Media Theories 1: Theories of identity

Theorist: David Gauntlett

Theory: Theories of Identity

Year of publish: 2002

The basic theory: People use the Internet and the Media to construct their own identities

How is this relevant to film trailers?:

People like having characters that they feel that they can relate to, identify with, and endeavour to be like. By having characters that the audience feels like they can relate to and aspire to be they will have people that they want to use help create their identities.

In the Hobbit we meet Bilbo Baggins, a person considered to be ordinary – like the rest of us in a way – who is lifted out of the peaceful, quiet, and even safe environment that he enjoys in Bag-End and the Shire and then thrust into an extraordinary and oftentimes dangerous world. Again and again he is presented with a vast variety of different challenges that test his physical abilities as well as his willpower to carry on going. As the audience, we want to see how he deals with the danger that this presents to him, whether he will be able to carry on going, and if he is somehow, despite all the odds stacked against him, able to survive.

In the Lego Movie we meet an ordinary and upstanding citizen, Emmet, who is used to following a daily cycle of rules. He doesn’t stand out, he doesn’t deviate from any rules, he is effectively (as the tagline calls him) a nobody. Similar to the Hobbit in a way, he is thrust into an adventure of his own in which this ordinary person is suddenly told he’s the most important and the only person capable of saving the Lego universe from certain doom. Again, as the audience we want to know what becomes of him and whether he will be capable of fulfilling the destiny given to him.

In both of these characters, and many more examples across the media, we as the audience are surrounded by a plethora of ordinary fictional characters capable of successfully achieving extraordinary things and as such we want to aspire to be these people. And by aspiring to be these characters we are using them to help us construct our own identities.