Question 2 media

1. QUESTION 2:HOW DOES YOUR
MEDIA PRODUCT REPRESENT
PARTICUALAR SOCIAL GROUPS?
BY CHARLOTTE MARTIN

2. Rose Buchanan – Protagonist
Labelled as: 16 year old girl.
The way in which Rose fulfils the representation of a young teenage
girl being easily lead by her conscience and social pressure leading to
a development of a mental health problems. Not only that, but also
being the fairly stereotypical isolated and un-talkative. This is
achieved by her being completely on her own, dressed in uninviting
colours with no form of personality enhanced as well as looking
straight through everything to block out others. This symbolises
teenagers in society who are under pressure from society.
From the outset of the opening sequence such as the semiotics, the
atmospheric background music and her characterisation suggests that
the girl seems vulnerable. The dim lighting also reinforces this as well
as the edgy dress choice, which gives a foreboding sense that
something negative will happen; which is revealed at the end of this
clip.

3. Gender Choice
For our opening sequence, we decided to use a female as our main protagonist
because they are stereotypically known for being more vulnerable and eligible
to stress therefore more likely to panic in situations. We used a range of cultural
signifiers such as:

4. Age:
Nowadays, teenagers are heavily focused on, especially through the media. In addition to this by
casting a teenage girl, as our main protagonist is an effective feature to our film because it
makes our film more modern therefore our target audience will easily be able to relate the film
and have a stronger connection with her character. It is argued that teenagers are the most
diverse age change and are faced with the most social problems. In our opinion, by choosing to
use a teenager as our actress it would give us a number of advantages for example, as we our
teenagers ourselves it will make it easier for any ideas we have to be sculpted around that age
range, but also it allows our target audience to connect with their character more easily.

5. Clothing
The clothing we decided to dress the main protagonist in were
plain and mainly dark colours. The fact we used dark colours was
for a significant purpose as we wanted it to represent the dark /
mentally disordered side of her character as well as to tie in with
the stereotype that teenagers are very internal and closed up. The
dark colours also signifies the rejection of society. The hoodie that
Rose is wearing in the opening sequence is important as it gives off
a stronger sense of realism to the film as that is what society
stereotypes teenagers to wear. This gives the ability to target an
audience similar to her age group – around 16 to 23. At this stage
in her mental disorder, her clothing choice of being dark and
deluded implies that the possession is becoming more dominant in
her life as well as important in the story line then her subculture /
age.

6. Make up and Hairstyle
By the way Rose’s hair is presented in the film gives off a cultural
signifier to the audience as it represents her as a typical teenage girl
in society. This is significant as we want her to portray herself to
society as ‘normal’ on the outside and mentally disordered on the
inside. This is also reinforced by her make up as although her eyes
are dark which implies lack of sleep, her makeup is relatively natural
looking. The fact that she has dark circles under her eyes, subverts
the stereotype of teenagers and enhances the idea that her mental
disorder is becoming increasing more dominant than her
subculture.