The document analyzes how the media product presents different social groups through its characters. It features a female main character, Maria, who challenges stereotypes as the violent aggressor instead of the typical male role. Maria is portrayed as strong and independent, similar to characters in Thelma and Louise. The male victim is portrayed as vulnerable and emasculated. Both main characters are young, white, and British, reflecting the lack of diversity in British media. The document discusses how the characters and their portrayal relate to topics like gender roles, sexuality, ethnicity, and youth representation.

1. How does your media
product present particular
social groups?

2. Gender
Femininity:
In our thriller we wanted to challenge stereotypes
by using a women as our main deviant character.
Usually in thriller productions our society would
assume the male to be the violent, aggressive
character. This is due to women being
stereotyped the dumber and weaker sex.
However, we wanted to play against the generic
archetype of a male villain – hence using a
women who knew what she was doing and wasn’t
afraid to be violent. I like that Maria doesn’t allow
a man to tell her what to do and isn’t bothered by
typical social trends such as marriage. Her story,
which we see in the flashbacks makes us more
sympathetic towards her. I am unsure if we are
more sympathetic due to the fact she is female as
we don’t seem to be as concerned when she
tortures her victim despite being taught violence
is wrong in any given situation. When male
Relates to Thelma and
Louise.
This film also challenges the
misogynistic view of females
in thrillers. Thelma and
Louise like our character
Maria shows the changing of attitude of the way females are
presented. All of these women are strong and independent.
We took inspiration from this film and based Marias attitude
the same way Thelma and Louise’s are portrayed.
perpetrators are violated and/or killed by feminist avengers,
what does their feminization mean? These characters
challenge our gendered assumptions about sex, trauma, and
vengeance, which can make audiences uncomfortable. This is
an aspect of your film which will make audiences
uncomfortable. The act of the girl putting on her head
phones indicates a lack of empathy which audiences
associate with male characters who seem to suffer little
trauma over the victims they have killed, eg James Bond.

3. Masculinity:
Again by making the female the dominant
character, this makes the male vulnerable which
you don’t tend to see in many media productions.
However, in the flashbacks we see The Man
aggressively wiping blood of Maria’s face. This is
similar to Kill Bill 1, where we typically see the male
being aggressive to the female.
By The Victim feeling emasculated by Maria being
such a strong character, it denies all generic ideas of
the male being the stronger sex. This is unusual in
particular action thrillers such as James bond films.
When male perpetrators are violated and/or killed
by feminist avengers, what does their feminization
mean? These characters challenge our gendered
assumptions about sex, trauma, and vengeance,
which can make audiences uncomfortable.
Bill
dominating
the bride in
Tarintino’s
‘Kill Bill Vol.
1’.
Relation to Norman Bates from ‘Psycho’.
This character is
similar to The Victim
as they both our
portrayed as normal
people when looking
at them but secretly
have a psychopathic
Also argue that Maria
Side to them. You could
is similar to this too.

4. Sexual ambiguity:
Our thriller doesn’t
represent gender equally.
Our production portrays
this very interestingly as
we constantly see the
power swap between each
gender throughout our
opening rather then having
one dominant character to
challenge stereotypes.
However, we see more
of our deviant femme
fetalle character Maria
making The Man
defenceless. This
challenges usual classic
conventions of thriller
victims.
Ethnicity
Both of our characters our white,
British. White British is an ethnic
group which dominates our TV and
film screens in British productions,
for example, The royals is an all
white main cast. In this sense our
film lacks any representation of the
diversity of contemporary Britain.
Addicted
The main cast of this African-
American thriller are Black due
to all being related to the main
character Zoe. This creates
realism between the family
members. However, including
other ethnic members of cast
may attract a larger audience.
isn’t linked in with the
plot.
However, I understand
the use of certain
ethnicities in some films
due to the context. For
example the main
characters in ‘12 years a
slave’ our African
America due to the plot
being based on
discrimination against
blacks in the 18th
century.
Is it relevant?
I don’t believe the ethnicity of the cast has any
relevance to the outcome of our thriller opening.
If we had of casted someone with a different
ethnicity it wouldn’t of effected anything as it

5. The representation of Youth
Our film included a Male and Female aged roughly between 17-20. This linked to
our target audience as it makes the production more relatable to people of that
age. The fear we see in the young women’s face whilst witnessing the flashbacks
our similar to how the current youth may feel in contemporary Britain when in
vulnerable situations like walking home in the dark. This could be because in todays
society the youth have grown up able to here about these awful situations on social
media and TV where people may have been attacked, raped or murdered in
vulnerable situations. This links in with our thriller conventions of the unknown,
who should we trust and allows the audience to try and connect the relationship
between the two characters. Also both of our characters inhabit an isolated world
which doesn’t seem to connect with reality. There is no sense of community but
instead this isolated reality is injected with violence, fear and revenge thus
represented contemporary Britain as predatory....much like the Essex Marshes
where Jason Locke dumps his hapless victim after throwing acid in his face.