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To Be Able To Analyze Both Viewpoints Further It Is Necessary To Look First ...


To be able to analyze both viewpoints further it is necessary to look first at Hollywood's history. Hollywood motion pictures are a relatively new phenomenon. Film worship in the US took hold during the Great Depression in the 1930s with the invention of Hollywood's motion picture when around eighty million people per week went to the movies.
Comparisons of industry resources as to which gender attended cinema more often in the 1920s and early 1930s show that women probably were the primary target audience at the beginning. However, Hollywood soon found a new niche. With the introduction of the ‘western' and the ‘gangster' movie genres, males soon formed the dominant part of the audience in cinemas that showed high action feature films. The combination of action and romance in the years to follow attracted both genders equivalently.
Many authors such as Gomery (1992) and King (2005) confirm that age, gender and social class of the principal target viewer constantly change over time. This can be demonstrated by the fact that in the early 1960s primary target audiences were white, middle-class male teenagers as they were highly interested in films and also had the necessary leisure time and allowance money to attend cinemas more often either in groups or on ‘dates'.
More recent studies suggest that with the current increase in the number of people under 20 as the main audience there is a shift in age distribution in the population. After World War II, a constant increase in live births has taken place. Hence, the current moviegoer is most likely to belong to the age group of under 20/teenagers with the majority of cinema attendees being between 16 and 20 years of age. However, the figures are indications for high-concept movies only. Culturally and educationally more demanding films, which are often foreign productions, attract a slightly different age profile among audiences. According to Maltby (2003, p. 26-27) there has also been an increase in the age group of over-40s attending the cinema. In 1990, 24 per cent of target audiences consisted of people over 40; by 2000, the number increased to 32 per cent. In contrast, 32 per cent of the frequent viewers in 1990, who went to the cinema at least once per month, were teenagers between 12 and 17 years. Their number decreased from 32 to 27 per cent in 2000. While the most frequent adult attendees were those with teenage children, the majority were males, which shows that males still see cinema films as an appropriate pastime, whereas females generally rely on other forms of entertainment and are more likely to attend theatre shows, go to restaurants or generally spend their free time in the presence of friends.
In its formative years, Hollywood had no intention of creating or promoting celebrities because the relatively new and flourishing movie industry did not want, or need, any so-called ‘movie stars'.


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