Q2 Evaluation

2. How Does our media product represent particular social groups ?

Our thriller represents a couple of social groups, mainly to do with gender. Though the way we have represented challenge some social stereotypes.

One way that we have represented the female gender is though the killer. We have portrayed her as a very hidden character. We have also created her be quite masculine though her costume as the large coat which could show that she is a masculine, but also that she could be a very “closed-off” or isolated character. However the way we have filmed also gives her a presence within the scenes, and the other characters lack this presence – suggesting that they are not important in the scene. This is quite a negative representation of the female gender. We have also included another female character who is the complete opposite of this, appears to be very open, although she lacks presence as do the other two male characters. This would be contrary to the stereotypical male who is controlling and in charge of the situation – an example of this would be the character of Bill in the opening scenes of 'Kill Bill Vol.1', whereas the male characters in this scene are more like the character L.B. Jefferies in 'Rear Window' – unable to her with what he believes to be a murder. This film also has a very negative representation of the female gender, as It objectifys women as a femme fatale of the character Lisa.

Another Way that we have represented a social Groups – although not as strongly as gender – is social class. The characters within our product are represented as low/middle class though the clothes they are wearing. They are wearing very nondescript clothing as to suggest being unimportant, though not wearing scruffy clothes which suggests a lower class and not wearing smart clothes – such as suits – which suggests a high social class or even aspirations to be in a social class than they are currently. This differs from the main character – or “the killer” - who wears the large coat, which could suggest that she is in a lower social class than the rest of the characters.

We decided not to show any other social groups as some could be quite sensitive – race for example – and we didn't not feel comfortable or confident representing them. We also had the limitations that no-one in our group was of a different ethnicity, sexual orientation or explicitly religious.