Jonah - Evaluation Question 2

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

In my thriller we are introduced too three characters, two female and one male. We have the iconic female victim and the strong evil man but we also have an equilibrium to the characters with the second female character who is shown in a slightly more modern fashion.

Gender

• In my thriller gender is represented very traditionally as the female character who gets killed is over powered by the male character and defenseless to help herself. The second female character who is getting ready for the day ahead is represented slightly less traditionally, although this character doesn't take an active role in the opening so its hard to analysis this character in terms of gender.   
• The iconic female victim is first shown being thrown into the back of a car, defenselessly unconscious, which in modern times is a negative representation as a positive one would have the woman putting up a good fight. The antagonistic male character is shown throughout taking control and having power over this woman, we showed this using camera work, such as POV shots like the one shown above. This is a POV of the male character looking DOWN at the female character which shows he has dominance over this female character, this being a negative representation of women.  

Social class

• From the costume of the male antagonist its clear to see he must be a business man of some kind, his car is not old and it is clean. The second female character who is getting ready in the morning is in a middle class house, with nice furniture and processions. The main female character, who gets killed, doesn't really represent social class as she is not a main character.
• I choose the male to be the antagonist as it is more mainstream and follows traditional conventions of thriller. Having the male as the antagonist was more of an obvious choice as men are usually represented as the stronger gender and as the "Bad guy". 
• Using the red tie on the antagonist may send a very subliminal message to the audience of it resembling blood, which matches his character role as he murders the women. 
• Representing the male as a antagonist is widely used but is a negative representation, because of this using a male to play the antagonist was an obvious choice. 

Age

• The male antagonist is middle aged and the audience knows this from the clothes he is wearing, casual business clothes. The main female character, getting ready in the morning was supposed to be middle ages too as she was getting ready to go for a job interview, although this didn't show on screen. Because of the main characters being middle aged the thriller represents middle aged people only. The male antagonist is represented as a middle aged murderer which follows more modern thriller conventions such the antagonist The Joker from The Dark Knight.



[Antagonist, The Joker] 

• I tried to represent the female character, who gets killed, in a very traditional way of being defenseless and fragile to help herself against the dominating male antagonist. I did this because it is easier for the audience to follow, and without an elaborate story, plot and character depth, its hard to break traditional thriller conventions and make it work.