Shannon Fowkes

Representation In My Production

Gender:

Protagonist Only male

Having a female protagonist breaks gender expectations within the dystopian genre as women are typically viewed to be weak and vulnerable. Fortunately, female protagonists are not always viewed as vulnerable due to The Hunger Games and Divergent trilogies. Making the protagonist lonely subverts the theory that women are only portrayed as part of a context. Also, Aurora being able to see her friends that are no longer around implies that she is emotional as she is focusing on her past instead of how she is going to survive. The protagonist is physically higher than the rest of the characters, which connotes power and importance. The next highest character is the only male character. This implies power and importance, which reinforces the dominant ideology that men are more powerful than women.

No makeup Untidy hair

Having our female protagonist wear no makeup and have untidy hair subverts the dominant ideology that women only care about their appearance and that they are only used for the male gaze.

Masculine clothing:• Ripped• Baggy• Dull• Layered• Big boots

Our protagonist is not wearing ‘feminine’ clothing, which makes her appear more masculine. This implies that she can only survive the dystopian world if she acts more masculine. This is reinforced by her non diegetic voice over where she says “there’s no time for weakness” as women are stereotypically viewed as being weak.

Ethnicity:

The majority of our cast are Caucasian and we only have one ethnic minority. This suggests that the minority is a token character as they do not play a significant role in the narrative and are rarely on screen. This creates the illusion of equal diversity. This character is also marginalised in this shot as he is nearly out of the shot, which implies that he is not as important as the other characters. However, this character is also leading the conversation, which add to his importance. This links to tokenism as it appears that we are trying to add value to the character.

Neither of the ethnicities shown on screen are represented in a negative way. This contributes to Caucasians dominating main roles.

Age:This shot is used when the voice over starts. The non diegetic sound is monotone and slightly cynical. This voice over includes cynical sentences like: “Everyone was so concerned with how they looked” “No time for weakness” “I just exist now. Exist, run and hide.”This portrays the protagonist as a stereotypical moody/cynical teenager. They setting is also typical for troubled teenagers. Troubled teens are usually seen in an abandoned, run down area. However, this is a dystopian film, which implies that they cannot escape this run down area, meaning they cannot escape their trouble.

The friends are wearing typical teenage clothing, which mostly consists of black. This reinforces the hegemonic idea that all teenagers are troubled as black has a lot of negative connotations. They are also laughing and having a conversation in this scene. Their movements make it obvious this conversation was loud, which reinforces the stereotype that teens are rowdy.