Due to the recent lock down and based off of my letterboxd recent watches. The quality of the movies I've been watching has not been the greatest to say the least. This could be partly due to onset insanity from isolation and from my flats new found obsession with watching bad films from our childhood. However i don't necessarily see this as a bad thing, yes as a film student i feel inclined to watch the best films all the time in order to not only learn from them but appreciate great film making, nevertheless I've still been watching a lot of films that from a film making point of view i really don't like. Yet somehow even though i didn't really like the films i still had a good time watching them.
So this made me wonder, what actually classifieds as a "bad film", in some cases what i didn't like about the film was the silliness or absurdness of the story in others funny low budget work the list goes on, but the vast majority of the time the point of it was to be dumb or not look as professional as a huge Hollywood movie and some that didn't have that intention but hit that niche anyways (i'm looking at you Space Chimps). What i realised in this was not that i somehow enjoyed the absurdness of the films but the enjoyment i got out of watching them with others and sharing this absurd experience with the rest of my flat, in some sort of mildly insane form of social bonding.
This personal example is a great representation of the Uses and Gratifications theory first developed by the Frankfurt school as far back as the early 1900s, this theory is that audiences use the media to satisfy specific needs, but what could possibly be the need satisfied of watching Kung-Fu Panda 1, 2 and 3 all in one night? The best i can think of that it was never about the films but rather a social outlet. Gathering around these silly plays on an old genre and laughing together over a shared experience was far more powerful than any emotion the movies on their own could normally arise and i think that's the point of these movies in the end.
While i'll still stand by my favourites and continue to watch great films whenever they come watching something "bad" is never something to be looked down upon and at the end of the day everyone will perceive thing differently, you might love Kung-Fu Panda and all it's imperfections and who am i to say otherwise, because i hope more films like it get made. The experience watching these films create is just as justified as any other and i don't think they should be looked down upon but held up in their own silly, out there and crazy way.
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