Evaluation Question Two

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

 

The main characters in our thriller film are female, college students aged around 17 to 18, however the characters represent all teenagers, therefore our thriller film will appeal to all of adolescence. The characters in our film wear casual, fashionable clothing with represents the adolescence social group.
 

A thriller film which also uses casual clothes to represent adolescence to teenagers is Final Destination (Dir. James Wong, 2000). Final Destination is about a teenager who has a terrifying vision of him and his friends dying in a plane crash, then prevents the accident only to have death hunt them down, one by one. In Final Destination the characters wear casual clothing which appeals to teenagers as it makes them feel like they can relate to the characters which engages the teenagers  with the film.  

Women are conventionally identified as the weaker sex in thriller films and are portrayed as vulnerable. The female characters are presented as vulnerable because as soon as one of the girls leaves the groups she is murdered. Therefore, our thriller film conforms to the conventions of the thriller genre as we have identified the girls to be weak due to the fact that one of them is killed. Therefore, the female characters in our thriller film represent the female members of our audience.

 

 

A high angle shot is used to emphasise the fact that the female character is defenceless and exposed to danger on her own. The high angle shot also suggests the female character is powerless compared to the antagonist which is supposedly a male character. High key lighting is used in the high angle shot of the character to connote her significance and vulnerability to the audience.

 

A thriller film which represents the women audience members conventionally is Psycho (Dir. Alfred Hitchcock, 1960) due to the fact that the female character in the film is portrayed as weak.  Psycho is about a secretary who embezzles $40,000 from her employer's client, goes on the run, and checks into a remote motel run by a young man under the domination of his mother. Alfred Hitchcock used a high angle shot of  the female character to make her appear vulnerable and powerless compared to the murderer.

 

However, men are represented powerful and are conventionally the antagonist in thriller films. Although the identity of the dark figure is never revealed, the audience suspect it is a male character due to the use of shots, lighting, and sounds. A low angle shot is used when the female character is falling to make the dark figure appear powerful and intimidating. A non-diegetic drone occurs to suggests the dark figures presence which intensifies the scene and implies that something bad is about to happen to the audience. Low key lighting is used on the dark figure in the title sequence which makes him appear mysterious and intimidating to the audience, and also suggests he is the antagonist in our thriller film.

 

A thriller film which represents men and shows them to be powerful is The Dark Knight (Dir. Christopher Nolan, 2008). The Dark Knight Rises when a menace, known as the Joker, causes havoc and chaos on the people of Gotham, so the dark knight must come to terms with one of the greatest psychological tests of his ability to fight injustice. Christopher Nolan uses a low angle shot of the joker to make him look powerful and intimidating which is conventional for an antagonist and a male character.