2) How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Our media product endorses stereotypes but parodies them, as because the lead woman is the typical ‘woman-next-door’ type she ends up getting snared in the trap of the lead protagonist, Nick.  However, the third character Rose is a deconstruction of female archetypes as instead of being submissive and harbouring idealistic feminine traits she’s ruthless and imposing this is prevalent through her usage of dialogue “Kill her, stab her”. Faye is dressed from head to toe in hyper feminine clothing alluding to stereotypes.  Although the opening sequence only contains Caucasian adolescents and gives hints that the characters are only heterosexual the full film would subvert and challenge these ideas by having a multi-diverse cast.

Due to limiting factors such as the story, as well as the group of people who I was elected to work with we were not able to construct a valid representation of minorities. Young people, in this case Faye, are represented as being free spirited and reckless. This is highlighted by her excitement from meeting a guy for the first time offhand despite only talking to him through the Internet. This is a highly dangerous and risky thing to do yet despite this she still goes through with it by notions of ‘romance happening’ as young people are typically portrayed as being reckless for love. This is shown through the body language and expressions in Faye’s face as she smiles and the long shot of her walking to the café in excitement.

On the other hand, Nick is portrayed negatively and shows parallels to the adolescent male. In media, young men are seen as being sociable, hanging around in big crowds and again, being reckless. However, Nick subverts this as he’s the ideal face of an introvert and faces many terrifying ordeals such as his mental illness, Schizophrenia. Mentally ill people are seen as crazy, loose-cannon balls and Nick fits this cookie-cutter archetype, this is to fuel the plot as his illness and delusions is partly a cause for his actions. However this does not condone or justify them in anyway, the audience feels pathos for him.

Whilst the female to male ratio of cast involved is higher, the male dominates the majority of screentime. This creates a basic representation of sex as women are usually dormant and seen as background figures.