Homework: Impact on audiences - Inception

Homework:

Identify the potential impact of a media product you have studied on the audience.

Inception has the possibility to present positive and negative impact on the audience, through it's use of representation and implied meaning.

For example, Inception goes against Earp and Katz's theory (1999), that males are represented as people 'with pathological control and violence'. This can be seen by the main male characters, Cobb and Arthur, wanting to avoid violence whenever possible in favour of a more peaceful approach, showing the team going to great lengths to avoid this. On the other hand, violence is frequent throughout the film, which suggests that violence is inevitable in the circumstances, and the majority of the male characters are shown to be effective in combat, which could be seen as suggesting that men are involved in violence, regardless of their intentions, which is somewhat supported by Earp and Katz's theory. This impacts the audience in a positive way, as it doesn't stereotype men when it had the possibility to.

The same can also be said for women. Mulvey's theory (1975) says that women are objectified in the media, but Inception's involvement in this is almost non-existant. The woman with the most prevalent role, who is also a main character, is Ariadne, who introduced and shown throughout the film to be intelligent and an integral part of the team, to the extent that she saved the main protagonist, and the mission wouldn't've been able to have happened without her. The lack of revealing or suggestive dress also resulted in her being on the team purely for her intelligence. Even the antagonist, Mol, is never objectified as much as she is used as a metaphor for failure for Cobb. There one scene, however, that could be seen as objectification. Arthur and Ariadne kiss in order to keep their cover and not get revealed in one of the dream states, but after it is revealed to have no effect, Arthur, the initiator, looks more smug than surprised, like he used the opportunity to get a kiss and not for the apparent reason. This theme doesn't continue throughout the film, though, so it is very limited at best. Having a main female character who is shown off for her intelligence instead of a sex object would impact the audience positively, as it presents women as equal to men, as Ariadne, although in the minority as she was the only woman on the team, could still thrive and even save the day when needed.

Themes of suicide are portrayed heavily in Inception, which could have a negative impact in the audience, especially with members who are suicidal or who have experienced suicide before. On the other hand, suicide is clearly and repeatedly demonised by the main character, Cobb, and is shown to have negative repercussions, not just because Mol dies, but also because she is a frequent threat to the group due to the fact that she killed herself, and that the whole plot is centred around her death and suicide. Even though the scene where Mol and Cobb lay on a train track to kill themselves could be interpreted as almost romanticising suicide - using a loving couple dying together presents the act as an almost inspirational act, the narration over it shows otherwise, and again the fact that it took place in a dream state takes away from the impact. So suicide, which is presented throughout the film, is impactful in a positive way in the film as it shows the damaging repercussions it has not just on the person but on many people, for example the fact that the whole plot is based in it's effect. So this avoids the threat presented in Stanley Cohen's there (1972), as Inception does not demonise people suffering from mental illness our suicidal tendencies, although more could be done to show Mol in a different light, as she as a character could be seen as negative towards those issues.