Film noir target audience

Different film genres have different target audiences for example kiss kiss bang bang would not be targeted at an infant because of the violence and criminal nature of the film. Film noir has always had arguments over who the target audience is. For example some marketing experts would say that film noir is aimed at an older audience of say 40 to 80 year olds because this is the type of film that this age group would have grown up with as a child. On the other hand some experts would argue that the younger generations would watch a film noir to try and gain an understanding of the whole 1940’s lifestyle and how the criminal underworld has developed since then. But then it could be argued that more recent film noirs are rated 18 and older because of the extent of the violence or sexual content involved in the movies.

The target gender is aimed at males. This is distinguished by the entire planning, making and history of a film noir, an example of this would be introducing an attractive femme fatal into the film that would generally play an undercover role and fall in love with the star actor or seduce them purposes of her own in the film. This introduces a slightly sexist element to a film noir because if it were for a woman then the main character would be female ad she would be seduced by a man so that it would add an element of fantasy for the viewer. For example kiss kiss bang bang, Robert Downey Jr falls in love with Michelle Monaghan her sister commits suicide and Robert Downey Jr finds himself torn between his case and his lover. This symbolises the fact that the film noir genre is targeted towards the male gender.

To conclude, I would agree that the film noir genre is targeted towards the male gender and that the age of the target audience still needs to be decided as it could be for both young and older people due to the way the film is set up. So it could be argued that it depends on the film to distinguish the target age for the audience. This is The target auidence for Film Noir.