Question 2

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

In my group's media product, there are two different types of social groups that we have decided to represent.

One of these social groups are heterosexual adolescent white females who are middle-class and are able-minded as well as able-bodied. All of these social groups are represented through the characters of Demi and Megan, the vulnerable duo of teenage girls seen in the opening sequence of my group's media product. One specific social group that my group decided to represent were teenagers. Teenagers are generally perceived to be care-free and prone to danger, thus making them perfect victims of a horror product. Also, teenagers are believed to spend a large amount of time on social networking websites (such as Facebook and Twitter), and my group wanted to represent how that has the ability to take their life away from them. As teenagers are prone to danger, this makes them vulnerable. We highlighted the vulnerability of Megan and Demi through a mixture of cross-cuts, that indicated to the audience that something major would transpire to them both, as well as simultaneously featuring close-ups, to show how they are doing when alone and more vulnerable than ever. The addition of an eerie non-diegetic score helps in indicating that something bad will happen to Demi and Megan, which not only showcases their vulnerability, but also shows that they are in grave danger.

These are the type of girls who our film appeals to. The film features adolescent female characters in the beginning, whom these girls and other heterosexual, able-bodied and able-minded girls can relate to. My group made sure that Demi and Megan would portray teenage girls in a way that could represent adolescent females without making that portrayal negative.

Whilst being heterosexual, able-minded and able-bodied like Demi and Megan, my group wanted to take the character of the antagonist of the film in a different direction. The gender of the antagonist is a male. His ethnicity, age and social class will remain unknown to the audience until the end of the film, when the antagonist's identity is revealed to them. The reasoning behind keeping certain aspects of his social group hidden is to keep a sense of mystery, so the audience will remain anticipated to eventually see who the antagonist of the film is. As the antagonist of my group's media product is a serial killer, he will represent criminals. Cinematography is used once or twice to show the presence of the antagonist. The shots that do show him are mid-shots that feature the back of him, so no clues are given to the audience and they will continue to make assumptions on who they think the antagonist is from the shots that feature him in the opening sequence. When Demi dies towards the end of the opening sequence, it is clear to the audience that she has been murdered by the antagonist. However, they only see Demi falling to the floor rather than seeing the antagonist that killed her. This shows that the antagonist is smart for remaining hidden, as well as being cold and calculated for coming up with a strategy to kill Demi whilst keeping his identity unknown.