The Crash controversy: reviewing the press

Barker, Martin; Arthurs, Jane; Harindranath, Ramaswami

Abstract

The film Crash (Cronenberg 1996) produced an unusually strong reaction from the press which precipitated an investigation of its suitability for distribution by the British Board of Film Classification as well as other political interventions. The research was designed to provide evidence of the diversity of audience responses, including press reviews, and to demonstrate how they were in part shaped by the public debate that accompanied its release. The contribution that the reception of a film contributes to its meaning challenges assumptions that effects can be assumed through textual analysis alone, whether derived from academic theories of ideological reproduction or populist fears about copy cat behaviour.

• Publication Date: Jan 1, 2008
• Peer Reviewed: Not Peer Reviewed
• Book Title: The Cult Film Reader
• ISBN: 9780335219230
• Keywords: film, audiences, controversy, reviews
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/1016834
• Publisher URL: http://www.mcgraw-hill.co.uk/html/0335219233.html