The answer to the second evaluation question for my AS Media coursework.

1. How does your media product
represent particular social groups?
Ella Drake

2. Target Audience
• We identified our main target audience through the results of the
survey below.
• As the results show, our target audience lay between the ages of 17
and 20. Once we had identified this we aimed to project it to the
appropriate social group.

3. Social Groups
• The main social group represented in our piece would be teenagers,
with ¾ of our actors being teenagers themselves. However, we kept
this interesting for an older audience by using actors in their late
teens, and making them rather more mature.
• We also represented a stereotypical zombie, whilst challenging some
thoughts as mentioned in the previous answer.
• The characters were mostly based off of characters in films or
videogames such as Dead Rising. The zombies were mostly based on
the George A Romero style, as seen in Night of the Living Dead.

4. Zombie Focus
Similarly vacant
expressions
Wounds or injuries
and bloodstains
Night of
the
Living
Ripped/Torn clothing
Dead
(1968)
Lopsided stance and
gait

5. Male Protagonist Focus
Close cropped
hairstyle
Frank
West -
Dead
Rising Casual clothing
(2006)
No or at least little
/undeveloped weaponry for
self-defence

6. Female Protagonist Focus
Longer, ‘female’ hair
Ellen Ripley –
Alien films
(1979, 1986,
1992) Casual Clothing
Although these films
are of a different
genre, I thought
Ripley was a good No Weaponry
choice to base a
female protagonist
on. She is a very
strong female
character, who would
Boots – versatile
be more than capable
footwear suitable for
of surviving a zombie
travelling and running.
apocalypse.

7. Representations Within Our Piece
• Both our protagonists work on fear and instinctual choices, such as
the fact the female runs from the zombie, a natural choice to make.
This is seen in many horror films, the best comparison to this would
be films such as Zombieland, a spoof comedy horror film, in which
a hapless hero survives.
• The zombie is seen as being mindless, with no real aim save to kill
and eat whoever it sees. This is seen in many older horror films,
especially in those by George A. Romero.

8. Representations of Gender
• The protagonists took typical gender roles, such as the female
adopting the typical ‘flight’ attitude when faced with an enemy,
whereas the male chooses to seek out and fight the zombie.
However, this could also been seen to be subverting the female
stereotype, as she is making the more informed choice by retreating
and calmly getting to a safe place to record her findings, whereas the
male chooses instead to fight.
• This subversion shows the woman to be stronger, in this case with
her choice leading to her survival whilst the male gets overpowered
and eaten.
• Each protagonist fights a zombie of their own gender, showing the
female trait of banding together whilst the men take the ‘alpha-male’
fight, a portrayal of strength.