There are two schools of thought that discusses how media can have a potrayal on people. One of these is called the hypodermic syringe (Theordore Adorno 1930s), Theordore stated that the media is so powerful that the audience has no power of their own thoughts, as they believe everything that is in the media. This has a negative impact on the audience, because it can lead to 'Copycat crime'. This is where people renact the violence that are portrayed in the media, which can cause a moral panic.
Looking at the positive impacts that 'Star Wars Episode III' has on the audience I have come to understand that ever since 'Star Wars' developed and produced their own sci-fi theme of films many other people and film productiong have been inspired to incorperate the 'Star Wars' style to their own film style. Another positive a impact that 'Star Wars' has had on the audience is giving people the chance to express theirself however they want, by allowing cosplay ideas to their target audience which is commonly seen during ComicCon, this is a big thing due to the fact that quite a lot of people look to the 'Star Wars' characters air either ideal self or even their role models based on each chacaters individual morals.
'Star Wars Episode III' presents quite a lot of positive messages to its viewers within the diegesis, however their are a lot of negative impacts that the film has on its audience too. The first negative imact that is seen by the audience and portrayed in real life are the action scenes, these scenes are deemed as very dangerous and are not permitted to be copied by non perofessinals, due to people renacting these scenes a lot of people get hurt on a regular basis.
Another negative impact is the fact that 'Star Wars' has on the audience is the way in which male violence is depicted (Earps and Katz 1999 ‘ equation of masculinity with pathological control and violence’) due to the violence within the film, this could have a negative impact on members within the audience by making some members more violent and likely to take violence out on others.
From what I have gathered from my knowledge of 'Star Wars' I have come to understand that quite a lot of fans of the film saga tend to renact the fight scenes through roleplays, this is a prime example of 'Copycat crime' due to the fact that the media has had an infludence on the audience so much that some of the audience memebers have decided to take part in their own 'Star War' fights in order to express their love of the saga.
The second school of thought was stated by David Gauntlett (2002), he stated that people are able to filter and adapt to what is depicted in the media. This has a positive affect on the media, which reduces the amount of copycat crime, this is what is called an active audience.
Representations
'Star Wars Episode III' is a film which manages to capture different types of stereotypes within the diegesis of the film, these stereotypes can affect on how the audience envisions the the actors witjin the film. The greatest example of this is between the relationship of Anakin Skywalker and Padme Amadala. Their relationship shows quite a lot of romance and affection, however Padme seems to be objectified by Anakin when he is talking to others about her, it is almost as if he doesn't see her as more than just a wife within scenes. This is commonly referred to as the 'Male Gaze' (Laura Mulvey 1975), where males see the opposite sex as no more than just an object or goal.
Within 'Star Wars' minorities are looked down upon by other races of intergalactic lifeforms due to the fact that most minorities are slaves within the diegesis of the film. This could have a bad representation to the way some people portray topics such as slavery by making such things seem normal within the diegesis of the film.
Legal and Ethical
Copyright means the exclusive and assignable legal rights to a piece of work, art or music. this grants you protection against others who would be looking to take your work and claim it for their selfs. For Lucasarts this is important because they want to keep their main brand name protected so no other companies could use their brand name and sell products under their name. For example the 'Star Wars' theme song has copyright protection over it due to the fact that it is a Lucasarts original piece of music, therefore they don't want anyone else stealing it. Lucasarts is a conglomerate company that have different subsidaries beneath them that specify in different areas, they work using horizontal integration in order to communicate between different departments. The greatest example of synergy within the Lucasarts company is when the film department and the music department joined up in order to produce the Star Wars theme song.
Ethical
Looking the ethical side of 'Star Wars' I have come to understand that 'Star Wars' have quite a few offensive characters that are based around different races of people. The best two example of this are through the characters of both Jar Jar Binks and Viceroy Gunray, the depiction of these characters are made to impersonate the Jamaicans and the Chinese. Due to this a few people have made complaints to say that these characters are stereo-typically aimed at them. However due to these characters not being human they are able to get away with this and remain having the BBFC certificate rating of 12 to attract their mass target audience, therefore making a big profit in post-production.
Regulatory bodies
BBFC
The BBFC are the UK's regulator for film and video, they provide age ratings through certificates, for example U, PG and 12. The BBFC are a designated body that have the legal power to rate, cut or even reject works that they do or don't deem suitable.
Looking at 'Star Wars Episode III' I had come to an understanding that this film remained within the BBFC guidelines by, not showing too much blood or gore, not showing some scenes of decapitation and by not clearly mocking other races of people.
The only denotation of violence within the poster of 'Star Wars Episode III' is the picture of Anakin and Obi-Wan fighting, however this is not a clear connotation of violence including harm and offence. However it does depict a fight scene on the poster, however it is a suitable for the target audience which is shown by the bbfc as a certificate 12.
The bbfc state that they had given 'Star Wars Episode III' a certificate 12 due to the violence within the film. This is due to the focus of decapiation, death, murder and burning within the film, however there are never really scenes of blood and gore within the scenes of the film itself which helps lover the certificate given to 'Star Wars' by the bbfc. below I have taken a screen shot of why the bbfc have really decided to rate this film a 12 based on the violence
ASA
The ASA (Advertising Standard Authority) are an independent company that specialise in the advertisement across all media. They produce advertisement codes that are written by the Committees of advertisement practice. The ASA also try to take action against harmful, misleading or offensive advertisements in order to make advertisement a better. My chosen film's poster includes a scene of violence although it has not gone against the ASA's code in terms of showing harm or offence during the poster.
The marketing of a poster in my film adhere to the rules set by not showing any scenes of harm or offence through the scene of violence that is shown in the centre of my poster. The way in which this poster does this is by showing violence although it does not show any sense of bodily harm, therefore it has not gone against this rule set by the ASA. Also if you look at the poster for 'Star Wars Episode III' you can see that there are no images that contain offensive material seen as unstable for viewing.
