Suspense, laughter, violence,

hope, heart, nudity, sex, happy

endings. Mainly happy
endings. Griffin Mill (in Robert
Altmans The Player, on what a
movie needs to make money).

Cinemas Power to
Persuade
Movies are a form of

entertainment
They are also a business
(show business)
they are also a form of
persuasion
Movies reach large
numbers of people

potential for mass influence

Movies are told in a

narrative form
stories possess an aura of

believability

Cinematic influence

All serious evaluations of movie and

television versions of American life
suggest that pop culture portrays a
world that is far more violent,
dangerous, sexually indulgentthan
everyday American reality (Medved,
2002)
People may not expect to be
persuaded during a movie
willing suspension of disbelief

Movies can persuade intentionally or

unintentionally
intentional persuasion
accidental influence

Social responsibility versus artistic

freedom

Movies and social modeling

Young people aged 15 to 24 are

the most frequent movie goers.
Only 1 in 4 movies portray no
risky health behaviors (positive
examples include Castaway
and Sixth Sense)
The movie industry rarely
portrays negative
consequences of risky behavior
(such as HIV, pregnancy, DUI,
etc.)

Harold & Kumar In

Escape from
Guantanamo

Social modeling: thank you

for smoking

Smoking rates in cinema are

disproportionately higher than for
the public at large (Omidvari, et al
2005).
Over the past six years more than
half of the movies geared toward
children feature characters
smoking. In more than a quarter of
the movies, actors light up cigars
(AMA, 2008).
Teenagers are significantly more
likely to start smoking if they
watch movies featuring stars who
smoke cigarettes (Dalton, 2003)
89% of smoking is initiated during
adolescence (Johnston, OMalley,
& Bachman, 1996)
http://www.screenit.com/search_movies
.html

Movies and risky behavior

More negative social

modeling
Unsafe sex:
98% of movies with sex scenes
make no mention of safe sex
(Gunasekera & Chapman,
2005):.
Drug and alcohol use:
Movies with cannabis (8%) and
other non-injected illicit drugs
(7%) were less common than
those with alcohol intoxication
(32%) and tobacco use (68%)
Buckling up:
seat belt usage in movies is
quite low, typically between 1030% (Jacobsen, Kreuter, Luke, &
Caburnay The national average
is closer to 70%.

Positive social modeling occurs

too
Finding Nemo normalizes

disabilities
Nemo has an underdeveloped

lucky fin
Nemos father suffers from post
traumatic stress syndrome
Dory has short-term memory
loss
Bruce the shark is in a 12 step
program
A squid has incontinence (cannot
retain its ink)

Cinema and social change

Films often advance cultural
awareness and social change
Guess Whos Coming to
Dinner
Easy Rider
Thelma & Louise
Brokeback Mountain

How movies persuade: stealth

advertising

Product placement- the practice of

inserting brand name items into the movie
scenes is commonplace
brandchannel.com (lists placements in
movies)
Types of placement
Visual
Spoken
Usage
Apple has placed products in more than
1,500 TV shows.
Apple is just as popular on the big screen,
showing up in hits from "You've Got Mail"
to "How to Lose a Guy in 10 days.""
Films are carefully crafted, detailed works
of art

How movies persuade:

Promoting viewer identification

Stories in films overlaps with viewers

own experience, so they can relate to
the message in the movie
viewers identify closely with
characters who face a crisis or
adversity
example: Movies like Rudy and
Seabiscuit champion the little guy.

How movies persuade: exporting

American culture and values

American movies export

Western cultures and
values around the globe
Movies are one of
Americas three leading
exports
Negative side- foreign
audiences are not too
thrilled with the emphasis
on materialism, sex, and
violence in the movies.
Positive side- movies can
embrace values such as
freedom, equality, and
human rights

How movies persuade: exporting

American culture and values

Fashions, hairstyles,
lifestyles are often
imitated
Movies are vehicles
for advertising

Movies and violence

Movies often serve as guides for

social behavior
viewers often act out, model,
imitate what they see on screen
Research on violence in video
games, television, movies, and the
Internet found that those exposed
to movie violence demonstrated
more pro-violence attitudes (Funk,
Baldacci, Pasold, & Baumgardner,
2004).
26 per cent of adults still have
"residual anxiety" many years after
viewing horror movies in childhood.

Movies and violence

Hollywood routinely recruits

teenagers and children (some
as young as nine) to evaluate
its story concepts,
commercials, theatrical
trailers and rough cutseven
for R-rated movies.
The FTC studied 44 restricted
films meant for adults, and
discovered that 80 per cent
were targeted to children
under 17.

Cultural and Gender

Stereotypes

Hollywood frequently typecasts

minorities, cultural groups, and women,
overweight
people, the elderly, and
other groups into limited roles

Legally Blonde perpetuates the dumb

blonde stereotype
Shallow Hal gives people permission to
make fun of fat people
Jackie Chan fills the image of the martial
artist who is sexually/romantically
awkward

Arab American community refers to the

Three Bs syndrome. Arabs in movies
and on TV are:
bombers
belly dancers
billionaires.

Hollywood blazes a path

Oscar winning actor,Morgan

Freeman, brings a sense of
authority, dignity, and gravitas to
the roles he plays.
He played the role of president of
the United States in the movie
Deep Impact (1998) and the role of
god in God Almighty (2003).
Is it possible he made the idea of
an African American president
more thinkable?
Dennis Haysbert and D.B.
Woodside also played the
Commander in Chief in the Fox TV
series 24.
Can Obamas election be seen as
a case of life imitates art?

Cultivation Theory

Cultivation Theory predicts

that heavy exposure to
movies and TV may cultivate
attitudes more consistent
with the media version of
reality than with reality itself.
Heavy viewers have a more
distorted view of the world
than Light viewers
Heavy viewers develop a view

of a mean, scary world

Movies and TV provide

biased, stereotyped
depictions of reality, which
can distort the beliefs of
heavy viewers

Based on a true story?

Plotlines and details may be

loosely based, or may be based
on false assertions
Amityville Horror: The truth
was finally revealed when Butch
DeFeo's lawyer, William Weber,
admitted that he, along with the
Lutzes, created this horror story
over many bottles of wine.
(www.snopes.com)
Texas Chain Saw Massacre: there
was no real family of cannibalistic
chainsaw murderers slaughtering
people in Texas, nor any actual
series of chainsaw-related
killings. (www.snopes.com)

Documentaries

Bowling for Columbine:

documentary or mockumentary?
Supersize Me: documentary
or shock-umentary?
Beware of docu-dramas
Time compression
Composite characters
Re-shot footage (example,

reaction shots filmed at a

different time)

Resistance to Cinematic
Persuasion

Do not let your guard

down
Realize its only a
movie not real life
Be aware of product
placements
Assume the director will
opt for a good narrative
over accuracy
Be informative and seek
knowledge