AS media evaluation

1. 2. HOW DOES YOUR MEDIA
PRODUCT REPRESENT
PARTICULAR SOCIAL
GROUPS?
Megan Simpson

2. AGE
Our opening of “The Hunted” presents three characters all in the age
range of 16-18 years old, they are represented as stereotypical young
adults through the use of clothing, props and speech.
In the majority of films in the horror/thriller genre, the most frequent
age group included are teenagers and the stereotypical perception of
this age group is that they are naïve as they don’t listen to the signs
that there might be trouble. This is an example of Levi Strauss’s
theory of binary opposites that is frequently used in the thriller genre.
The casual costume also creates an idea that the characters is lazy,
which is a negative stereotype amongst most teenagers.

3. REPRESENTATION OF MALES
In the opening, our male antagonist was given a negative
representation of his gender. He was presented as being dominating
though the use of close up shots.
We decided to do a close up, panning shot up and down so that we
could see the masculine stance of the antagonist, emphasising the
fact that he is tall and broad giving him strength perceiving him as
being very intimidating to the audience.
The representation of the male character conforms to the stereotypes
of the thriller genre as he is presented as being a more superior
character compared to the vulnerable female protagonist.
The male antagonist was represented as being a stereotypical young
adult by wearing a black hoodie as part of his main costume. The
colour black has negative connotations denoting anti social behaviour
which is a thought of what young males are like by most of society.

4. REPRESENTATION OF FEMALES
The opening represents the female character as being vulnerable as
she is being harmed by the protagonist, this bring forward the idea
that females are the weaker sex compares to males with the use of
shots to present her being the smaller character.
Both of the female characters had natural make up on which defies
the stereotype that young females wear too much make up.
The stereotype of females being emotional and weak is conformed to
in the opening, this is shown with various close ups of the female
character.

5. CLASS
The main narrative for the opening is a murder, acts of violent,
criminal behaviour in this lights is usually associated with lower class
members of society.
We filmed our opening in a woodland setting so this gives the
audience no hints as to which sort of social class they come from
because we don’t see any area that they live in.
Even though our film opening does not contain large amounts of
dialogue, the main protagonist Alice says “oh my god”, this is a
colloquial phrase that is conventionally associated with people of a
middle to lower class. This conforms with our narrative as it suggests
that our characters have links to anti social behaviour because it is
based on murder.

6. LIGHTING
We used lighting in the opening to go with the stereotype that young
people are violent, devious characters.
During the scenes with negative connotations, we used low key
lighting to create a tense atmosphere, for example in the scenes of
flashbacks where we added an extra filter to the scenes to take the
extra colour away.
By doing this, the audience will be able to tell the negative scenes are
taking place, it helps create the idea that the male character should
be avoided because he is dangerous.