Textual Analysis - Donnie Darko
Film Textual Analysis
The target audience for the film Donnie Darko would be the male gender from the ages of 16 – 24 and in the socio-economic grading boundary A – C1, this would be due to the fact that it requires a lot of thought to comprehend the complex narrative and structure and people in the higher grading may have a better education, therefore they may have a better understanding of the complexity of the plot, similarly, the fact that they have targeted a younger audience as they would be in some form of education when they watch the film which may stimulate them into thinking about the deeper meaning of the narrative and structure; a wider audience would be men from the ages of 25 – 30 in the same socio-economic grading boundary. The film contains many action codes which show the audience exactly what is happening, however it also contains enigmatic codes which leave the audience questioning the film and will make them want to watch until the end to see if it has an unresolved ending which means that they will have to find clarification by piecing together the information that they mentally gather from the film and then work it out for themselves or they’ll find that it may have a resolved ending so that the film will give them the answers to their questions without the additional thought. The institution has advertised the film as a sci-fi horror and they’ve used dark blue and black colours to entice a male audience to the film; they also may have chosen to use Jake Gyllenhaal, who was an unknown actor at the time, in this film as he is an attractive young male who could bring in a young female audience and a young male audience may be able to relate to him.
The film isn’t classified by one specific genre as it shows a likeness to a variety of themes, for example, the plot follows the theme of time travel which would mean that it is stereotypically classed as sci-fi, however a love interest is introduced in the film which causes there to be a
The target audience for the film Donnie Darko would be the male gender from the ages of 16 – 24 and in the socio-economic grading boundary A – C1, this would be due to the fact that it requires a lot of thought to comprehend the complex narrative and structure and people in the higher grading may have a better education, therefore they may have a better understanding of the complexity of the plot, similarly, the fact that they have targeted a younger audience as they would be in some form of education when they watch the film which may stimulate them into thinking about the deeper meaning of the narrative and structure; a wider audience would be men from the ages of 25 – 30 in the same socio-economic grading boundary. The film contains many action codes which show the audience exactly what is happening, however it also contains enigmatic codes which leave the audience questioning the film and will make them want to watch until the end to see if it has an unresolved ending which means that they will have to find clarification by piecing together the information that they mentally gather from the film and then work it out for themselves or they’ll find that it may have a resolved ending so that the film will give them the answers to their questions without the additional thought. The institution has advertised the film as a sci-fi horror and they’ve used dark blue and black colours to entice a male audience to the film; they also may have chosen to use Jake Gyllenhaal, who was an unknown actor at the time, in this film as he is an attractive young male who could bring in a young female audience and a young male audience may be able to relate to him.
The film isn’t classified by one specific genre as it shows a likeness to a variety of themes, for example, the plot follows the theme of time travel which would mean that it is stereotypically classed as sci-fi, however a love interest is introduced in the film which causes there to be a