Megan S.
Introduction
Movie trailers are an often overlooked component of the cinema industry- and yet they represent a key element to a movie’s ultimate success or failure. In fact, “trailers […] are the most effective media used by movie advertisers to communicate to their target audiences” (Hixson 214). Movie marketers implement key strategies in the production of their trailers to appeal to specific demographics and moviegoers’ genre preferences in the hope that an audience will pay to satisfy the gratification the trailer produces. Recent years have seen an increase in Civil-rights films- including The Help and Hidden Figures. Civil Rights films’ trailers appeal to the Black spectator through marketing and film elements; however, in an effort to make the largest profit possible, the film industry created these films to appeal to a larger white audience, becoming problematic and producing injustice to the larger Civil Rights movement and its historical accuracy.
A trailer is defined as being “a brief film text providing one to three-minute cinematic experience that usually displays images from a specific feature film while emphasizing its quality” (Finsterwalder, Kuppelwieser, Villiers 590). As media consumption has increased in recent years as internet and social media usage increases, trailers have become an integral part of the movie-making industry. Even more so, some would argue that trailers have become “a part of the popular media fabric” (Johnston, Vollans, Greene 58) and yet they present a challenge to marketers as they must convince an audience to commit two hours with only a three-minute trailer. This unique challenge also brings the necessity to appeal visually and emotionally to an audience. To do this, trailers work to promote a film’s movie, genre, storyline and cast through basic film elements to appeal to a specific demographic, or more often: to as large an audience as possible. The Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services states that trailers have three typical sections: “The first section introduces characters and environment in which the film takes place; the second section suggests some form of tension or change in the direction of the storyline; and the final section escalates the pace of the trailer and often alludes to a potential solution” (Finsterwalder, Jörg, et al., 590). Most trailers stick to this format as a simplified mode to achieve the challenge that is fitting a whole story into a few minutes of split clips. However, as Keith Johnston, Ed Vollans and Fred L. Greene argue in their study “Watching the trailer: Researching the film trailer audience”, trailers are not just for the purpose of summarizing a storyline. “Certainly the trailer has informational value, but trailer viewing is led as much by pre-existing knowledge and sources of pleasure […] than by a simple linear paratextual model” (78) they argue. This seems a necessary fact to understand when analyzing recent Civil Rights historical dramas, such as Hidden Figures and The Help and understanding the ways in which the trailers appeal to the audience in terms of “cultural value and expectation” and the pleasure they produce.
The Help trailer
“Youtube- The Help (2011) Movie Trailer.” Youtube. Web. 15 Aug. 2011 <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOTkNsxhECY>
The Help, released in 2011 and directed by Tate Taylor, tells the story of Skeeter, a white woman aspiring to be a writer, who causes unrest in her Mississippi as she decides to interview ‘the help’, or African-American female maids. The movie had mixed reviews, but was ultimately deemed a huge success, bringing in a gross profit of over $169 million. This can be largely attributed to the movie’s trailer, as “a good trailer [plays] a significant role in its success” (Finsterwalder, Jörg, et al. 589). The trailer follows the standard format laid out by The Journal as it quickly introduces characters, the environment, problem and ultimately alludes to friendship and a solution. However, the trailer seems to heavily rely on Star Effect, music and humorous dialogue to ultimately appeal to the larger audience. By casting stars such as Octavia Spencer, Viola Davis and Emma Stone the audience quickly sees a representation of strong women. These recognizable faces are key to a movie trailer’s success. “Watching the trailer: Researching the film trailer audience” conducted a study to see what the most memorable elements of a trailer were- or in other words, what makes trailers memorable enough that they result in box office success. The top result was stars; inferring that with a recognizable cast, moviegoers will feel better about spending money on a certain film because “consumers form pre-determined expectations of [acting abilities] and are a good indication of what they can expect from a movie” (Finsterwalder et al. 591). The Help trailer intentionally emphasizes Star Effect as it edits in names crossed over with character portrayals.
These shots and cuts ensure that viewers understand the ‘star-studded cast’. The other element of the trailer that is key is the music implemented in the trailer. The music comes in to the trailer as upbeat as it introduces characters and introduces the race binary set during the 1960s. Once the introductions seem to be through, however, the plot comes in as it begins to introduce Skeeter’s defiance against common dismay towards the African American community. The shift of music comes at the same time as a shot of Minny, played by Octavia Spencer, storming out of the house in to a storm.
This visually and emotionally brings tension in to the trailer as viewers feel the anticipation they then will want to curb by seeing the whole film. This is also backed by evidence as being effective in trailers as “trailer producers have regularly identified [music] as foundational to the trailer narrative” (Johnston, et al., 71). In the same way the trailer introduces the characters, The Help trailer implements text over the dialogue and music to convey the storyline. As the quote is cut up it ultimately comes together to say: An unexpected friendship, will change everything”.
Hidden Figures trailer
“Youtube- Hidden Figures Movie Trailer.” Youtube. Web. 16 Nov. 2016 <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOTkNsxhECY>
Hidden Figures, produced by 20thCentury Fox and released in 2016, tells the story of three African American women who work for NASA during the ‘space race’ in the 1960s. They are extremely smart and capable women each working in different mathematics departments for NASA, but must continuously fight for their place and voice, simply due to the color of their skin and biological sex. The trailer, similarly to The Help relies heavily on star effect, music and key shots to appeal to the intended audience. The trailer introduces the three women and the setting by opening on the women fixing their car when suddenly a white male policeman drives up. Sensing trouble due to their race, the audience can immediately pick up on the time period of the film through this shot. Although the star effect is not as obviously introduced as it is in The Help the cast is introduced as a unified unit as the women receive an escort to NASA by the policeman.
