The document discusses how the media product represents certain social groups through the character introduced in the opening sequence. It represents: - Ethnicity/race by having a white female character to portray vulnerability and need for rescue, following stereotypes. - Gender by having a young, attractive female as the main character who is both the "damsel in distress" but also challenging norms by being the lead. - Age by having a teenage character who challenges stereotypes of being irresponsible by having responsibility and maturity, aiming to provide a positive representation. The character representations aim to appeal to target audiences by following some stereotypes but also challenging others to make the character and film more interesting and thought-provoking

1. QUESTION 2)
How does your media
product represent certain
social groups?

2. Our opening sequence only contains one character, however, this
character is a stereotypical representation of that character. We specifically made
her character enormously stereotypical to follow both the idea of the story behind
the film and to make the audience able to understand her easily.
The stereotypes we covered include ethnicity, age and gender. We did
not go into anything like religion or education as we felt they were irrelevant
factors within a fantasy movie. The ideal target audience would be much like her
character, a similar age, race and gender to help them to identify with the
character. This is assuming a great deal about the audience but we feel like this is a
fair representation of what they would want to see within our movie.
Although we are only introduce to one character within our opening
sequence it sets up the idea that this will be a fairly stereotypical film with the
characters acting out what people believe them to be. If we had introduced other
characters we would have followed their stereotypes.
This said however, the idea of other characters was introduce. As an
audience would know Little Red Riding Hood was making her way through the
woods to her grandmothers house, we are given visuals of the things she was
taking with her to her grandmother’s house.
The gifts of cake and wine, set up the idea that the grandmother will
be our stereotypical old woman. Unable to do much and thus replies on her
granddaughter to bring her food and gifts.
A bad character was also suggested at through the use of handheld
shots and a motif in the music to represent their presence. This character, as
known by an audience is the wolfs character. The use of low key lighting and the
low eerie music show the audience that this is our “bad character”. They therefore
follow the stereotype of being scary and sneaking up on the vulnerable characters
such as Little Red Riding Hood.

3. ETHNICITY/ RACE
Our actor chosen to play
Little Red Riding Hood is
white. This stereotypes
that she is a vulnerable
character who will need
saving.
White characters, stereotypically,
form our “good guys” in films,
usually the hero of the film will be
white. Recently this stereotype is
challenged however we though it
would be interesting to follow the
idea and therefore our character is
white as she is a “good guy”
character and may end up as the
hero of the overall film?
As she never speaks an audience cannot be
sure where she comes from although it can be
assumed that she is either British or American.
This is because the majority of our “heroes” in
British or American films are from their
country. They will have articulate accents
which represents that they are well educated,
again another stereotype of a main, good
character.
As main “hero” characters are
normally white, adults and male
we had to follow at least one of
the stereotypes to make an
audience understand that this
character is our main character.
However, we challenged the
other two stereotypes to make it
more interesting.
An example of following this stereotype is Alice from
‘Alice in Wonderland’ which is one of the movie
openings I studied for its genre. The main character is
female and blonde, following the idea of a “beautiful”
main female character. She is innocent and vulnerable;
I believe a contributing factor to this is her being white
as white female characters are seen as unable to look
after themselves and so normally form heron
characters, waiting to be saved by a hero character.
The idea of race being used to represent different types of
characters these days is seen as quite backwards and looked
down upon, however, it is still a very large contributing factor
towards a character as subconsciously an audience member
will know the stereotypes associated with a certain ethnic
group which will help them to make assumptions about the
character.
Our “specific” target audience member is also white, female and of
around the same age. This is because by stereotype white females have
grown up with the idea of fairy tales unlike other ethnic/ gender groups.
This makes it easier to capture the audiences attention as they can
gather some kind of relationship or identification with the character
which helps them to feel more involved with the product. We are
assuming this of the main bulk of our audience but after doing our
research we can believe this to be try for at least the majority of the
audience.

