Case Study- Skyfall

Skyfall (2012) is a British spy film and its the 23rd film in the James Bond series, produced by Eon Production, directed by Sam Mendes and written by Neal Purvis, Robert Wade and John Logan. The film features the theme song Skyfally by Adele. In Skyfall, James Bond is played by Daniel Craig, which is his 3rd time. And the main villain named Raoul Silva played by Javier Bardem.

Audience

Target Audience and Appeal

Skyfall's target audience mainly consists of white males aged 12A, this target audience has been relatively the same throughout the entire James Bond franchise. However they do have a female audience presence recently. Skyfall appeals to their target audience of white males with the use of the main protagonist, James Bond being a stereotypical, white, masculine English man. The target audience can relate towards Bond and even see him as a role model due to his exciting life filled with action, exotic countries and woman. However, Skyfall does widen their target audience with the use of a increase of female main characters, such as Judi Dench as M and Naomie Harris as Eve Moneypenny. These female characters are seen as independent woman who are equally strong and powerful as James Bond. Furthermore, Skyfall deliberatly targeted a for a low age rating of 12A to make their film more avaliable to a increased number of people, no matter the age.

Industry

Marketing 

It was distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer(MGM) and Columbia Pictures. And MGM could advantage of their positive reviews and included them in advertisements to increase sales and views across the globe. To connote this, Skyfall received countless awards and nominations which highlights the quality of the film, this can be suggested by the table below:

A Global Text?

Skyfall is a global Text and has entertained audiences across the world which can be demonstrated by the gross revenue of over $1.1 billion. Furthermore, the age rating of only 12A increases the number of young audiences can view the movies, even though the film does consist of violence and sexual content.

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Genre

Due to Jame Bond films having similar genres throughout the entire franchise, Skyfall is no different, in most cases. Therefore, Skyfall contains a range of codes and conventions of action and spy films and sub-genres including elements of romance.  

Narrative

 The narrative in Skyfall is quite linear and therefore, fairly predictable; James Bond against a evil villain. Throughout Skyfall James Bond (Main protagonist) faces a evil rogue agent turned into a cyber-terrorist. However, within Skyfall James Bond is represented as a flawed-hero due to him failing basic training mission in the first half of the film, making the narrative about his progression and development into his iconic and super-spy which audiences can recognise.  

Representation

With Skyfall there is a range of representations which span the film and even the franchise. Therefore, masculinity is a continuous theme throughout old and modern films, but James Bond films wouldn't even exist without it. SkyFall's masculinity is over exaggerated to make James Bond save everyone and be the hero.  Masculinity is the backbone of James Bond. All of their films stereotypically represent that white English men are privileged and upper class  with their wealth and power, alongside their line of woman following them. This poorly represents how general people live in England.

Furthermore, the representation of woman throughout the James Bond franchise is controversially degrading, woman are often represented as objects and damsels in distress. This is suggested in Skyfall due to the gradual increase of  woman which James Bond has slept with through the course of the film. This is a common and overlooked theme in all James Bond films since the start of the franchise. Additionally, In total, Bond has slept with 53 women over the course of the 25 completed films.

Case Study- Kingsman

Audience

Target Audience and Appeal

Kingsman (2014 Dir.M.Vaughn) has a age rating of 15 due to the violence, sexual and action throughtout the film which could disturb a younger audience. Furthermore, Kingsman is attempting to contrast but relate to stereotypical Jame Bond films, making their target audience mainly young males and females but does appeal to a more broad audience with the use of a variety of different characters with difference ethnicity, age and genders, making the character relateable to most audiences.

Industry

Marketing 

Kingsman was distributed by 20th Century Fox and they  used a range of trailers to advertise and promote the film to their audience with sneak peaks and teasers which could potentially interest and appeal to their target audience, as shown below:

Adding to this, to further advertise Kingsman, they released and displayed a number of intriguing and appealing posters (example top of page) featuring protagonist and antagonist characters to present the main actors performing in the film. 

A Global Text?

Kingsman was published across the world and become very mainstream due to its high budget of $81,000,000, therefore by the weekend it made over $42,000,000 (13/2/15) and had a gross profit of $128,017,991. 

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Genre and Narrative

Kingsman consist of a variety of genres, this includes: comedy, action, spy, etc. These genres appeal to the target audience. Additionally, the narrative of Kingsman is fairly linear, however it does contain some multi-narrative elements with the use of different character perspectives

Representation

Kingsman positively represents woman through the use of the Spy Roxy, is represented as a independent and strong woman who can stand up for herself. She is equal or even better represented as a better Kingsman Spy then Eggsy. On the other hand, Kingsman poorly represents woman, this can be suggested  in the relationship between Eggsy and Princess Tilde, which  is simply limited to a controversial sex scene at the end of the film. Additionally, Tilde is also represented as a damsel in distress due to her imprisonment, which relates to a princess locked in a tower, waiting for a strong male hero to rescue her. which suggests that Kingsman represents woman in a range of lights, negative or positive.