The film "The Visitor" represents various social groups in non-traditional ways: 1. The middle-class family is shown to contradict class expectations, with the mother dressed in working-class clothes and the house not immediately revealing their wealth. 2. The mixed-race family and Black au pair subvert ideas of certain ethnic groups typically belonging to certain classes. 3. Gender roles are less emphasized, with the mother shown as equally providing for the family as the absent father would. The antagonist is also female rather than typically male.

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

2. CLASS‘The Visitor’ is set in a middle class house which immediately reveals that the main characters are quite well-off and comfortable in their economic state. The only characters present on screen in the opening two minutes of our film are the mother, the child minder and the son but it is not until the end of the two minutes that it becomes clear who the middle class members of society are. Moreover, the mother (and owner of the house) is firstly depicted in clothes that would originally interpret ideologies around a working class individual. She is seen to be dressed in all black with a normal long black coat and boots, not giving away the wealth that she actually has. Secondly, the child minder is only seen within the house in the opening two minutes. She looks very comfortable as if she has lived there for many years which may immediately suggest to the audience that she is earning good income and therefore coming from a middle class background. The clothes she is identified in are also quite formal, for a teenager, being dressed in a flowery high collared top and a black skirt. However, it is not until later in the film that it is revealed that she is in fact only an au pair who is working for the family.

3. classAs ‘The Visitor’ has many twists, we wanted to make the characters be presented on screen for the first time in clothes and a setting that contradicted their actual class. This added another twist to the film, which would make the audience question which characters have a higher authority and status. Mother Dressed in ‘Typical’ Working Class ClothesThe Middle Class House

4. ethnicityThe family in ‘The Visitor’ are of a mixed race ethnic group and the au pair comes from a black ethnic background. Clearly, and as spoken about in relation to class, the mother and son are quite well off. This idea subverts the traditional ethnic ideologies that those individuals from a white ethnic background tend to be middle class and those from the working class tend to be from ethnic minority groups. We decided to subvert this idea so that our film did not follow all typical conventions of direct social group ideologies. Also, as our film is a thriller consisting of many unexpected subversions, we thought that having a middle class family from a mixed ethnic background would make the story more adaptable. Child From a Mixed Race BackgroundAu Pair From a Black Ethnic Background

5. genderOur Antagonist - FemaleLooking at gender as a social group, the main characters all symbolise themselves individually without gender taking a major effect. For example, the mother simply comes home and states her character within the opening two minutes. In a middle class family, which we portray throughout ‘The Visitor’, the father tends to be the breadwinner of the family initiating the majority of the income. However, the synopsis of our film claims that both the mother and father are extremely hard workers and therefore the work is split through joint or symmetrical roles. Through this idea, we represent the mother as being hard working and providing for her family just as much as the male figure. Saying this, the male father is not present in the opening two minutes of our film which the audience may interpret as being due to work commitment.Secondly, in subversion to traditional thriller films where the stereotypical ‘baddie’ is male, our antagonist is played by a female actress. We wanted to change the gender role in this specific case so that the film conveys a more real understanding indicating that any gender can cause and bring harm onto a family.