The "General Audience"....Who are they?

[writer0327]

Who exactly do people consider the "general audience", or GA for short, to be? I see this term thrown around a lot on these boards and I'm curious because I think my interpretation of that term is different from others.

I always thought of the general moviegoing audience being people that see 8-10 films a year of different varieties? But then, if all 8-10 films are of a similar variety, is that moviegoer "general"?

For instance, I have 2 friends who will see every big budget, blockbuster film, regardless of who's in it, who the director is, or even what it's about. They don't go on imdb or these boards, never picked up a comic, they don't buy movie merch. I would not consider them fans of anything per se. Are they GA? Then I know people that primarily watch horror movies, and have my action movie friends that only watch action movies and rarely check out any other genres. But i wouldn't classify them as "horror/action movie buffs" because they don't really know the genre, they just like being scared. Are they general?

It seems like the average person has their own niche and are just into what they are into. But that also seems to make them "not general".

 

[The Guard]

I think it's generally used around here to describe people who aren't essentially film critics or true film buffs, or "students of film". Casual audiences VS people who make film a major ongoing part of their lives, or may work in the industry.

A good majority of people watch movies mainly to be entertained. They don't have a great knowledge of film structure, filmmaking processes, etc, and don't delight in picking things apart on a micro level like many of us do. Their eyes glaze over when you start talking about plot, theme, etc.

The lines are blurring a bit thanks to the internet and social media. Films are getting a lot more coverage throughout their development, but there's still a pretty decent distinction to be found.

 

[smallville fan]

My head canon for "general audience" varies relatively depending on the movie. For geeky stuff, like CBM's etc are folk who aren't too deep into the stuff outside of the movies. Like if you were to do a trivia contest for the history of the franchise, they'd lose outside of the movie they watched. And they wouldn't be phased if they stop making them.

Or say with Star Wars, they just watch the movies and don't follow the franchise as much as we do and don't get into the shows and tie in merch. And as before they wouldn't be phased if they stop making them.

 

[Mandon Knight]

They are the casual film goer who just wish to be 'entertained' by a film, and don't have film 'central' to their lives, it's a form of entertainment, in the same way they would go to a gallery or theatre, it an artform only, not something they passionately have at their heart of their life, I think it's particularly prevalent in 'our genre' that our passion is central to our love of the characters. The GA see these characters as 'okay, it's superman, I like superman stories' but they won't have the knowledge or background to make the links across the audience. An example would be BvS, my brother who watched it with me has zero investment in any of the characters or background, in the Knightmare sequence, when Flash turned up, you'd have thought we'd switched to watching a Werner Herzog film in Taiwanese.

 

[Fincher]

For me, it's everyone (or at least everyone in the countries that are a point of concern). To say that the general audience likes something is to say that it's well received overall as opposed to by a certain group. It's easy to fall into the trap of treating them as a cookie cutter "other" who all hold the same basic views, but it's really a wide variety of individuals, and all you can do is assess overall trends.

If you separate film buffs, for example, what you're left with are people of different genders, races, ages, sexual orientations, cultures, religions, and economic backgrounds. It'll include fans of gory slasher films and fans of heartwarming dramas. So for any particular property, you can distinguish between the opinions of the die hard fanbase vs. the general audience, but that die hard fanbase is really part of the general audience when all is said and done.