Why Do We Watch Movies? Why Do We Write Scripts?
Is there one universal reason why we watch movies and TV? Here are at least five!
Way back when I took my first screenwriting course, the teacher asked the whole class: “Why do we watch movies?” My hand the only one eagerly raised, I replied with something along the lines of “To gain someone else’s perspective, or to experience a situation that might not normally be possible for the viewer. Or, maybe, to see what kinds of things you would like to do, or shouldn’t do, in the future?”
Giving me a look as though I'd been juggling road apples in the middle of her classroom and just dropped one on her foot, the teacher announced that we actually watch movies to escape from our own dreary lives, to make ourselves feel like our life isn’t so bad by seeing people in worse situations than our own, or to experience the horribleness of the real world without being hurt in reality.
I sank back down in my chair, watching the rest of the class nod in agreement, and wondered why my motivations differed so sharply from everyone else's. More than that; I wondered why most viewers watch films or read stories, and why most writers write films and books.
There have been many pet theories about “universal” reasons why people want to be told a story, or to tell a story, so let's look at a few.
Art Appreciation
Aficionados of visual arts, dramatic performances, music, dance, and of course aspiring filmmakers alike, often watch films and shows to appreciate, or even to study and replicate or improve upon, the skill and craft that goes into the work.
Watching crafted storytelling or dialogue unfold, feeling the skill that great actors pour into a performance, or seeing the often “invisible” way that editors plant thoughts into your head are only a handful of the varieties of art that with which viewers experience something new during each rewatching of a given work.
Escapism, Manipulation, and Self-Obsession: Metz and Mulvey Chime In
Film theorist Christian Metz was a big fan of applying trendy psychiatric dogma to film theory. He liked two theories in particular.
Psychiatrist Sigmund Freud had a concept of motivations being made up of the id (unconscious/instinctual mind), the superego (inner policeman who tries to curb the unruly id towards what the person has been taught to see as positive or ethical behavior), and the ego (rational mind that mediates between the other two).
Psychiatrist Jacques Lacan later attempted to identify the creation of the superego by supposing that when infants become capable of recognizing their own reflection in a mirror they develop both a perpetual self-hatred/inferiority complex upon imagining their ideal self and a perpetual self-love/desire for this imaginary, ideal self.
Metz mashed up these two ideas by theorizing that people seek out movies and characters that they identify with as imaginary reflections of themselves because of this self-obsession. Incidentally, this was demonstrated by every introductory level film production class I ever took when I realized that the actors cast in everyone else's films looked almost exactly like the student directors who cast them.
Film theorist Laura Mulvey looked at how Metz's observations were used for manipulation by supposing that viewers' instinctual minds are made to identify with the camera position and (mostly male) characters in films in order to feed upon and promote narcissism and voyeurism, and that this is the result of biases (whether deliberately or unconsciously expressed) in the minds of the filmmakers.
All three of these theories can be boiled down escapism: the often religiously transcendent feeling of being in an altered or dreamlike state and the idea that one is accessing the forbidden unconscious self, of pretending to be in an imagined reality, or of being an imaginary/idealized reflection of the self who can carry out normally impossible desires. Is watching and making films always so fetishistic? Nah.
That's Entertainment
While it might be perfectly valid to try and attribute reasons for viewership to complex or insidious human psychology, it's worth remembering that there's likely no deep psychological reason why bears in the wild like to look at sunsets and running water.
Sometimes people like to experience the scale and spectacle of a fireworks show or the impressiveness of CGI and special effects, or the puzzle of trying to solve a mystery, just because it's entertaining.
Auto-stimulation and Social/Parasocial Interaction
Similar to the idea of escapism, some people watch films in order to provoke or arouse specific emotions.
This can be helpful if someone is stuck in an unhealthy situation or had a bad day, because watching or writing a story about someone going through something similar can generate new ideas or motivate and embolden the person to solve or learn how to be at peace with the issue. It can also temporarily unstick people from unwanted thoughts or emotions by uplifting mood or effectively changing their environment.
Sociologist Émile Durkheim had a theory that humans need myth and ritual in order to take refuge from the everyday or the profane. So, as you might expect, film theorists who are fans of Durkheim propose that watching films and TV provides a kind of communal participation in contemporary cultural mythology. Similarly, forming a common culture or creating shared experiences by watching together, or socializing via shared knowledge/interest in the same films/shows can provide a sense of belonging. Enter fandoms.
Unfortunately, these ideas are sometimes abused. Fandoms can become toxic. Some writers create films specifically to victimize viewers and/or to re-live traumatic experiences themselves. Sometimes when viewers watch films or writers write stories in order to stimulate specific emotions they want to feel as a substitute for making healthy changes that would allow them to feel these things in real life, it can lead to addictive and destructive behavior. The same also holds true for seeking out a feeling of parasocial interaction with the characters or actors in a movie. A little can be fun and help people feel less lonely, but an excess of using it as a substitute for the real thing could become unhealthy.
Learning and Empathy
As I mentioned earlier, this was my gut reaction to the question of why we watch, and in large part why I write. As with talking to random people at bus stops or traveling to far away places, taking in or creating a story is not only a way of understanding the many ways in which people are different and the same, it's also a way of “trying on” multiple lifetimes worth of choices and experiences.
Getting a glimpse of unfamiliar life experiences, discovering obscure events in history, thinking about ideas through someone else's worldview, getting to walk around somewhere long ago or far from home, or speculating about what the future might look like are all ways of learning, growing, and developing empathy.
So What's the Answer?
Why do audiences watch? And why do we write? Is it to escape, to create art, to learn or teach, or simply to stave off boredom?
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Writing children's animation by day and speculative fiction by night, Hilary Van Hoose is passionate about telling aspirational, female-led stories featuring fish-out-of-water who find their place in the world by helping other people. She recently wrapped as a staff writer on Nickelodeon’s Blue's Clues & You Nursery Rhymes, sold an outline to TeamTO, wrote freelance for an international animated YA series, and permalanced on an unannounced animated preschool show.
As a sci-fi/fantasy writer, she is a recent semifinalist for both NBC Launch TV Writers Program and Inevitable Foundation Accelerate, an AFF finalist, a Stage 32 Sci-Fi/Fantasy Screenwriting Contest grand prize winner, and a 1IN4 Writers' Program mentee. Hilary is also a freelance journalist and RespectAbility Lab Fellow with an M.F.A. in Film & Television Production from USC.
