This document discusses how a media product represents a particular social group. Specifically, it summarizes how a student film represents adults from less privileged backgrounds involved in criminal organizations in 1950s New York City. The film uses conventions from the film noir genre, including portraying the characters with Italian accents and incorporating settings and lines from films like The Godfather and Goodfellas. It aims to authentically represent the experiences of detectives, police officers, mobsters and their hierarchies through casting, costumes, language and stereotypes commonly seen in film noir productions. The goal is to transport the audience to the time period and social circumstances surrounding crime in 1950s New York through these representative techniques.

1. Question 2: How does your media product
represent a particular social group?
In our film we focused mainly on adults from less privileged
backgrounds that consist of a lot of crime. We portrayed our
characters with an Italian-American accent, as this is
common convention of criminal organisations in different
media pieces. An example of this would be Goodfellas
(1990). For language choices we used a lexical set that fit
with the Noir genre, including intertextuality from the film
The Godfather (1972) by using the line ‘Sleeping with the
fishes’ said by the boss of the criminal organisation [Tony
Pensiero].
For location we used an everyday street, and office and Jack
Waterman’s house. We used the office to try and portray the
police officer as professional and to establish him as the
higher up to the detective [Dominic Hudson]. For the gang
hideout we used the house of the actor who played Tony
Pensiero. This was effective as his house had a Noir look to it
and also had a pool table that we could incorporate into our
film and it helped us to match more conventions of the Film
Noir genre.
We chose to represent this social group within our film as
we wanted to closely follow the conventions of the Film Noir
genre and therefore represented our characters and settings
in a way that is commonly seen in other media products in
the Film Noir genre.
Dominic Hudson is represented as a new and non-
experienced detective trying to crack the biggest case he has
ever been given. To show this we purposely chose older
actors to play the roles that required more experienced
characters (E.G Tony Pensiero and SGT Larkin). We
represented Dominic quite shyly and regretful in the scene

2. where he walks down the street to show that he was new to
the concept of murder, in contrast we portrayed him as
confident in the monologue to show how the power has
corrupted him throughout the course of the opening.
Matt Appleyard played the part of SGT Larkin in our film, as
stated before, he was older than the actor who played
Dominic Hudson, to add to the idea of him being more
experienced. In contrast to his look of experience, he had an
informal register with only subtle hints of formality. This
represented him as a friendly character who was
considering of the work force that he commanded but also a
man who plans to get the job done.
In our film we enforced the stereotype of the calm mobster
boss that still comes across as frightening. We used this as it
was a very common convention of the Film noir genre and
helped to develop the character of Tony Pensiero, although
he is only seen for a very short amount of time. We also used
the stereotype of mob members that ‘suck up’ to the boss
and always try to get onto his good side. Again this followed
conventions and developed the characters but also helped to
enforce the idea that Tony Pensiero was the leader and that
he was in charge. We also had Dominic Hudson portrayed as
an anti-hero as this is commonly found in the Film Noir
genre, rather than just having a hero. Firstly we have Johnny
who instantly describes Tony’s idea as ‘a great idea’, in the
hopes that he will respect from Tony and to try and make up
for being late to their meeting. This idea is taken the wrong
way and in fact causes Tony to get angry with Johnny over
his recent comment. Johnny also wears a black suit and is
very formal, almost as if he looks up to Tony and wants to be
like him.
This leads on to the representation of Paulie. Paulie is a
more laid-back character that doesn’t wear a suit jacket and
instead only wears a shirt and tie. He is more experienced

3. than Paulie and almost like an older brother for Johnny. This
is evident as he calmly tries to defend Johnny from Tony’s
aggression by saying ‘No boss, he was just saying’ and
instead turns Tony’s aggression onto him.
In our film we are trying to get the audience to understand
exactly what 1950s New York was like concerning crime.