Evaluation Q2 - Representations

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Here is the podcast version of this question:

There are 7 key areas of representation which can be analysed and applied to productions. 

AGE

All the characters in our media production are teenagers, including the killer. The age of the characters attracts the target audience of 15-24 year old's, as they can relate to the emotions and feelings expressed by the teenagers on screen. The clothes they are wearing also anchor their age, as they're clothes that a typical teenager would wear. A typical slasher film convention is that the authority figures and adults are useless. This convention is shown in our film opening, when the father of the scream queen does not answer his phone, signifying he is useless. The final girl is portrayed as the innocent and sensible character of the group, which shows that she is the leader of the group, and like the stereotypical final girl, she will eventually defeat the killer using her intelligence. The jock of the group comes across as the one who has a lazy negative attitude towards his peers, especially his girlfriend (the scream queen). The scream queen also has a negative attitude towards the situation, and ends up being separated from the group.The jock and scream queens attitudes are both binary opposites of the final girls positive attitude.  

SEXUALITY
To reinforce a normative representation to the audience, we chose for all of the characters to be heterosexual. This is signified in our film opening with the scream queen and jock, by having them walk together at the back of the group and by having a photo of the couple on the background of the scream queens phone. 

GENDER
Gender comes across strongly using binary opposites in our production. The scream queen and killer are binary opposites. The scream queen fits the stereotype of her role, as she is wearing a low cut vest top, and has long blonde hair. She is emotional and weak which is signified by being the first victim out of the group. The killer is the binary opposite of this, because he portrays no emotion. Although we used narrative enigma, it is still clear that there is an element of psychopathy about the killer. The killer also portrays strength and power as he succeeds at killing the scream queen. There are also binary opposites between the scream queen and final girl. Carole Clover's theory of the final girl and feminism in slasher films explains how the final girl takes the lead role as she has more masculine traits which are signified by her body being covered up. Our final girl follows this theory.

PHYSICAL ABILITY/DISABILITY
Again we are reinforcing a normative representation to the audience as all the characters are physically able. This was done because in our film production the group are walking in the woods, so having a disabled character would have made the situation less realistic.

REGIONAL IDENTITY
Our film is set in West Yorkshire, therefore all the characters have a Yorkshire accent. They use typical teenage 'slang' language which attracts the target young adult audience. Because the production is set in Yorkshire, it is set in a very rural area to anchor the region. 

ETHNICITY
In our slasher opening, all the characters are white British, so there is no cultural diversity. There are very few slasher films with a culturally diverse cast, however Prom Night (Nelson McCormick, 2008) challenges this.

SOCIAL CLASS AND STATUS
All the characters in our production are of a working/middle class. They speak the same, and don't dress completely different to each other, so they don't look different enough to class them as a different social status. The target audience is also working class, which helps the audience easily relate to the characters.