evaluation question 2 for media coursework

1. QUESTION 2 -
REPRESENTATIONS
By Louis Russell

2. GENDER
A binary opposition that we used in our thriller was male and female. In the opening
they are very stereotypical being that the man is dominate, strong, straight to the
point (direct) and more aggressive whereas the women are weaker, cowardly,
immature and stupid. Due to these stereotypes, we can clearly see who is dominate
and who is subordinate and therefore hegemony is maintain. However throughout the
whole story there are a lot more females than males which should show that they
overpower the men so women should be dominate; but due to their extreme weakness
and cowardice the men still overpower the women . This further shows extreme
negative stereotypes that still maintain hegemony

3. ETHNIC MINORITIES
We also had another binary oppositions and this was between Black and White characters. We
presented both in a bad light but I feel as if we represented our black character more towards
stereotypes. This is because he was the violent criminal and he was wearing a hoodie. This is a every
well-known stereotype that is very negative. However we used this representation as stereotypes give
a means for the audience to relate to a character or have some type of emotions towards that
character (disgust, anger or even sadness). This criminal stereotype plays along side with the “scary
hoodie”. This is a representation that everyone who wears hoodies are either criminals, drug dealers
or generally bad people. This is not true as hoodies are generally used for exercise. We used this
stereotype as it give him some mystery and adds suspense to the opening. Our overall representation
of our black character shows that he is dominate against the white girls, this therefore challenged
hegemony.
Our representation of white characters is that they are weaker, civilised and subordinate which
therefore further challenges hegemony. For our white characters no sleect stereotypes were used (e.g.
the “dumb blonde”)

4. SEXUALITY
In our thriller, we did not represent different sexualities as it is not relevant to our
storyline. Our characters could be heterosexual, homosexual or bisexual but it would
not make a difference to the plot and would not effect the characters in anyway.
However we only made the thriller opening, there could have been a variety of
sexualities but we feel it was not important to include right away.
At the moment all characters are straight (heterosexual) meaning that hegemony is
maintained.

5. AGE
We see only one age group in our thriller - youth. Like most films, our youth representation
is negative. This is because we show them to be self conscious, judgemental un-loyal, and
mischievous. This is not a true representation of young people and it conforms with
current stereotypes.
However in our thriller we challenged hegemony as the dominate group is youth when
usually it is middle ages. Another stereotype (from the media) is that youth are weak as we
have no power when it comes to politics; therefore most rights have been stripped from us
and things like tuition fees have risen. This is because youth can’t do anything to change
this. But as you can see from our opening, hegemony is challenged as this whole
environment is overpowered with youth and their personalities would dominate other age
groups if they were present.

6. SOCIAL CLASS
We did not really address social class, this is because our dominate group is youth and
the majority of youth are middle/working class due to their parents status. However
we did somewhat give a representation. Our characters are all wearing casual clothing
and the male character is wearing a hoodie. This could show that middle/working
class don’t care much for appearance and some could be seen as criminals due to the
hoodie.

7. IN CONCLUSION
Overall, all representations are negative towards specific groups due to the use of
negative stereotypes. However in some cases hegemony is challenged which shows
that all groups are being represented negatively and the same as other thrillers but in
some groups the dominate and subordinate have changed positions.