Risk Takers: The audience of FMV

It is perceived that to watch fictional violence is to take risks as Annette Hill states "Participants are aware of film violence as a form of entertainment that is identified as a social 'problem' and perceived negatively by certain sections of society. Their awareness of media violence allows participants to categorise themselves in relation to what we can call 'risk-takers' (for example, young males) and 'risk products (for instance, action movies)." (Hill: 1999:175) To enter in to watching such films creates a sense of fear, as well as the potential to get an adrenaline rush from watching scenes that challenge us, Hill goes on to say "A consumer of film violence actively chooses to engage with this risk-taking activity; viewing is a voluntary activity, in the sense that people pay to take part in this leisure activity in the same way that people pay to play squash or bingo." (Hill:1999:177)

I enjoy watching action sequences and other aspects of violence, I take the risk because I want to engage with the characters and understand their motivations for doing what they do. I enter in to watching a film with the hope that I will be entertained, and as a student studying the media industry I tend to deconstruct the film automatically, to try and understand not only the characters motivations but also the film crews motivations for portraying the scenes and the overall film in such a way. This then goes on to determine whether I have found the film entertaining, but also well constructed. I take the risk of watching horror films with the intention that I want the film to frighten me, that I want to jump at the right moments or cover my face when I find a scene to be too much, all of which is part of the entertainment process, however when it comes to horror films I find that I have to watch them with someone else, to make watching the film a sociable activity as well as an entertaining one. 

I also feed off of other peoples reactions, at times watching my friends rather than the film and having a tendency to laugh at their reactions, such as recently my friend accidentally covered me in popcorn at the Cinema when something jumped out from behind a corner, this lead to a reward for my risk taking as for the next five minutes of the film I was laughing at my friends over the top reaction to something that did not push my own threshold within the film. Whilst at other times my original intention is rewarded when after leaving the Cinema I am left reeling from the fear that the film created, tending to go home and watch a comedy in order to enter in to the lighthearted world of a television series to take my mind off the horrific world of the film I just watched. Which leads in to the concept that fictional media violence has a psychological effect on those who watch it , which in my case I tend to find true. However this effect is not long lasting and easily resolved, to the point when I return to critically deconstructing the film, in the hope of understanding it more thoroughly.