Evaluation Question 2

Evaluation Question 2

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

In our thriller film the social groups that we focused on were gender, age, sex, and ethnicity. The main protagonist in our film is a female which is less often in films in general as females are presented as the weaker sex. They are damsel in distress who needs to be saved by a male character in a movie. Therefore, we experimented with gender roles by having a main female protagonist, who is a victim as well as her own saviour. She doesn’t need a male character to come save her day as she herself does the job and has power of her own role.

During my research I ascertained that mainstream media products like Donnie Darko and seven which are action-thrillers have a male dominant character. However, other films like the hunger games and the boy next door the main character is the female and they aren’t portrayed as weaklings. Similarly, for our thriller films we conform to the stereotype of thriller films. We wanted to go against the norms and create something that the audience wouldnt normally see in a thriller. We decided to use a female main character as i believe it will also help the female audience of our film to relate to it more. This challenges the idea of always seeing a male protagonist in the film. Women usuallty in films are shown as damsel in distress and are treated as sex obejects by men. They are always in the background being the lead man's love ineterest, there costumers are always revealing short dresses or bikini to make them look more appealing to the leading man.

The character in our piece is opposite of that is not in backgroud opposite a lead man. She is the lead herself however she still does conform to some extent because of her victimised state. Another main aspect of challenging social groups is that the main character Mary is Asian which is not what we usually expect to see in films. Asian people are usually presented as baddie's and they are in the background. They are always mocked and made fun of in films for example in the tv series The big bang theory the character of Raj is always made fun of, although he is one of the main characters he still joked with and bullied by his other mates. Even though the main character of our piece is an Asian she hasnt got the typical asian accent and subverts the stereotype as she was born and rasied in the UK which allows her to get the proper british accent and this applies to both of our main characters.

The female character in our thriller film is portrayed in a positive light and not as the bad person. Similarly, the second character of Maya her friend is also portrayed as a friendly person. As our film features teenagers this might to some extent limit our target audience as the adults critics might argue that the content is not what an adult might prefer to see and it might be boring for them. Because the main characters our teenagers this allows us to attract teenagers above the age of 15. Our female character is similar to that of Mary Rose who represents power and control over her own character throughout the film.