This post gives a few very brief examples of what ideological, preferred perspectives are encoded in San Junipero. However, audiences are actively encouraged to reject or reinterpret them in a variety of ways. A good way of interacting with this post would be to fill in the blanks: how exactly can audiences negotiate these sequences?
Stuart Hall - reception theory
The idea that producers will encode a meaning or a message in a media product. Audiences will then receive and decode this message. However, audiences will decode this message in different ways. Factors which shape different receptions include our age, gender, preferences, location, biological factors, and sexuality. Producers will encode ideologies and messages within a media product using media language. However, audiences can decode these messages in billions of different ways. To keep things simple, Hall posited three primary ways that audiences can receive the ideology of the producer
In order to narrow down the potentially billions of different ways of interpreting the dominant reading , Hall and his team came up with three broad perspectives
- Preferred reading - the audience accepts the ideological perspective of the producer
- Oppositional reading - the audience does not accept the ideological perspective of the producer
- Negotiated reading - the audience accepts some aspects of the ideology of the producer, but rejects others
- Aberrant reading - the audience completely misunderstands an aspect of the product. “Stuart Little is talking to me. He is giving me messages”
What ideological assumptions are encoded in the Marriage sequence in San Junipero?
Dominant ideological perspectives:
1 - Queer marriage is both valid and beautiful
2 - Simulations are a valid escape from the harshness of reality
3 - Simulations are pretty prisons. When you’re dead you’re dead
4 - Life is a prison. There’s no way out
5 - Dramatic and exciting relationships are preferable
6 - Marriage isn’t perfect. It has issues
Exegetical negotiations: the final sequence
Dominant ideological perspectives:
1 - Heaven is a place on earth/heaven can be achieved through simulation
2 - Euthanasia is a valid and positive event/death is a sweet release
3 - Yorkie and Kelly are a perfect couple
Negotiation of The Quagmire sequence
Dominant ideological perspectives:
1 - The Quagmire is a horrible, scary place
2 - Alternative communities (goths, metalheads, queer people) are scary
- Preferred reading - The Quagmire is gross. The people who dance their are inappropriate with their actions, and the dull, low key lighting connotes threat.
- Negotiated readings. While the quagmire is scary and less hegemonically appropriate, it seems more alive than Tuckers. It is a real club that people would have visited! And audiences may take pleasure in recognising the location.
- Oppositional - The Quagmire looks great! Yorkie should just hang out here
San Junipero is constructed to explicitly welcome a range of polysemic interpretations. The Quagmire sequence is a perfect example of this, as many audience members will relate to the club and the lifestyle depicted.