Film Noir Audience Research

It is hard to define a specific target audience for my short film as it could be appreciated for many different reasons. To address the Reception Theory; the belief that a 'text', whether it's a book, a film, a video game etc. cannot be passively accepted by their audience, as all audiences are active, never passive, and is instead interpreted by them based on their own individual experiences and cultural background. For example, in the case of my film, the humour elements would more likely be understood by somebody from the western world than from the eastern as the main protagonist, Marshal Mallow, is a parody of the western, archetypal man. The cultural theorist Stuart Hall came up with three hypothetical models in which audiences read media text; the first being a Dominant (or hegemonic) reading: the audience are fully aware of the text's code and they accept the preferred reading of it that the creator intended; in my case a dominant audience would be somebody who can both understand the Film Noir cliches that have been parodied, as well as seeing the character of Mallow as a mockery of the sexist nature of the 30's - 40's American white male. The second model is a Negotiated reading: the audience partly accept the text's code and they broadly accept the preferred reading of the text that the creator intended, but they modify it to their own interpretation. So, in my case, a Negotiated audience would be somebody who understands some of the cliches of Film Noir that have been parodied but perhaps miss many as they're not as familiar with the genre as a Dominant audience would be. The last model is an Oppositional (Counter-Hegemonic) reading: an audience who has a completely opposite reading  to that of a dominant audience, usually due to their social situation. They tend to understand the preferred reading of the creator, but they but completely disagrees with it; bringing their own alternative frame of reference to it. An oppositional audience for me would be somebody who disagrees that I have parodied any cliches of Film Noir. Due to the cliches that I have parodied being very universally known as cliches of Film Noir, by those who actually know the genre, if somebody where to think that I haven't represented Film Noir at all than it would be more likely that they are just unfamiliar with the genre and therefore do not know it's conventions. An oppositional audience may disagree with my preferred reading of my film, that it is in fact a feminist text; due to it being an on screen illustration of Laura Mulvey's 'Male Gaze'- The belief that media texts are very much seen through the eyes of men by portraying women as sex symbols, by my use of actually having the camera as his own Point of View as Mallow's keeps staring towards the Fem Fatale, Lotta Clivage's cleavage. An oppositional audience may see this as sexist, rather than criticising sexism, by interpreting my intended message differently from how I would have preferred them to do so. If I were to have to choose a demographic for my film it would most probably have to be males aged 20-40 due to the sexually explicit humour and the fact that, as the film follows the story of Marshal Mallow rather than focusing too closely on Lotta Clivage, a male audience could perhaps relate to the lazy, sexually obsessed and money orientated attitude that Mallow has.