The document discusses how a media product represents social groups. It describes focusing on a single female character between 18-24 years old to create an eerie atmosphere in a thriller opening. The character, Bekka, is portrayed as independent, strong, and mature through her dark clothing, living alone, and handling a house purchase on her own. This challenges stereotypes of females being weak, dependent, or needing male guidance. The character is also described as white and middle-class based on her house, though her race and class are not meant to be a focus of the thriller. The document suggests the media product would appeal to its target 18-30 year old audience through its mature psychological thriller elements and representation of everyday life.

1. How does your media product represent particular social groups?
As a group we decided that the thriller opening would only have one character within the
scenes to create a more eerie vibe and also a vulnerable appearance, however we used a female
character as the lead role, enhanced with dark clothing, which made her seem very
independent and strong. Her age is around the age of 19-22 which is still very young, which
allows the audience to feel a little worried for her character due to her age. She represents that
young adulthood group, but it is juxtaposed by her being very independent and strong minded
due to her buying and moving into a house on her own.

2. Gender and Age
We used Bekka as the main character, as we wanted to portray a
more mature young adult, we felt that bekka looked a little more
mature with her looks and we felt that she would be able to portray
this. Within our thriller opening we represented gender as a single
female character around the age of 18-24. we shows her being very
independent and strong minded through her clothing, props and
setting, of her moving into her own house and also doing it all on her
own with no help from a male figure. I think that we decided to do
this as we wanted a strong character who wasn’t stereotyped to be a
male. Although we were inspired by the film Sinister, we took the family moving into a house
and turned the main character from male to female, I felt that this gave the thriller opening
more interest as it is not normally seen. Females are seen to be weak, dependant, sexual and
distresses. It is meant to be the males that are the heroes, however we wanted to come away
from this stereotype and present something new to the thriller theme. I think that it has given
the opening more interest and if we were to turn it into a real film, it would keep the audience
hooked, as a natural instinct is to worry for the female victim, however I think the would be
wanting to see what happens to her and if she is strong enough to survive on her own, without
the male figure guiding her through it.

3. Race

4. Class and Race
The main character is of a middle, working class woman, we see, through the size and state of
the house that she is financially stable, which again subverts to the stereotype that the male is
normally the breadwinner, but she is seen to be moving in to her own house on her own. I think
that due to her being White British, it is stereotyped that these are better off the a black person,
however this is not what we were tying to convey to our audience, we wanted to stick to the
theme of a thriller and not draw attention to her race or class. It is normally seen that a woman
is quite weak and due to her race we see that she does become scared very easily, we see this in
the heavy breathing section of the thriller opening. This allows the audience to start thinking
that she is very vulnerable and will not survive without the help of another female or male.
White British
Big house,
suggests wealth.

5. Overall our thriller links to our target audience as we have tried to base the age, gender, race
and social class of the character around the age and social class of the our target audience. I
think that it is a thriller that 18-30 year olds would watch, due to the matureness and also
psychological aspects of the thriller. I also think that audiences of her wealth, everyday working
citizens would be a little interested in, it shows everyday life, but challenges a few of the
stereotypical relations to woman and also working class citizens. I think that due to the
psychological side of the thriller opening, it would be a little boring for anyone under the age of
18, but they would be watching it due to their own interests, and also people over the age of 30,
I don’t think would be interested with it, however again it is to their own interests and could
watch if they were.