4. Gender
The character we have chosen to
introduce in the opening sequence is
that of the female lead character,
stereotypically a female character will
be the heroine of the movie and
therefore will form the “damsel in
distress”.
We have chosen to have a female character,
not only because she is the main character
of Little Red Riding Hood but to introduce
her instant vulnerability and innocence as a
character. By using a female as our main
character we are also helping the audience
to be able to identify with her as the target
audience are also female. By following
stereotype she should appeal and be
identifiable with a large chunk of the
younger female population, making the film
both more realistic and wanting them to
carry on watching as they feel a more
personal relationship with the character.
We have followed gender
stereotypes fairly closely for this
character, as a female lead will
normally be blonde and pretty, both
of which we have acknowledged
within our opening sequence. She is
also in good body condition as she
appears to be in good shape which is
another thing associated with female
lead characters. They must be
attractive. By following this
stereotype we are hopefully allowing
any male audience members to want
to watch the movie as they will find
the lead character attractive, by
stereotype, and therefore this will
raise their chances of them wanting
to watch the actress. If this was a real
movie we would use a well known
actress to play the lead female role to
also attract this male audience.
We have also slightly challenged the
stereotype of female characters as
she is our main character, although
she is the “damsel in distress” she is
still the lead character of the film,
who is normally a man. By
challenging this stereotype we are
hoping that we would get more
female viewership as we are showing
that females can take lead roles and
thus showing that women can be
powerful as characters.
We have followed stereotypes on presenting this social
group as she is a vulnerable character who will need
saving from another character which follows the
stereotypical female character.
Challenging female stereotypes is now very commonplace
within movies as using the same idea that female
characters are the “damsel in distress” is seen as old
fashioned and unoriginal. Recently, the character of Anna
from Disney’s animated movie ‘Frozen’ forms the hero
character of the movie, especially from a “Princess” Disney
movie this is something completely different and is
something which would be fun to play around with, As we
have only created an opening sequence we cannot fully
see if Little Red Riding Hood follows stereotype or not and
therefore contains elements of both to keep the audience
thinking about what her character’s role is.
Female’s are also normally represented as
being dumber than male characters, as
this is only an opening sequence we
cannot fully see this side to her personality
however, she seems to have some kind of
power (as shown by the one low angle,
towards the end of the sequence) showing
she has some kind of control in the
situation.

5. Age
Age is also a heavily stereotyped factor
of the character. Our character is a
fairly young character. The stereotypes
associated with this age group are that
they are irresponsible and therefore
innocent and therefore are more
vulnerable characters.
The target audience are also around this age and
therefore would find themselves more able to identify
with the character adding to the idea that audiences
need to be able to identify with the character to be
able to full appreciate their situation. Making them
more identifiable may also make them more easy to
aspire to be like and therefore add this aspect to the
film and shows that our audience wish to aspire to be
like characters as researched through our secondary
research on marketing.
We would have wanted to have a younger
actor play Little Red Riding Hood to further
the idea of innocence however we chosen
the age group of our actor to give a more
teenage twist on the fairy-tale to emphasise
that this is not the classic fairy-tale and is a
dark and gothic spin off for a much older
audience. The representation of the
character therefore follows the ideas of an
older character in the fact that they are more
individual and perhaps alone as well and
vulnerable.
Stereotypes of teenagers are that
they are dangerous, loud, stupid and
have a lack of worldly knowledge.
Our character appears to have none
of these traits challenging the
representation of this social group,
this may help to attract the target
audience as our film can be see to
be fighting against these stereotypes
and promoting a quiet, timid
teenage character.
Our character also seems to have a
fair amount of responsibility as
they are making a dangerous
journey all on their own which
completely challenges the
stereotypes of teenage characters.
She is making her way through the
woods alone, this not only
emphasises her vulnerability but
shows that her character is mature
and this acts as an aspiration for
the target audience as the wish to
be like this character in this
respect.
Normally teenage characters
are represented negatively, by
challenging the stereotypes we
have created a character who
represents teenagers in a more
positive light.
An example would again be Alice our of Tim Burton’s
‘Alice in Wonderland’. The character is a young adult/
older teenager. She is rebellious but not to the extent
as being seen as a “bad” character as the things she is
rebelling against (such as wearing her corset) are not
seen as things which have to be done. She is mostly
respectful of the other characters which also
challenges the representation of teenagers. She is
also fairly childish and adventurous which is
something we wanted to show within our own
character to show that she is still, in some respects, a
child and that the movie will be about fantasy and
adventure.