In 2018, award-winning documentary filmmaker Elizabeth Chai Vasahelyi and world-renowned mountaineer Jimmy Chin came together to capture Alex Honnold’s 3,000 foot free climb (meaning, no ropes attached) to the top of El Capitan in the National Geographic Documentary Film Free Solo. This 36-year old American rock climber wowed the industry with the documentary winning an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature and was a BAFTA Film Award Winner for Best Documentary. 

But, what was it about this film that was so incredible? 

Positive media researchers would call it: awe (or the ‘awe factor’ as HCC likes to call it). It is that experience that you cannot put into words. More specifically, awe is the amazement elicited by vast stimuli—such as certain forms of ability, perfection, beauty, supernatural causality—that require a measure of accommodation because our capacity to understand and comprehend the experience is challenged. 

So, things like Honnold’s great athletic skill and the breathtaking beauty of Yosemite National Park, with its beautiful mountains, greenery, and clear blue sky, all elicit awe and make us feel small and as though we are in the presence of something great. The entertainment industry allows audiences to experience all these incredible emotions right from the comfort of their couch.

That’s cool, but why does this have to do with the rest of the entertainment industry? I’m not making a climbing documentary.

Well, that may be true. BUT, Free Solo not only won the awards stated above, but also achieved a box office revenue of $29.3 million and had a cumulative viewership of 3.1 million viewers, indicating audience demand for awe inspiring films. A trend that tends to peak around the ‘New Year’s resolution’ season. This demand is most likely attributed to the host of amazing effects awe has on individual well-being. For example, Melanie Rudd (University of Houston) and colleagues found that participants who recalled an experience of awe felt more willing to volunteer their time to help other people, preferred experiences over material products, and experienced greater life satisfaction compared to those who did not reflect on awe experiences. Similarly, Paul Piff and his colleagues showed that specifically, awe (compared to other self-transcendent emotions) predicted greater generosity in an economic game, ethical decision-making, generosity, and prosocial values. 

 And, there is more! Studies show that awe can make us more curious, creative, and can enhance our critical thinking skills. Research also indicates that feeling inspired like this has a direct impact on our well-being, which makes it an important experience to seek out for those striving to live a fulfilled life, giving a unique appeal to audience members. 

 Together these research findings indicate that awe seems to enhance our collective concerns towards others, makes us feel more connected, kind hearted, less narcissistic, humble, and it breaks down the us vs. them thinking, which is beginning to become in high demand in today’s world. 

 Another great thing about awe: we can experience awe from small and mundane things found in everyday life! It doesn’t have to be an Alex Honnold-level tale.

 As outlined in this great article by Dacher Keltner, a University of California, Berkeley Professor and founding director of The Greater Good Science Center, awe experiences do not always have to come from the most incredible sceneries or situations. We can experience awe also from the small and mundane things in everyday life. So, thanks to the entertainment industry’s great reach and easy accessibility, viewers have the opportunity to experience ‘the awe factor’ more frequently than ever before. 

 Simply incorporating beautiful nature scenes, live performances, or even cooking demonstrations in your content has the power to bring awe experiences to your audience. That is, the current media landscape makes it possible for viewers to get inspired from watching your content from practically anywhere in the world and it isn’t nearly as much work to elicit as people think it is!

The entertainment industry has an incredible power to bring awe into our living rooms, bridging access, socio-economic and racial divides and with that positively impacting our well-being. With awe being such a powerful emotion for our social health, it would be great to see more of it in our current media landscape.