The whole of Section B in this exam is about the Lego Movie advertising campaign, so we have to know about the movie, its characters, messages, and values, its audience pleasures, and how the vast Warner Bros conglomerate sells the movie to its audiences.
PREP Explain at least two uses and gratifications of the Lego movie using the uses and gratifications theory. Write the equivalent of about a page and a half (10 marks).
See below for tips.
In class, we explore these issues:
- The ways in which the Lego movie attracts a mainstream family audience, that is, both children and adults. Children identify with Emmet, recognise the other superhero figures and relate to the real-life pleasure of building Lego; adults are amused by the in jokes about consumer culture ('everything is awesome'), the visual puns and the verbal puns (like the 'piece of resistance')
- Audiences are offered humour, which is one element of entertainment
- How the audience is invited to empathize with Emmet, the ordinary 'everyman' figure who is just a powerless nobody but who has the chance to shine and become popular and successful
- How a female character like Wyldstyle offers a modern role model for girls in the audience: what is her appeal?
- How the Action Adventure elements satisfy the audience's needs for entertainment and escapism through exciting car chase scenes, spectacular sets like the New York streets, colourful and eye-catching explosions, fast paced editing, arresting sound effects, repeated moments of jeopardy and suspense, and clearly identified hero/ villain oppositions.
- The Lego characters are all voiced by big names that adult audiences recognize and love (such as Morgan Freeman, Will Ferrell, Chris Pratt, Elizabeth Banks), meaning that they have already formed a relationship with the characters.
- escapism, entertainment, diversion
- surveillance (finding out what's going on in the world)
- forming relationships (both with on-screen figures and in real life through sharing pleasures with friends & family)
- shared values and beliefs (we identify with certain people as heroes, hope that villains will be defeated, want a particular set of values to be restored and so on)
