Evaluation Question 2

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

We tried to make all of the characters in our thriller as relatable and realistic and contemporary as possible. Our film concentrated on the social groups of young female teenagers and young adult males. We stylised the male characters and made them slightly larger than life and outlandish, we did this by playing on stereotypes from ‘gangster’ and other thriller films.

With the issue of gender we represented the males, playing chess, in our thriller opening be shown as dominant and powerful; this was represented through camera shots and through their costumes. Their costumes, the suits, represented the dominance, power and business like attitude to the abduction of a teenage girl. We stereotyped them a little with the red wine, cigarettes and suits this was influenced by films such as ‘The Godfather’ and ’American Gangster’ where the representation of males is that of dominance and authority. We also showed their authority in the camera angles we used such as the close up of Rakib’s mouth at the end of the opening when he says “checkmate” which we used to show that he is controlling the horror that is happening to Grace.

We attempted to make Grace’s character realistic and did this by representing her as relatable to teenage girls. This is shown in her costume, which was a typical you adult female’s attire, of black jeans and a white top, also through her behaviour with the fact she lies to her parents about the way she is getting home from the party and the way she takes a shortcut through a dark back alleyway. She was shown as a bit of a teenage rebel but the audience can see her realistic reaction when she realises she is being followed down a dark alleyway at night by a suspicious looking older male, her reaction was of horror and then to run.

In our thriller opening we show a little of what life is like for young females in contemporary Britain and the horrors they can face walking home alone in the dark and also that alcohol can dull your senses and make people more likely to do things they wouldn’t normally do when not under the effects of alcohol. It shows that alcohol leads to bad decisions for teenagers and that underage drinking is not as glamorous as often shown in other thrillers. We stylised our opening a little with the fact that the men playing chess were the reason for her being followed but it still shows that being inebriated is not glamourous because chances are you would not walk down a dark alleyway at 2am on your own when you were sober and not under the effects of alcohol.

Our film mainly focuses on White British characters; we did not concentrate drastically on the idea of ethnicity and ethnic minorities being seen as victims. In our thriller Rakib is actually portrayed as a villain, this is shown through the little smile at the end of the opening when he says “checkmate” which connotes the idea of pleasure and that he is pleased that Grace is going to be abducted. Lewis, the man abducting Grace, is a White British male and he is shown to be preying on Grace and following her which represents him in a bad light. Grace, who is also White British, is represented as a victim, this is quite stereotypical of thriller films where a young white female is seen as a victim and is preyed upon by an older male.

We did not really look at the idea of sexuality in our thriller opening, because the idea of sexuality is often represented wrongly in media texts and we did not want to offend anyone so we did not have any heterosexual or homosexual or any relationship shown in our thriller opening.

Our film is a product of modern day Britain as we know it and shows the rebellious nature of modern day teenagers and shows the underage drinking that happens in modern day society. We show 2 sides of modern Britain. We showed modern middle class teenagers rebel against their parents and what society thinks they should be and drink and show they don’t want to conform to societies expectations. We showed how this can lead to trouble, we showed how lying to parents can drastically effect a life, we showed this in a way that doesn’t normally happen - with the abduction of Grace - but abductions of vulnerable girls do happen in modern society. The other side we also showed a stylised version of the criminal underworld of Britain and showed a side of Britain that is not always shown in media texts because people don’t like to believe that criminals will play with other people’s lives.  Our film portrayed some dark feelings of pessimism and magnified certain stereotypes of criminals.

Personally I believe our representations were rather typical of our genre. We had male villains and a female victim whose nonconformity leads her to be in an unsavoury situation. We emphasised Grace’s status of being a victim with the high angle shot where she is being followed down the alleyway, this shows her as weak and makes her look small and vulnerable which is how we wanted her to look to the audience. We stuck to stereotypes of the genre and did not try and challenge any of them. Researching into other thrillers helped us to decide whether or not to challenge these standing stereotypes, thrillers such as ‘Taken’ which has a young female victim who is abducted, and her father then gets retribution over the men who took her, we used aspects of that in our thriller film. Our male representations came from ‘The Godfather’ and ‘American Gangster’ where males are authoritative and dominant.