The document discusses how the media product represents various social groups and stereotypes through the characters in a 1940s film noir. The femme fatale character, a beautiful white woman, is represented as mysterious, violent and the murderer. The detective character, a young black man, is represented as drunk. Locations like the pathway and messy office show the detective's lifestyle. The femme fatale is in her 40s and dressed classily, while the younger detective wears a casual shirt. Racism against black detectives in 1940s society is also represented. The femme fatale violates expectations by being the violent character instead of the detective.

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

2. Representations.

3. How did we represent: gender
Female - mysterious, violent, murderer,
beautiful lady.
Male - detective, drunk, black.
So, in our Film Noir we chose to make the Femme Fetale the killer. She has that beautiful look and outfit on, just as you would expect
because the stereotype is that women look after themselves and are beautiful. However, we decided to make a twist and have her kill
off the detective. We represented her as the murderer of the detective. She’s quite violent in the way that she kills him off with a bomb.
She takes it out of her glamorous bag, showing that she is quite mysterious and doesn’t make it obvious for anybody.
On the other side, the detective, is black. We decided to do this because at the time that this film is set, it wouldn’t have been
acceptable for a black person to be a detective. Of course, we are not racist, but we are representing the male actor in this way as he
would be in the 1940s. If you look at the screenshot on the image, you can tell that he has been drinking as he wakes up, still holding
his glass, which is by now empty, and there’s also a bottle of alcohol places right next to him which indicates that he was drunk, which
for a black detector, also would have not been tolerated. Because the actor is black, that is the reason for him being killed off right at
the beginning of the film.

4. How did we represent: Locations
The pathway.
The office.
As the credits roll through, the femme fetale is walking on a pathway, it’s quite a simple location yet has a very mysterious look. This is
because it’s represented as very bleak, yet we are not showing where is she going, what location she is at exactly. All we see is a
concrete path.
Another location includes the office. We represented it as quite distressed, as you can see from the ripped wallpapers and the messy
table, filled with paperwork. We decided to do this because it also links to the Detective’s life. Other than that, the office is slightly lit from
the window, meaning that the street light is shining through the blinds. An office is usually quite neat and tidy, whereas here, it’s not. This
is because we wanted the audience to be able to tell what the detective is like, before we actually see him.

5. How did we represent: age
Femme Fetale - 40s
Detective - Quite young
Here, there’s quite an age gap between the two people. The femme fetale, is quite old compared to the Detective, we represented this
through the way that she was dressed. She is wearing a knee length dress which would have been more acceptable for a lady her age.
She’s wearing high heels, which are not too high. This would show that she is classy, yet still wants to be quite comfortable.
The Detective, is pretty young. We represented this, also through his outfit. He’s wearing a checkered shirt, not a plain white top which
you would have seen on a Detective around the age of 40. This shows that he’s not very serious, because he still wants to look quite
fashionable and nice.

6. How did we represent : Class & Status
Femme Fetale - Classy, quite high in the Socio Economic Group.
Detective - Also quite high in the Socio Economic Group.
The Femme Fetale is represented as very classy and sophisticated in this Film Noir. We represent this through her facial expressions, her
walk, her outfit and also her gestures, body language. She seems extremely confident and trustworthy of herself as she disposes of the
bomb in the cabinet. She is shown as not at all scared through her facial expressions, especially when she turns around and laughs at the
Detective, almost mocking him because she knows he’s about to die. We can see she’s quite rich and classy because her outfit is very
sleek, she’s wearing a knee length dress which is quite tight around her body and she also has a black handbag which compliments her
dress and makes the outfit look quite rich. Also, she’s wearing high heels which are obviously quite expensive and you would expect a
lady in the 1940s to be wearing heels if she was quite wealthy.
The Detective, he is also quite high in the Socio Economic Group. He obviously has a high role, as being a detective was quite an
important job to have in the 1940s. He has been drinking alcohol which would have been reasonably expensive which would mean that he
earned quite a lot of money to be wasting it on alcoholic beverages.

7. How did we represent: ethnicity
Femme Fetale - White
Detective - Black
The femme fetale is an American white lady. We chose to do this because she would have been quite racist towards the Black
Detective as this was unacepptable in the 1940s, to have a black detective.

8. Society

9. How did we represent ‘people’ in the world of our
film?The Femme Fetale is represented as violent.
Whereas the detective is represented as a ‘fool’, manipulative and gullible.
In our Film Noir, we decided to represent the femme fetale as quite a violent lady. There is quite a twist on both of the roles in these two
genders, as usually it would be the other way round. However, we decided to swap it just to see how it would turn out and to challenge
the stereotypes. So, as mentioned, the femme fetale is quite violent. She kills off the detective right at the beginning which quite
obviously shows that she is cruel and heartless.
The Detective on the other side, is represented as a gullible person as he doesn’t hear the lady come in, he only wakes up when he
hears the door shut. He is also manipulative because he is being mocked as he is killed off right at the beginning, meaning that he
wasn’t wanted in the world as a human being, again, because he is black.

10. Stereotypes

11. Stereotypes
The main stereotypes were the femme
fetale being a female
and the detective being a male.
The stereotypes in our opening sequence of the Film Noir were quite basic and simple, we didn’t want to change too much therefore
we kept it as you would usually expect it to. The Femme Fetale is a beautiful lady. The Stereotype is that she would be well dressed,
wearing make up which looks beautiful and period style hair. We did all those just to show how glamorous she is and to highlight her
confidence.
The detective, is male. Just as you would expect it to be because female detectives aren’t really popular and never were, as they would
be expected to do a bad job. He is also wearing a button up shirt, looking neat. Another thing, for a male it is quite stereotypical for
them to be getting intoxicated a lot more than women, which we show here in the screenshot by having the empty glass and bottle of
alcohol on the desk.