The document discusses how various social groups are represented in the media product. It focuses on representations of gender, including stereotypical portrayals of women as victims, psychos, and femme fatales in the opening. The opening also subverts expectations by showing the male character as a victim rather than a hero. Representations of age, race, and disability are also briefly touched on. The characters in the opening are all white and no disabled characters are shown.

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

2. Female Representation
In my thriller opening we managed to show only female characters, you could hear
a male character however there was no visual of a male character. This will most
likely show that this is a mainly female dominated film, however it isn’t, the second
main character is a male. However from the 2 minute film opening you can’t tell
that it is. In the opening women are represented as the victim and as the villain, this
shows how differently women can be shown in media. There are many ways in
which women can be portrayed in media products, some examples are:
• The love interest
• The victim
• The psycho
• The final girl (the girl that survives until the end)
• The femme fatale
The femme fatale is dangerous and powerful, she uses her sexuality as a weapon
and is normally portrayed as very sexy and beautiful. She is usually the love interest
of the villain.
Usually the female character is just used for sex appeal for the film, to attract more men to come and watch the
film. Our film does use some of these stereotypical female roles for our film, mainly being, the victim, femme fatale
and the psycho. We show these stereotypes by making it clear that there was a dead female on the floor and the lead
female was psychotic, and the femme fatale, this is shown by the fact that she is so calm about the dead body being
there, and doesn’t seem to have a reaction to the male screaming.

3. Male Representation
In the opening the male character isn’t seen, however from the screams and the banging on the door, it
shows that he is a victim, rather than the normal stereotypical hero. Most male characters in films are
shown to be the following:
• The hero (however may have flaws but in the end they overcome this)
• An authority (e.g police, fireman, private investigator etc.)
• They’re smart
• Put themselves in danger to protect people
However if they play a villain they are normally:
• Smart
• Handsome/charming
• Psychotic
However in my film the male character is the victim, he has been made
powerless by the female lead. He is heard in the opening of the film
screaming, I decided to get him to do this so that it would emphasize how
powerless he is. We thought that we could do this so that it would
challenge the stereotype of the female being the defenceless character. I
thought that this would make it seem more interesting and show the
audience that sometimes female characters aren’t always the weak
innocent character that they are normally perceived to be.

4. Other RepresentationsAge
The characters in our thriller are all above 20, however they
were being played by actors that are 18. This may prove to be
difficult because they would need to seem more mature and
look more mature than they actually are. Stereotypes in the
media industry about age is that old characters are normally
very weak and unable to do anything to help the plot, and are
just there to be either comic relief or to make the audience feel
upset when they die.
Race/Ethnicity
In the opening of our film the characters are all white, however
throughout the film there are other characters of other races
introduced to the plot. One of the main stereotypes in the
thriller/horror genre is that the black male character in a film is
the first to die, however my film will stereotype this, as the
female black police officer in my film would not only be the
one to save the day, but also to survive the longest.
Disability
In the opening of my thriller there weren’t any disabled people
being represented and unfortunately there isn’t any in the rest
of the film. However the stereotypes of disabled people in
thrillers is that they are always needing to be rescued.