Evaluation Part Two

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

As our film is a horror/thriller, we decided to use a girl as our main character as a lot of films from this genre use the traditional representation of females. This traditional view portrays girls as vulnerable, dependent and physically weaker than men, which fits the stereotypical role of victims in horror films, especially when females are used.
Although we used the more traditional view of females, we still incorporated modern day mis en scene into the film, such as settings and characters so people watching can find it easier to relate their lives to what they are watching. Not only will this make them more interested in the film, it also creates a more scary edge as it seems more realistic. We based our film inside our school as it is a very new building, which reflects the modern day lifestyle. Emma is shown talking to her friends and boyfriend, which are both traditional and modern representations of not just females but teenagers in general. We decided we'd keep the clothes casual, Emma wore jeans and a tshirt, as we thought more people would be able to relate to her than if the clothes she wore related to just one subculture. The character of Emma's boyfriend, Louie, also shows a traditional representation of males with the modern day mis en scene. We decided he should wear causual clothes too, but we put him in more sporty clothes to show him as a "cool" character, hence the reason he has a girlfriend. We also thought it'd be a good idea for him to wear headphones as this type of modern mis en scene shows today's technology. The stalker character who isn't seen in the film but is known through the use of the shaky handheld camera, comes across as the stronger, more powerful villain in the film. When people watched our video, the majority automatically referred to the stalker character as a male as the traditional representation of male & villains are powerful, aggressive and more violent than females.