Meeting the Spy: An Analysis, Part 6

Hey, it's still here! Link to Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnuYi-nzE90

In mass media a question is often posed, and is hard to answer. The question is "Is content 'dumbed down' to be accessible to mass audiences? Is it a dumbing down of the mental aspect or is it a warming up of the emotional aspect?" When creating media-related works for mass audiences, you have to be able to reach out to as many people as you can so that the work is well recieved.

In reaching out to so many people, certain aspects of the work usually have to be modified. Many factors can keep a work from being correctly interpreted by different people. A media work that made a reference to New York culture would not have a very sound impact on somebody who lives in Wisconsin. Because of this ideas that are brought into the work often need to be more generalized for the larger audience. In many cases this also involves simplifying the work, which is where the "dumbing down" question comes in. But this doesn't mean that the work is necessarily "dumber." A piece of media can still be "clever" or "witty" while appealing to a mass audience in a general and simple way.

In animation the simplifying of ideas can (in my opinion) be more easily mistaken for "dumbing down" because of animation's already inherently simple nature. But at the same time it may not be that it is being made simpler, but that the characters are being made more endearing, or that the environments are being made more likable. In this way instead of lowering the mental experience the emotional experience is being enhanced. In this way the response from the audience can still be positive across the masses without sacrificing the intellectually stimulating side of the animation.

I feel that while Disney has a tendency to simplify many aspects of their content, they also offer a wide variety of intellectual works. An example for me would be Aladdin. When I was a child the bright visuals, endearing characters and silly humor (especially of the Genie) made the movie very enjoyable. I recently watched the movie again, and the deeply woven storyline, well-established characters and relationships, and the simple but well-presented plot entertained me in a way that I wasn't aware of when I was younger. For me, Disney found a way to create simple and amusing stories for one section of the mass audience and a well told action/love story for another section. In this way I feel that Disney can effectively stimulate the emotional and intellectual aspects of their audiences simultaneously.

The Meet the Spy video, in my opinion, did not simplify or generalize its content in any way to appeal to larger audiences. At the same time, however, the characters (likable and entertaining as they were) were designed for a specific purpose and they lacked mass appeal as a result. The Meet the Spy trailer was designed to get people interested in the game Team Fortress 2, and to that extent (the idea that anyone who watches it would be at least somewhat familiar with the game or at least the Valve game company) it works because it appeals to that sort of audience. However, taken out of its context and put into the general public's space it would not be well received due to its specific and targeted message, ideas, and even humor.