Feature films engage with the audience in many ways. The films The Castle, What’s Eating Gilbert Grape and Rocky all contain strong central characters, in which the characterisation of them plays a large part in engaging the viewer and conveying messages encoded in the films. For example, in the satirical The Castle, Daryl Kerrigan is portrayed as a regular ‘Aussie Battler’, with exaggerated traditional family and neighbourhood values to highlight the advantages of being …showed first 75 words of 1564 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1564 total…central character to engage the audience and to convey messages encoded in the films. The main issues of The Castle, such as government actions, changed values of society through the times and the effects of classes in society are all accentuated through the specific characterisation of the main character. Similarly, the characterisation of the central characters in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape and Rocky help to inflict certain values that are encoded in the text.