The document discusses how the media product represents different social groups. It represents gangsters by adding depth to the main character Nico McNamara, making him younger than typical gangster portrayals. It represents men as the main characters and focuses on strength and dominance, following gangster film conventions. It also represents youths by making the characters younger than typical gangster films to provide a fresh perspective. Additionally, it represents the importance of family through the theme of a son reluctantly taking over the family business, similar to The Godfather.

1. How does your media product
represent particular social groups?
By Siannan Kerrigan

2. Nico McNamara
GANGSTERS
One of the main social groups we represent in our opening sequence is Gangsters. For
a unique selling point we wanted to challenge the stereotype of Gangsters by adding
depth and vulnerability to our main character, Nico McNamara. We stuck to some of
the main conventions such as costume but with a younger and modern edge. As our
main character is around the age of 16 we thought it more fitting for him to wear
chinos and blazer instead of a full on suit to make the situation seem more casual and
relaxed, thus adding confusion when he is invited into the gangster world.

3. Nico McNamara
MEN
Tony Montana
A main social group in Gangster/Thrillers is men. The main character tends to be a
man as this suggests strength and dominance which is important to this type of
situation. Our media product represents this social group as all characters shown in
the opening sequence are men. It is less likely to see women and if so they are normal
only used as sexual inputs. In this way our product represents typical social groups that
would be seen in Gangster Films as in Scarface, and many other gangster films, the
main character is male.

4. YOUTHS
Nico McNamara
One things that we thought would intrigue our audience was the age of the characters
involved. Whilst planning our opening sequence we recognised the difficulty of finding
actors that were around the age of 30, which is expected in Gangster Thrillers such as
Goodfellas, and so decided to modify our storyline and make the characters in the film
younger. The characters are visually younger than expected but this adds a fresh take
on gangster societies and creates new perspectives.

5. FAMILY/SONS
Nico McNamara
Michael Corleone
One of the main themes of our media product is family. There are a lot of similarities
between our main character and Michael Corleone from The Godfather as they both
originally wanted nothing to do with the ‘family business’ but are unexpectedly thrust
into that life style. These types of characters portray the importance of family which
plays an important part in developing the story line.