Hypodermic Needle is a theory which explains the way in which an audience processes the content of of media and how it effects them as a person when presented with it in everyday life. One thing that is increasingly interesting to me about this theory is the way in which the audience cannot differentiate between reality and fiction and how in many instances, a young viewer will be exposed to content far more mature than they are ready to understand and not realise that what they are watching is not reality. Violence which is a re-occurring theme throughout many films in history and even today, I feel has the most effect on an audience as a whole when relating to the Hypodermic Needle Theory. For instance, when a member of the audience is watching a scene containing many different themes like sadness or happiness, it effects them mentally. But unlike violence, these emotions do not produce a thought pattern within the audience as violence does. Happy and sad are everyday feelings, where as being violent towards another human is not. This is where the audience, especially one of a young age, is unable to realise that what they are watching is not the way which human beings should act.
In some instances, these scenes of violence can have such a strong influence on the audience that the audience are effected mentally and begin to act physically towards another person. One example of this is the James Bulger case. In 1993, a young boy from Liverpool named James Bulger was murdered by two older boys; Jon Venables and Robert Thompson. This was believed to be linked to the film 'Chucky', which the two boys had watched earlier, as one of the acts against James Bulger was imitated and there were many similarities when looking at the young boys death and the film together. Although Hypodermic Needle Theory is obvious when looking into this case, it becomes aware to me that although the film influenced them greatly, I believe the person(s) involved were already some what mentally disfigured, due to their young age as I do not feel a 'mentally healthy' child would act upon the thoughts if they were just watching the film. This is where the mental health of the audience or state of imagination comes into play when looking at the Hypodermic Needle Theory. As we have learned, this film has not had the same affect on every person who has seen it, or we would have seen similar cases with other people. With this, my conclusion comes to a head - that Hypodermic Needle Theory is mainly to do with interpretation and mind pattern within the audience as one audience member is different to another when it comes to the affect a particular medium has on them.
Looking at how Hypodermic Needle Theory can be used to analyse film, we begin to realise one thing; that the longer lasting affect it has on an audience and/or shock factor of the film increases the interest of the audience. When watching films myself I feel that it has to make me remember it for it to be good, which is usually done by using either emotional manipulation - such as death/love etc. or scenes without emotion, such as ones which have elements of violence and mindless crime. Within the first film that Hypodermic Needle can be applied to, which is City of God, it becomes apparent that the director's idea was to shock the audience and exaggerate the circumstances within the location where it is set to be, in the City of God. I have realised that within this film that the audience could easily believe that what they are seeing is real life and is the way that humans should act, especially when it comes to young children who are impressionable and are easily lead.
In City of God, the shocking scenes of children swearing, being killed, hurt and uneducated is the way in which hypodermic needle can be an issue when it comes to the audience. I feel that if shown to the wrong person, it could have an unethical effect on them and could have disastrous outcomes, such of that of the James Bulger case. The difficult thing about City of God, is that the film is based on a true story, uses people who live in the area to act in the film and is incredibly violent, which would be hard for someone to tell whether it is reality or fiction, so when watching the film, they may think that the whole world is like this and it is how people treat each other. When watching these scenes, it affects the audience and how they think - as scenes which have certain emotional content, such as when the child is killed in City of God, which would be highly emotional and may upset an audience member to an extreme extent to making them depressed or sad for long periods of time. It is all about how a scene or the content is interpreted, which ranges from person to person. In the scene where Lil'dice turns on his friends and kills everyone in the hotel, even though he was told not to do anything and everyone was told to keep the hotel guests alive, it shows how they had an affect on him. They didn't allow him to have any part in the robbery, which turned his character from minor to major .
When it comes to Hypodermic needle theory within Scarface, it is easy to apply it to as the film is of the Gangster Genre. Gangster films are notorious when it comes to scenes of violence, sexual content and rude language. This links to Hypodermic needle theory as these scenes can had an adverse effect on the particular audience watching. For instance, the lead character Tony Montana is a drug lord who made a rise to fame after escaping from Miami, working for a known drug lord Frank and becoming powerful within the drug world. The effect this could have on a audience is giving them the inspiration - as Tony Montana could be seen as an inspirational character - to pursue their dreams, whether they are realistic or not, such as becoming a rich and powerful drug dealer who has much influence on the people around him. His influence on people is evident, when watching the Origins of Hip-hop, which featured many artists who saw Tony Montana as their inspiration from a young age. I feel this is typically the effect of Hypodermic needle theory as we see how delusional the film can make the audience, when even talking about a different goal of power - such as drug dealing and the audience applying it to their own goal, such as making music, because of the determination of Tony Montana. In some cases, the ultimate goal may be such as Tony Montana's, that they have become so connected with the character that they feel as though they could actually implement what he did within their lives, which is a dangerous thing to do as the lifestyle shown within Scarface is unrealistic and could get the audience into a lot of trouble if they tried to replicate Tony Montana's actions.
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