Media evaluation question 2

1. H O W D O E S
Y O U R M E D I A
P R O D U C T
R E P R E S E N T
P A R T I C U L A R
S O C I A L
G R O U P S ?
Q U E S T I O N 2

2. CLASSWe have represented class as a stereotype in many ways. Our protagonist Ethan’s low class, in class bracket E is represented through his
house, costume and generally through the social issues his life is involved with.
CLASS THROUGH COSTUME
It is a convention of social realism for characters clothing to show there class. Our protagonist Ethan wears the everyday clothing of
jeans a top, a jacket and a hoodie ,this outfit, as we researched for our costumes and props post, is part of the iconography, that Ethan
is working class and in class bracket E. We also researched in our costume and props post that the fact that Ethan’s clothes could be
hand-me-downs relates to the narrative that he has been in care and hasn’t had the financial stability of the average teenager with
support from a functional family. Josh Macqueen, the actor we chose for Ethan's role, has a slim physique making him a good choice as
this is another way in which Ethan's low-class is represented as this shows his low quality of life and how he hasn’t be provided for well.
We have also represented the businessman’s higher class, of class bracket A, through his smart attire and clean and polished look.
The actual condition of the clothing, such as looking deteariated , can also add to the realism and is another factor which can heighten
the verisimilitude of social realism films. I think we could have made the clothing more realistic by adding some rips or dirt to make his
outfit look worn, I believe this would have been appropriate because of the narrative with Ethan’s background of being in care but
partially because of his current situation of running away with little money.
Ethan's father being involved with drugs links to stereotype of the working class being portrayed as the ones to do ‘bad’ or illegal
things.
CLASS OF AUDIENCE
The class of our audience is A-B with the secondary audience being the class of B-C1, this may mean that they feel they want to be
educated as to what these social issues are like as stereotypically people of our audiences class wont be involved with them. Another
reason why our media product may appeal to our higher class audience is because the type of knowledge they would gain is of
experiences, something which isn’t factual but personal of an individuals circumstances with these social issues in his life, this may be
different to the knowledge our well educated audience already have.

3. RACE
• I feel that because of the convention of the genre of addressing social issues we could have
thought more about race when choosing the actors for our production. This is because all
of our actors in our film are white British and this doesn’t show a multicultural society, this
may mean that our production doesn’t seem as realistic as it would with different races
included. Our audience are White British though so personally, to members of our
audience, the fact that our audience isn’t diverse may not be massively obvious to them. As
we didn’t reflect todays multicultural society I thought maybe we should have addressed
racism as one of the social issues in our production. After thinking about how this would fit
into the narrative however, I feel this may seem like we are trying to address too many
problems in society and realistically it would be extremely unlikely for all these social issues
to affect one individual at one particular time.

4. AGE
• I believe we have challenged stereotypes of age in ‘Reflux’ because the generic stereotype
would be that young people are involved in the social issue of drugs and in contrast, in our
production, we had Ethan's father, a middle age man , as the character with drug problems.
Looking at age stereotypes, typically Ethan, our teenage protagonist, would be far more
likely to be the character to have drug problems.
• I also feel we have challenged the stereotypes of reasons people of a young age develop
drug problems. Stereotypically although young people do turn to drugs as a result of
struggles in their lives, the main stereotype is young people developing drug addictions
through leisure such as partying. This therefore means that Ethan's father turning to drugs
as a result of trying to cope with the loss of his wife is unexpected as it is not a conventional
reason for drug problems to arise, especially at his age. I feel this makes our production
more interesting as it doesn’t have a common drug addiction related narrative and
therefore is less predictable, which is important to keep the interest of our sophisticated
and well-educated audience and to ensure they have a complex enigma to solve
throughout.

5. GENDER
As our target audience reflects, our production centres around males. Ethan being our
protagonist and his father being the one with the drug issues means our narrative is
focused on men as characters.
I believe we have challenged the stereotype of men being the stronger sex in ‘Reflux’ as
the fact that Ethan's father can’t cope with the loss of his wife and turns to drugs shows
how dependant he must have been on Ethan's mother which is unlikely as stereotypically
we are lead to believe it is women who are more dependant on men whilst men are the
stronger more indpendant sex.
The woman in our production who is an extra, played by myself, who walks into the
businessman causing his brief case to fall and his papers to be scattered on the floor,
shows the stereotype that women are clumsy and oblivious to what they are doing. This
may not seem like an obvious stereotype but as the whole production is centred around
men this typical derogatory view of women is shown clearly as one of the only two
women in ‘Reflux’ has this role.

6. SEXUALITY

7. CONSTRUCTIONIST THEORY
• The constructionist theory states that representations are a combination of reality, the
opinion of the producer, context of the time and your view, as your own opinions
determine whether you will accept or reject the representation.

8. CAN OUR PRODUCTION BE READ AS
HEGEMONIC?

9. DO OUR REPRESENTATIONS SUIT OUR
INSTITUTION?
• I feel that the representations in our media product suit our institution very well as
independent institutions conventionally produce productions with challenging
narratives and we defiantly have a challenging narrative because of the themes, such
as drug abuse, which are covered. Films made through indpendant institutions are
therefore targeted at a neiche audience as our product would be, again because of the
hard hitting content.