater! According to Sturken and Cartwright, “traditionally… the spectator was always perceived to have more power than the object of the gaze (or person looked at).” During Shakespeare’s time, and even in Ancient Greece, the audience added their own running commentary alongside the action on stage. Sometimes audience members were so moved by a tragic performance that they felt inclined to jump on stage and rewrite the ending. As a random side note, in Greece if you like a performer you would drop a stack of ceramic plates at their feet to show your appreciation. However, it seems like audiences have quelled their debauchery for the most part and especially in movie theaters. Without the solidarity of a dark theater where silence is ferociously advertised (“Don’t spoil the movie by adding your own soundtrack!” and “Silence is Golden.”) voyeurism would be impossible. Even in theaters now the lights are turned down reflecting a more cinematic approach to seclusion. Voyeurism, this desire to secretly spy into the lives of others, is also mirrored in today’s online networks like facebook and myspace. Instead of the many watching a few, it’s now a few (or one) watching many; the quintessential example is GoogleEarth, the whole world is under the gaze of the viewer. Basically, the audience has drastically diminished in size. On the other hand, the perceived godlike omnipotence of the solitary viewer is only a fallacy. Now, whether or not this silent singularity regresses an audience to an infantile stage of perception is debatable, but the fact that a dark theater obscures your acknowledgement of those around you definitely influences your reception of the film; it doesn’t allow you to immediately process or analyze this huge wall of visual information. In the dark theater, a movie can speak to you directly in a more one-on-one fashion. Coupled with the power of spectacle, a film can easily suede your rationality by overloading your senses (thus the challenge of being a multimedia scholar). Without the opinions of your neighbors working as a sort of superego (or shoulder angel) to your intake of the film, the object of gaze has complete control over your thoughts and worse, your imagination. For example, after watching the Harry Potter movies I forgot what my previously envisioned Harry looked like. Now when I read the books I can only imagine Daniel Radcliffe as Harry Potter. This is a trivial example, but a potent one that showcases the dominance of film and images over the individual viewer. One of the ways to counter the brainwashing effects of cinema is to attend a movie premeire; a rowdy crowd usually revives your sense of perspective.