How does your media product represent particular social groups?Evaluation Question 2

Rachel and Suzanne MoorsRachel is a protagonist in the supernatural horror film, ‘The Ring’ and has many similarities to the stock character Suzanne Moors in our supernatural horror film opening. They also have differences, the main being that they play different character roles.

Similarities● Both of these characters

wear black costumes, Suzanne a black dress and Rachel a black coat. These are also smart and suggest professionalism and in both films are indeed shown working; Rachel being a reporter and Susanne an estate agent. This immediately establishes that these characters have power and wealth subverting the archetype of women.

● Both characters have their hair down and wear make up (although to create a natural effect) which suggests that they do care about their appearance and have a strong work ethic which represents the middle class.

● Both of these characters represent the social group of middle class. This is shown by the use of mise en scene particularly their costume as mentioned in the point on the left.

Differences

● The main difference between these two characters is their role in the film. Rachel has the role of a protagonist in ‘The Ring’ where she is harassed by a supernatural being and seeks to investigate what/why/how this being has come about.

● Susanne on the other hand is a stock character in our film opening and does not have a role throughout the whole film. She is the character that almost ‘triggers’ the remaining narrative of the film. An example of this is shown in the next slide where i have embedded a film opening that does a similar thing.

● Another difference between these two characters is that Susanne simply stumbles accross the supernatural being and unfortunately dies whereas Rachel investigates by her own will to know about the supernatural being.

Stock Character Role SimilarityAs I said before, Susanne’s role is to ‘trigger’ the film narrative, to get it started. This clip from ‘The Ring’ is the opening scene and uses the sort of technique that we wanted to achieve.

The AntagonistsThe character on the left is the antagonist in ‘The Ring’ and the character on the right is the antagonist in our supernatural horror opening. These characters both have similarities and differences.

Similarities● These characters are

both antagonists and therefore do not represent a social group as they are unknown and in this case supernatural beings.

● These characters’ mise en scene, costume wise, are the same. They both wear long white dresses. These characters are both children and so these long dresses are stereotypical of young innocent females but this subverts the idea of these characters being antagonists particularly Wilhelmina as her long blonde hair increases that reading of innocence.

● These characters being supernatural beings/antagonists both play the same role as haunting humans as a result of some sort of grief or incident that had happened in the past.

Differences ● Although these characters both have similar costumes, their hair style is key in creating a more scary effect. Samara’s hair is black and styled down and over her entire face whereas Wilhelmina’s isn’t. This makes Samara’s appearance more creepy and makes the audience read her correctly as a supernatural being/antagonist.

● A difference between these two characters is the way in which they are revealed to the audience. Samara is only completely revealed at the end of the film whereas Wilhelmina is revealed at the very beginning, in our opening.

ConclusionTo conclude, although we only had two characters in our film opening, they both play important roles. My character represents the social group, middle class and professionalism while Wilhelmina represents antagonists particularly supernatural beings. With my examples that I have used from ‘The Ring’ I have shown the differences and similarities between them and the characters in our opening film, showing the archetypal/stereotypical codes that they do/do not follow.