Evaluation Question 2: Representations

This is my vodcast answer to question 2: "How does your media product represent particular social groups?"

Transcript:

Our film starred teenage actors and the characters were also teenagers. Teenage main characters are very typical of a slasher film. Most of our characters were stereotypes, which again is an accurate representation of this genre.

We had two scream queens in our movie opening. The first scream queen was a stereotype. She was the girl in the film within a film. The costume was revealing and included wearing makeup. We used specific shots to make the character look vulnerable, such as when she screams the camera is looking down on her and this makes her look weak. We also had a shot of the character running away from the killer, where she looked very small in the distance and the killer filled a large portion of the screen. This again makes the character look weak. This is a stereotype of the teenage girl scream queen as they are often represented as weak, vulnerable, stupid, and naïve.

The second scream queen was also a stereotype. She had a revealing costume on which was pink. Pink shows that the girl is still young and therefore naïve. We reinforced this by having a pink bedroom with pink bedding that we chose specifically for the setting. We cast a girl with long blonde hair. This is a stereotype of teenage girl, and blonde hair is often linked to being dumb and ditzy.

The boyfriend is also a stereotype. Although not much is revealed about him, we can see that he is wearing ‘typical’ teenage boy clothing. We did this so that the couple would seem like the average couple of a cheerleader and a jock stereotype typically seen in the horror genre.

The first killer in the film within a film was also a stereotype. His costume was completely black including a balaclava style mask. The darkness of the outfit contrasts to the blonde hair of the first scream queen, showing them subconsciously as good vs evil, and therefore binary opposites. We chose specific shots, such as very close cropped sections which makes the audience uncomfortable. Also there was a shot as the killer swung his hammer where the camera looked up at him, making him look powerful. We used a specific jingle of music when he appeared to make the audience recognise the killer. We chose to cast a boy as this is stereotypical of a slasher film. It is very rare that we see a female killer. Seen as though all of the things we did was very stereotypical of a slasher film, we decided to have the killer use a hammer rather than a knife the murder the girl. We thought this would make him stand out from other killers.

The second killer was again a stereotype, however he was a more stereotype to the slasher genre rather than generic horror which the previous killer could be applied to. This is because the killer wears a old man mask and is seen as mentally deranged. He uses a knife to kill the boyfriend. This is stereotypical of the genre and can particularly link back to Scream, as they also use a knife to murder the boyfriend Steve.

Overall, our movie opening was very stereotypical of the genre. We thought sticking to stereotypes was a good idea because it followed a strict line with regards to how the characters acted and what they were like. This made it easier for us because we had lots of examples to draw ideas and notes from.