Question 2 - Representing Social Groups

How does your media product represent particular social groups?
The social groups we explored in our media product were gender, age and social status.

The male character; the key characters presented in our media product are males, which stereo-typically as a gender in films are seen as being the strong, main roles such as hero's and villains, which in this case is true. As the main hero and main villains in films are usually portrayed as strong male characters, we presented the key character in a similar way. but portraying him as an unknown with more mystery his traits are not defined going against the iconic and known threat of the villain.

The victim character is also against some of the common stereotypes such as the male character being in control of the situation, as he is soon in a position of having no power in his home. The unknown characters portrayal is also enhanced by the cloths he wears, the use of dark, concealing cloths such as his biker jacket and helmet, contribute to the characters mystery. We also challenged the stereotype of a young male as they are often the type of character to play a false hero, due to the fact that they are less informed and weaker than the real hero, normally a bigger built middle aged man. We have challenged the stereotype as the young man in our film plays the role of a victim when this role would normally be played by a female in an action film. The victim wears a dressing gown which connotes 'relaxed' and 'laid-back', which can also be seen as vulnerable.

A stereotype we have followed is that the unknown male character has the traits you would expect from a male in an action film and that is one of him being violent and dangerous, although you do not see him being violent in our film opening you will still feel that the unknown male character is dangerous due to the fact that he is unknown and because of this people find them self's labelling him as dangerous.

Gender in our film opening has been presented in a few different ways.
We have represented females in a derogative way due to our cast being male only leaving only one role to be played by a female and therefore we have shown our audience that society is dominated by males, the one part that a female plays is a news reporter which is spoken and added over the sequence when the TV is playing. The use of a female news reporter presents females in a strong manner due to the severity of the report and the strength and volume of the voice, this is challenging the stereotype of a woman in an action film as they are usually seen as a 'Damsel in distress' and they need rescuing by a man who often has to risk his life to save her.