How does your media product represent particular social groups?

How does your media product represent

particular social groups?

Ethnicity

• From my research I found that Asian people especially from India and Pakistan are usually classed as ‘very smart and intelligent people’ who are mainly doctors, psychiatrist and lawyers. Therefore , bearing that in mind we decided to follow this convention and had an Asian psychiatrist who is Pakistani.

However, for the victim we also used an Asian girl which does not follow the conventions of a British film. This is because from my research I found out that usually in Hollywood films there is always a white female who is a victim or the hero in a film. For example, in The Rings the two white females play the role of victim. But in our film we have an Asian girl. Although, we did give our Asian actress a whit name which is Sarah Smith and to maintain her character as a white female even if she does not look like one.

ETHNICITY

Gender

• From my research I found that usually there is always a female who is a victim and a male is sometimes the villain, however, in the film The Rings I found that both females are a representation of victims and the villain is also a female. So in our film, we used two females to follow this idea and represented one as being powerful and the other as weak. Zara’s character Sarah is presented as weak, vulnerable and scared because she is the victim in the film who is socially segregated from society due to her lack of confidence. We showed this through the used of camera shots and dialogue. We used low angle shots and asked her to speak in a very low tone so it is clear to the audience that she is the victim. This is shown in the film The Rings where the victim starts to speak in a low voice when her friend is killed. The used of low angle is also used to show in a weaker position.

Gender• The psychiatrist’s character is

a female who takes up a role of a man. Usually, in psychological thrillers men are associated as the support for women but in our film we challenged this idea and gave Sanam’s character a strong personality. We did this through her body language. She is sat with her legs crosses and is smiling with a higher tone voice than Zara’s character, which shows her confidence.

Age • From my research I found that psychiatrists are

usually aged 25 and above who talk in a very mature manner. Therefore, for our film we made our character Sanam to look older by the use of glasses. As glasses are usually a connation of intelligence we used them to make our psychiatrist look older and intelligent. The way she speaks to Sarah in a soft voice and sits with her legs crossed to make her look mature.

Age • However, Zara’s character Sarah is

presented the opposite of the psychiatrist’s character. From my research I found that young people are usually associated with drugs, abuse and violence and those who are bullied are weak and less powerful. This is what we made our character Sarah look like; a girl that gets bullied and has no friends, she is socially outcast. But we used her costumes as way of letting the audience know that she is a young character. In our film, she is wearing a hoddie and skinny jeans which are a common clothing of the young female generation.