Q2 evaluation

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

By Aaron Gemmell

Within our production, both my production team and myself chose to make our production relatable to our target audience by presenting our characters as a similar social background to that of our target audience. Within our production this social group would be lower-middle/working class. We made our characters stereotypical to this social group, an example of when we did this was with the characters Amy and Sean, they were both young adults and wore clothing and had a setting around them which could be commonly associated to that of this social group. I have chosen to analyse how we achieved this in our production and what over production have done similar and got the same results.

Introduction

The character Amy was played by Sarah Taylor-Warner is a middle-class female character who is still in higher education. The idea of a conventional ‘Damsel in distress’ was challenged within our opening sequence, we instead made Amy seem more independent and yet out of her depth, and being forced to go into things which ordinarily she would never want any part of. This portrayal of being forced to do something she ordinarily wouldn’t do in the situation is presented by other films as well such as ‘The Hole (2001)’ in this film, Liz Dunn, played by Thora Birch, is forced by the circumstances she is put into to do things she ordinarily would never do, and she was an ordinary member of society before these event unfolded.

Amy

Comparison to ‘The Hole (2001)’

The character Amy however is a little different to Liz, purely in the respect that Amy dies within the opening sequence of the film, this challenges the idea of the damsel in distress being the reward.

Both of these characters present a middle class and fairly well off upbringing through their clothing and fashion sense. They both seem fairly cultured and somewhat sophisticated, which shows they have had a good education and could not be considered ‘dumb’ this further illustrate their middle-class upbringing. However Liz Dunn is different in some ways as she is slightly crazy, however this may be due to the narrative as oppose to her.

These characters both share a similar age of around 15 to 17 and they both seem to have problems which they suffer from which does not appear so on the surface of their characters and they appear to have different motives. Amy is trying to survive, with the constant threat of the mastermind always in the back of her mind while Hayley is in some ways the antagonist who inflicts sadistic violence upon others. This is a good example of challenging stereotypes and conventions within Hard Candy and shows that our production would be more relatable, but not as original.

Their clothing is also quite different as well with rebellion being more apparent with Hayley while Amy’s conformity is shown more clearly through her choice of clothing. This is seen clearly as Hayley wears a hoodie, commonly associated with rebellious behaviour while Amy wears more typical and fashionable clothing.

Comparison to Hayley Stark in hard candy

The character Sean was played by myself and is a lower-middle class male character who lives by himself. The stereotypical idea that the social group of young adult tend to live by themselves and be fairly into fashion and looks is portrayed by the character Sean. This is because it is clear that he does not live with anyone from the production and the fact that he has some fashionable clothes, and styled hair suggests he is somewhat fashion conscious. This is commonly associated with young adults as they are out trying to make themselves something in the world and so want to be fairly presentable and smart. Also Sean’s laid back mannerisms and typical of those of a male young adult, this is shown by the fact Sean is watching sports in the first scene which is a fairly common activity young males partake in.

Sean

Comparison to ‘Taken’ Both of these characters are male protagonists,

and represent how males are presented within the Thriller Genre. Both of the characters follow a narrative of seeking revenge and justice for wrongs done against them, for example Liam Neeson is seeking revenge against the men who kidnapped his daughter and Sean played by myself is seeking revenge for the murder of his girlfriend, Amy.

Through the comparison of Amy to other similar female protagonists within other thriller genre products, I can determine that Amy, although she demonstrates some stereotypical middle-class and female attribute, the short time which she is featured within the opening sequence does not allow for a vast creation of her character and so stronger stereotypes are limited by this. Amy is however stereotypical as she has many aspects which a stereotypical teenage girl may have, such as a boyfriend and fashion sense which will help the target audience to relate to her more closely as she fits into some stereotypes.

However, in my opinion I believe that in our production we have accurately presented both the middle-class social group and the male social group, this is useful as it helps us to relate to our target audience of lower middle-class males, who are predominately in their teens. This will have a positive effect as it helps our target audience to relate to the production and will make it more enjoyable for them to view. When showing these social groups we made them fairly stereotypical through clothing, mannerisms and setting, for example Sean’s house was one in which a middle class person may live. As well as Sean acting very much like a male may be expected to which will help the viewer to relate to him and root for his success.

Conclusion