HOW DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT REPRESENT PARTICULAR SOCIAL GROUPS?

Question Two.

In our thriller opening we used two teenage girls as the main characters throughout and the narrative of our story-line revolves around them. They are dressed in regular clothes (one character is wearing a dress with black tights and the other is wearing jeans and a jumper). We aimed to keep the characters very basic and simple, what you would expect a large amount of the teenage population to be, so they are able to relate to people in normal society. Our location was just in a family home, where you expect two teenage girls to hang out, this was to again create a sense of normality and it is what the audience would expect.

The message that we are trying to get across to our audience is that the horror experience of ‘Bloody Mary’ could happen to them, through the use of ‘normal’ people playing the leading roles. It can interest them to watch the film as they can feel involved and a part of the story we have told. The way our characters are presented is so the audience can feel as though they relate to reality and that they are ‘so normal’ that anybody can fall victim of a paranormal experience.

Representation of women

The stereotypes that we have identified is deciding to use two female characters as the leading roles. The reasons behind this both support and challenge the stereotype. We used girls because they can be seen as weak in the media and very vulnerable, therefore it would be easy for them to become of victim of Bloody Mary. However, it challenges this stereotype as the girls are able to overcome the curse of Bloody Mary and it ends with one of the characters waking up after experiencing the footage shown to you before as a dream. This shows that girls are not weak are able to come out as the stronger character.

Representation of young people

The way that we have represented young people in our thriller shows that they are vulnerable yet believe to be very strong. This is a stereotype that is constantly used in the media. Our characters are being taunted and controlled by the demon of Bloody Mary which shows their vulnerability however, their decision to carry out the tale of Bloody Mary in the mirror shows their slight confidence to be strong characters. A young person never wants to be told they are not strong or independent.