Evaluation 2

Evaluation 2 - How does your media product represent particular social groups

Question 1In our film, we have introduced four particular characters.

During pre-production of our project, we discussed who would be the appropriate character in our film. First, we had to think about the protagonist for our film. When discussing, we thought that our protagonist should be from a middle class as this will appeal to most of the teenagers. We wanted our protagonist to have curly hair and cast an actor who looks white. This is so that every teen drama has a protagonist who is white so that it appeals to mass audience.The protagonist is James. If we look at the picture, he is wearing a black hoodie, t shirt and a pair of jeans. From the costume, the audience can find out that he falls under working class/ lower class. This is because working class people are known for wearing hoodie and jeans.

This is a picture of Gabe Nevins in the paranoid park, he is the protagonist in the film. His hair is long and curly. Long hair implies that he does not care about his appearance or may not have money to have get a haircut. This implies that he is in middle class because if he was in upper class, he would have short and clean hair style. This is exactly how we wanted our character to look like and have similar effect on the audience. This represents typical teenager boys who are too lazy.

James

The Psychographic that our protagonist falls under is a person who has high interest in rollerblading. We decided to have the protagonist character played by a male because in contemporary teen drama the main protagonist are mainly played by girls. The representation of protagonist in our film should increase the film that have protagonist as played by the male character. Thorough using male character, we would

He is wearing black hoodie which gives him a skater look. From the hoodie, audience implies that he is a skater and falls under a social class of skater. This is exactly what we wanted our protagonist to wear so that audience can classify him as a skater. The colour black is associated with power and mystery as James and drug dealer need to hide their identity. This conveys that they are up to no good witch fits the theme of our film. Moreover, James is wearing dark depressing colour. These reflects teenagers are stereotypically represents their mood and feelings. The hoodies they wear gives mystery and imitating persona which gangs have as they represent social group that you would see in the street in real life.

The audience can also know that James is the outcast who has only few friends. This is evident when he skates in the empty skate park. Empty Park signifies that he is by himself, when usually Skate Park is meant to be buzzing place and filled with people.

There are many stereotypes presented in the teen drama. James is stereotyped as being a drug addict. This is shown by the choice of location which is Skate Park. Skate part connotes that most drug dealing is taken place at the skate park. Also, James is wearing a dark hoodie which may suggests to the viewers that he is drug user. Furthermore, James is shown as a strong character. It is evident when he pushed Ahmed to the floor.

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Location

From analysing, other teen movies we gain an understanding of modern cinema’s portrayal of the lower/middle class, as they are depicted living in their own world , consumed by a life of drugs, violence , and dishonesty.

Furthermore, He is hating his life due to the fact that he caught his girlfriend cheating on him. This is seen when James has a flashback and sees his girl with another guy. This leads him being depressed and unhappy, which is soon by the dark costume he is wearing.

From the setting, we know they go middle school. This is seen when James walks through the corridor. This signifies that they are young adult who spend most of their time in school where they face problems. Therefore, they are represented as students.

Location hood= drug, crimelondon= chavs, middle class/ lower class., violence, thug, unemployed, violent youth.

The girlfriend Middle classgold digger known for hooking up with rich guys cheater leather jacket

Max

The located is set in London. It can be seen with the skate park. London is associated with high unemployment, violent youth, chavs and high crime rate. This reflects on the plot of our opening sequence. For example, James is seen aggressive when he pushed max to the floor. This signifies that teenagers in London are more violence. We have chosen this to include this stereotype in our film because society believes it is the truth, also known as the preferred reading. Violence and aggression represent the teen in London.

Girlfriend

Max is an upper class teenager. This can be seen with the hipster costume such as, sweater, shirt, chinos and pairs of vans. This signifies that he can buy any branded and fashionable clothes because he comes from the upper class. The way he is dressed represents him as an upper class.

John Hughes’ 1986 film “Ferris Blueller’s day off” is a film that successfully portrays Max. In the film, Ferris is an upper class teenager who gets anything he wants. E.g. clothes, cars and even girls.

Rebecca is a middle class student. She is a gold digger, who hooks up with rich guys. This is seen when she is found flirting with one of the richest boy in the corridor, Max. This suggests that she is in middle class because she needs go out rich with guy to get what she wants. Furthermore, Rebecca is wearing black leather jacket which connotes that he is evil and danger. I think we have implied her as a threat by the use of costume. For example, Leather jacket are normally worn by bikers that are bad. Therefore, leather jacket signifies that she is the protagonist and a trouble maker.

However In films, girls are portrayed as weak and vulnerable. But, in our film we have portrayed Rebecca as a danger and evil. We have shown this through the dark black leather jacket she is wearing. It connotes that she is a bad and evil who will cause problems. Rebecca go against the representation as most teen drama have girls that are over protective of them self and they are not represented as negatively as shown in our film. Contemporary media representation rarely challenge values of society as they might not get positive feedback. The reason behind this is that if film represent the characters in a negative way, the audience may not watch the film.Furthermore, in film girls and boys are represented differently. For example, boys are seen as the trouble maker. Whereas girl are usually associated with the good behaviour. However, we have challenged the convention and shown that girls are more trouble marker than boys. This will differentiate our film from other competitors. Also, Rebecca is negatively represented because she comes from a working class family, which means she is only given little bit of pocket money, and therefore she has to hook up with guys to get what she wants.

In our media product we have separated our character through cliques. This is done by separating a group of people that have similar interest which is commonly found in high school setting. For example, we have represented James as a rollerblader. This signifies that he would hang out with people that has similar interest to his. Also, rollerblading are normally played at a skate park and this leads him interacting with other characters such as drug dealers. This is again shown in our media product when drug dealer extends his hand with packet of drug towards James. This represents social groups that have common interest are most likely to hang out together.

Our film has 3 male characters and only one female character. We have done this to signify that film are dominated by male characters as most film has significantly more male character than girls. This suggests that male more powerful. Therefore, male character are represented as dominant.

Drug dealer

I think we have represented teens in London well because London is a city that has people from different race and ethnicity. In our film we have casted people from different race, background, ethnicity and country. For example, we have drug dealer who has a background of Middle Eastern but born and raised in London. This connotes that London has different people from all over the world. The representation of this social group is shown as dangerous as film such as shifty has a character from Middle Eastern that works as a drug dealer. This only suggests that Middle Eastern people are mostly involved in drug compared to white people.

To find the costume that drug dealer would wear, we had to research by finding images on google. From the research we gathered that most drug dealer wear hoodie to hide their identity. Also. We found that they wear similar clothes like teenagers to blend in.We represented drug dealer as a nice person so that he can make James a Drug addict so that he can sell drugs to him when he gets addicted. Furthermore, we have presented them in a location such as Skate Park to imply that drug dealing mostly happens at park. Moreover, the drug dealer has his hood on when he approaches James. This signifies that he is not up to no good, which makes the audience think James must be aware of him, as he might do something bad.