How does your media product represent particular social groups?

1. Question 2: How does your
media product represent
particular social groups?

2.  Females in thriller films are very significant because they have no stereotypical role in the genre.
Sometimes they play the coldhearted and emotionless such as the woman in black where Mrs
Drablow is careless and unafraid to harm the other characters. However, the female can also be
portrayed as the damsel in distress, who needs saving by the protagonist, which is usually the male
as he is portrayed as mentally and physically stronger than females in thriller films. Another aspect
is females to be seen as the survivor, which could also subvert to this stereotype, they are often
portrayed and charming, glamorous and over sexualized due to mise en scene such as costuumes
and makeup.
 In terms of our film opening, I think that the female protagonist fits the predicted stereotype of a
female. Nancy fits to the description of a damsel in distress because the male character is
controlling her, she feels anxious because of him and he creates the tension we see in her. Because
of this, Nancy is seen with lower status and less powerful, which obeys the gender stereotype.
 The men in thriller films are portrayed as both the protagonists and the antagonists. We often see
them represented as the strong hero, who saves the day by figuring out the enigma, which is
usually given to the audience at the start of the film. They are usually physically and mentally strong
and show their strength and independence during the disequilibrium in order to obtain the new
equilibrium. This follows the narrative theory constructed by Tzventan Todorov. This fits the
description of the male character in The Woman in Black. Arthur Kipps is the male protagonist who
ultimately puts an end to the haunting of Mrs Drablow. In saying that, often the male is
represented as the villain, there is usually a background story to why the male wants to do evil. An
example of a male antagonist is the male character in The Girl on the Train. He is playing three girls
at one time and secretly kills one of the girls.
 In our film opening, The Following, the male character is seen as the villain. We intend the audience
to feel a certain hate toward Nancy’s ex. He is represented as evil as there are scenes that show him
being psychotic, controlling and frightening. There is an assumed background story of a nasty break
up as he as shown on Nancy’s phone as ‘ex’.
Gender

4.  Thriller films have been challenging stereotypes. For example, the film ‘Don’t Breathe’ which was released recently
in 2016 challenges the stereotypes of that of an older generation. The negative stereotypes of the old age are
weak, vulnerable and fragile and this film goes against those typical conventions of thriller films and portrays the
old age as more powerful than the youth. Stephen Lang who plays the old blind man in Don’t Breathe, has a large
amount of money hidden in his house and a trio of young thieves break into his house hoping to walk away with a
fortune, however, the old man isn’t as helpless as he seems. The film challenges the stereotype through his ability
to fight back and he therefore ends up trapping the young trio in his house despite his old age and disability.
Although Don’t Breathe isn’t conforming to the typical conventions of thriller films with this particular social group,
the old man develops into being the “Bad Guy” as he is set out to kill the teenagers for breaking into his house.
 Our film represents the social group of age as conforming to the stereotypical conventions. We have two young
characters of 17 and 18 and they are both portrayed as active. However even though both characters conform to
the stereotypes, they both show two different stereotypes. The character of Nancy is portrayed as active, however
she is also portrayed as vulnerable and weak. The character of her ex is portrayed as powerful and obsessive. Even
though these two characters portray the social group of age in a conventional way, they fit to the idea that the
older character has more power: in this situation, Nancy’s ex.
 In most films there is no representation of the older generation which emphasises maybe young people are more
targeted in thriller films. However, the younger generation are represented as more able and active as they are
able to overcome/fightback to the bad character in the films. Examples: The Woman in Black, Scream, Momma,
Don’t Breathe
Age

6. Ethnicity
Thriller examples: Olympus Has Fallen
In this film, the theme of ethnic minorities being seen as dangerous is presented quite clearly. The villains, who are terrorists, are all
portrayed by Korean characters – this adding to the theme that non-white characters are often represented as criminals and a threat to
society. The majority of the characters are white, and although Morgan Freeman is on the front cover of the poster he is not one of
the ultimate main characters and is the only non-white character who is not a villain.
Thriller example: unbreakable
Unbreakable is another example where a film conforms to racial stereotypes and typical representations. In this film, a black man is the
villain, again promoting the idea that minority groups are criminals or threats to society.
The majority of the cast are Caucasian except for a couple of African-American characters which means that the cast is not very
culturally diverse – however this is unfortunately a common theme.
Thriller example: scream 2
in this film there is a comedic sense attached to the male black character in the group. He is the only black main character and this is
commented on throughout the film. The stereotype that is the male black character being killed first. He even label’s himself the ‘male
black token’ in the film. This takes the black character and the fact that he is stereotypically weaker due to the fact he may die first and
creating humor from it.
In Thriller films, other racial representations of ethnic minorities such as a humorous representation are not very common. However the
idea of them being a threat is common as we can see from the examples above. This is because the thriller genre consists mainly of
themes such as fighting or threats on the main character meaning the story is usually very serious so comedy is not common.
Normally Thriller films follow the typical stereotypes and commonly have a white protagonist and majority white cast which is seen not
only in some of these examples above but in many thriller movies. There are exceptions which is a positive thing as it means negative
perceptions are combatted. However because of the clear difference in representation due to ethnicity there is a lot more that could be
done to ensure racial diversity is seen in thriller films.

7. Disability
In our film all our character are presented as able. Disability is presented in different ways
though thriller films but a disability usually makes the victim more vulnerable and
therefore makes the thriller scarier and more tense to watch. For example, the use of a
deaf and mute person as the victim of a stalker in the film “Hush” makes it more dramatic
to watch as they are at an even further disadvantage against the presented antagonist.
Another example of this with a slight difference is ‘Don’t breath’ as in this thriller the man
inside the house is blind and this therefore helps the victims as long as they do not make a
sound to try and get out of the house. In our film, we chose to only use the idea of a
mental disability within the stalker as he is obsessed with Nancy. There are different ways
in which disability can be stereotyped, and can be presented positively or negatively. Our
film opening does not include anyone who is physically disabled this is because we did not
want to challenge the stereotypes of a conventional horror film. This may also have been
difficult for us to film without offending an audience and portraying a condition correctly.