Through funny dialogue that clearly and further defines the setting, the audience grows excited as the music cues in as upbeat and rhythmic. Kevin Costner, playing Al Harrison- quickly becomes the voice-over as he quickly explains the space race NASA is contending with throughout the film. His voice echoes over dramatic shots of rocket-ships and the NASA headquarters. As the bold words, ‘Based on the untold true story’ flash across in the trailer, the music shifts to tense classical music- forcing the audience to be drawn in emotionally to the problem. Tareji Henson, playing Katherine Johnson is shown following this being strong and confident women in the workplace. These few pieces of dialogues are strategically placed to characterize her as an inspiring figure- a figure who appeals to an audience emotionally, even if she does so in a few short clips. The trailer continues to rely on short quotes flashing across the screen to heighten emotion, ultimately spelling out the sentence: ‘Based on the untold true story. This January, to achieve the impossible three women would change history.’
By implementing text in to the trailer, the trailer can more quickly and effectively show and convey the storyline.
Implications of these trailers
While these trailers may be effective in drawing a large audience- as shown in their box office success- the appeal to the black and white audience is intriguing and somewhat problematic in the portrayal of characters and storylines during the Civil Rights movement. The Help heavily relies on Emma Stone’s character, Skeeter, throughout the trailer. She is the protagonist but she also works to promote the film as “a textbook chapter on how white women came of age in the South” (qtd. in Izzo 4). While this critique may be harsh, it speaks to the larger problem of presenting Civil Rights movies as good-hearted, inspiring stories; ultimately downplaying the harshness, cruelty and degradation towards Blacks. This character is inspiring to whites, yet in doing so “follows Hollywood’s practice of chronicling Black people’s history and by extension, their achievements on the basis of a white savior” (Morris 407). This is also the case in Hidden Figures as the majority of the trailer’s narrative is told through a voiceover of Al Harrison as the trailer begins to show his ‘courageous’ opinion to side with the black women. As a review of Hidden Figures points out, “several occasions on which the women made strides toward quality were substituted […] with a narrative that spotlighted a white, fictional man at the center of the activism” (Lieway, Sharp, Gambrell, Medina, Reyes and Nguyen 609), ultimately reducing the power of the black females in the film. One example of this is a key shot to Hidden Figures’s trailer as Al Harrison knocks down the ‘Colored’ bathroom sign is a show of defiance against segregation. Similarly, multiple shots in The Help’s trailer are dialogue Skeeter has with high-society Mississippi women fighting against their views of the help. The result of such representations is detrimental to the justice the movement deserves, as it enables the audience “to consume the civil rights movement easily, with the difficult aspects of its genesis, struggles, social tensions, dangers, terrors and tragic casualties kept safely at bay” (qtd. in Izzo 22). This wholly appeals to the white spectator while producing an injustice for the black spectator, especially black females viewing these particular films. bell hooks, author of “The Oppositional Gaze” argues that their has been a historical path of African American women being “denied their right to a gaze” (hooks 307). This, in turn, created a desire to ‘look’, which produces the “possibility to agency” (hooks 308). In summary, hooks argues that the oppositional gaze While trailers are not the the whole narrative a story portrays, the trailers of these two films are clear in their intentions of representations and thus, in the ways in which the films as a whole display the Civil Rights movement and the black race as passive individuals waiting for the white saviors. While this critique may remain harsh- it stands true to other scholars, namely a few that critiqued The Help creates a false narrative when, “the reality [was] much closer to a horror film than a light-hearted drama” (qtd in. Izzo 3) or that the “film was racist and that Taylor opted for a ‘feel good’ kind of movie without a solid contextualization of the southern mentality/psychology that made for the oppressive treatment of the help in the first place” (qtd. in Izzo 3).
Works Cited
Finsterwalder, Jörg, et al. “The Effects of Film Trailers on Shaping Consumer Expectations in the Entertainment Industry—A Qualitative Analysis.” Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, vol. 19, no. 6, 2012, pp. 589–595., doi:10.1016/j.jretconser.2012.07.004.
Hooks, Bell. “The Oppositional Gaze: Black Female Spectators.” Feminist Film Theory, 1999, pp. 307–319.
Hixson, Thomas Kim. “Mission Possible: Targeting Trailers to Movie Audiences.” Journal of Targeting, Measurement and Analysis for Marketing, vol. 14, no. 3, 2006, pp. 210–224., doi:10.1057/palgrave.jt.5740182.
Izzo, David Garrett. Movies in the Age of Obama: the Era of Post-Racial and Neo-Racist Cinema. Rowman & Littlefield, 2017.
Johnston, Keith M., et al. “Watching the Trailer: Researching the Film Trailer Audience.” Journal of Audience & Reception Studies, vol. 13, no. 2, Nov. 2016.
Lieway, Miriam, et al. “Hidden Figures: Calculated Responses to Sexism and Racism in 1960s America.” Journal of Family Theory & Review.
Melfi, Theodore, director. Hidden Figures. 20thCentury Fox., 2016.
Morris, Tiyi M. “(Un)Learning Hollywood’s Civil Rights Movement: a Scholar’s Critique.” Journal of African American Studies, 12 Nov. 2018.
Tayor, Tate, director. The Help. Dreamworks Pictures., 2011.
Gender and Diversity in Film 