The document represents various social groups through the characters in a thriller film. The protagonist Tom is presented as a stereotypical father and businessman in flashbacks but is shown as mentally fragile in the present scenes. The therapist Fern is portrayed as intelligent and professional. The mother Shannon represents a typical housewife and the daughter Angela portrays a "perfect daughter". The son Ethan is depicted as an innocent young boy. The document argues that using social stereotypes allows audiences to relate to the characters and be more emotionally impacted by the tragic events in the film.

1. Question 2
Media Evaluation
How does you media product
represent particular social groups?
Shannon Lewis and Cristina Shaw

2. In our thriller, we considered the
different types of social classes and
how we could use and challenge
stereotypes of these classes. For
instance, we considered age, gender,
class and family and job roles.

3. The Protagonist/Dad (Tom)
We present Tom in a very stereotypical
way in the flashback scenes of being a
typical father figure and business man;
he wears a shirt and tie, showing he is
the head of the family and provides for
Adult, 37 them.
Male
Tom is also presented as the modern
Middle class
Business man
man as he treats his wife and children
White, English with respect and helps out with doing
typical womanly jobs such as putting
food out on the table, which challenges
stereotypes.

4. The Protagonist/Dad (Tom)
We also show in our thriller opening that Tom is ‘well off’ financially because of the
locations in the flashbacks: The Dining scene setting has modern and artistic features
of props e.g. Colour coordinated objects (the purple also helped to give a warm glow
to the scene), and on the Stairs scene the stairs itself were very grand. This also
supports the idea of Tom and his family being middle class, as the middle class are
typically fancy well-off.
In the woods and therapy scenes however, Tom is presented as someone who is
mentally fragile. We choose to make him wear mix-match shoes and odd clothing
which instantly suggests to the audience that he is insane. We wanted this to
contrast against the flashback scenes as we wanted to show the message of how
something as traumatising as losing your family can change a person mentally.

5. The Therapist (Fern)
Fern is presented very stereotypical for
someone who is intelligent and
professional; she wears smart clothes,
glasses and has her hair tied back in a
tight bun.
She is also financially ‘well off’ and well
educated: her clothing and office
presents that as they are modern and
new.
Adult, 28 A therapist is quite a well-respected
Female job and she is represented as someone
Middle Class who is a guide and knows what they’re
Well educated
talking about.
Not enough is really known about her,
for her to represent a social group very
well.

6. The Mum (Shannon)
Shannon represents a typical housewife. This is the stereotype that the woman is
the one to cook and look after the children.
We show through what she is wearing that she is quite a modern mum. She wears
sensible clothes, none of which are revealing. They’re quite casual, yet mature. She
also wears trousers, where they stereotypical mum would wear very feminine
clothing like skirts and dresses, for instance.
Although she has no dialogue as such, when she addressed Tom she appears to be
happy and respectful. When she talks and interacts with Ethan (the young son), she
is caring and motherly. We chose to represent her like this, to give the impression
that this is just an everyday household.
Although she has no dialogue as such, when she
addressed Tom she appears to be happy and respectful.
When she talks and interacts with Ethan (the young son),
she is caring and motherly.
We chose to represent her like this, to give the impression Adult, 34
that this is just an everyday household. Female
Middle Class

7. Angela (Daughter)
Angela represents the social group of typical
young teenage girls. We show this through her
clothing: She wears a girly floral dress and has
her hair in bunches. She helps out with setting
the table, which is what typical younger teenage
girl do, as older teens tend to be more rebellious
and lazy. She can be seen as being a “perfect
daughter”, one that parents would wish their
own children to be like. Realistically we would
use a different actress and work on this
stereotype more to emphasise this.
We chose to represent her in this way, for the
audience to feel more sympathetic to her when
she dies and to send the message that the
actions of others can effect the innocent.

8. Ethan (Son)
Ethan represents the social group of young
children (particularly boys). They are
typically the most innocent people.
We made him wear a lot of blue and just
everyday clothing. We chose this because
it’s a typical boy colour.
He plays around with the placemat which
is a childish action that is stereotypically
what young boys do.
We chose to make him as representative
of a normal young boy as possible.
The message is pretty much the same as
Shannon and Angela.

9. We used a variety of social types, mainly through age and
gender. We did try to stereotype these social groups, this
allows the audience to identify and relate with the characters,
which makes it more shocking and had more impact when
something bad happens. This also allows the audience to have
a stronger emotional engagement with our opening overall
and will feel more when the family die, and when Tom goes
“insane”. We suggest that he was so close with this family that
it corrupted his mind.
Social groups similar to them would be able to relate to this
family and understand why the father has gone a bit crazy.
If we had more time, we feel that we could’ve put more effort
into justifying the stereotypes of the certain social groups
mentioned. We represented them mainly through mise en
scene such as hair and make up.