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

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Stereotypically in action films, males are majority of the cast because it is more relatable for the audience who are mostly male. We followed this by having an all male cast to represent that men are seen as the dominant gender, even if I don't agree with that. Action films such as The Fast And The Furious use women to objectify them, and they don't play much of a role in the plot apart from the men having affairs with them. We couldn't find any woman who was prepared to play a role like this so in the early stages of writing our storyboard we took this idea out and left it as only being men represented in the opening. We also thought this would be better because it makes the characters seem stronger and more independent. 

This picture is from the Fast and Furious films and shows a distinct lack in strong female roles.

As well, Mitch and Pierce are meant to represent a younger age group of about 17-19, and so they probably wouldn't be hanging around lots of women as it's unlikely they're in a serious relationship, especially when there are cars involved and because of the type of characters they are. The characters are both working class students who have earned money through non-honest ways which, sadly, is becoming the norm for more and more teenagers in this modern day and age.

Different races are represented through our characters as Pierce is a black british student, and Mitch is white. This is to show different cultures and races in our opening, but this is mostly to show that race and colour doesn't matter, it's more about the personality and upbringing of the two students. By having two different races in our film, we wanted to send a subtle message to the audience that multi culture is becoming accepted and this is a good thing. We showed this as we made it clear that Mitch and Pierce are friends purely because of their similar age and gender and interests, not because of race. This was an important message for us to try and portray as we wanted to avoid racial stereotypes which are becoming more prominent in society. 

Stereotypes exist because this is what the media and society has told us to believe from an early age, so we end up judging people by the way they look/dress before we get to know them. We're trying to avoid these stereotypes because, as teenagers, we often get stereotyped into being loud and rowdy and uncivilised when this isn't true. So, for our film opening, we wanted to subtly challenge racial and gender and age stereotypes by making Mitch's character more out going and dangerous than Pierce's character, who is more laid-back - representing a mix of normal teenage characters. As well, we're trying to avoid the assumption that Mitch and Pierce got themselves into a bloodied and beaten up state just because they are some what reckless teenage boys, as the film opening hasn't shown them doing anything wrong yet.


Our technical choices also create a representation of the importance of the characters. The two shot that we used shows that the characters are equal, and this is repeated again at the end when they are in the car. However, Mitch tends to be centre framed in all the other shots we used, to represent that he is in fact the main character and who the audience should be focussing on. 

The voice over also shows this as it represents how the audience are aligned with Mitch, and shows that he has privileges as our main character yet the equal framing shows how both characters are important. There tend to be more one-shots and close ups of Mitch as well to show that he is more of a focus in the film, and to start to imply that he is the reason they are in this situation. This is backed up with what he says in the voiceover. This can also be implied through the high shot that we used at an angle, belittling Pierce but showing that he is still an important character  - it just emphasised Mitch more.

The first character that reminded me of one of our characters, Mitch, was Cook from the TV Series Skins. This series had the same aim as us to defeat stereotypes of social groups and represent the vulnerable side of teenagers and the struggles most of them have to go through, hence why they act in a certain why and why they are branded with a certain 'troublemaker' stereotype. From all the characters in the series, Cook reminded me of Mitch the most as they are both outgoing and are happy to be friends with anyone as long as they respect each other. They also look similar and despite only just being old enough, they both have tattoos on their left, and repeatedly appear beaten up and hurt. 

Despite physical appearances being similar, they also represent the vulnerable side of young adults and how easily and quickly they can get swept up in the real world. We never find out much about either of the characters home life, but the characters are similar in the fact that they have the same role as party animal and always being a little bit reckless and rallying people around them, so they are never alone. This is a typical trait for teenage boys as they want to grow up but are afraid of doing it by themselves, so the rely on their friends. This is another reason why our opening doesn't have any females in as we thought that the characters have other things to think about other than girls, such as growing up, cars and gambling (represented by the blood dripping on the cards). Mitch's character mirrors Cook's character as they both fit into the gritty British drama genre, meaning that their characters are quite hard hitting but realistic. This was a key aim whilst filming and planning our opening as we want the teenage audience to be able to relate, which means that everything we film has to be a real representation of what it's like for teenagers in modern society. Skins was also created for that reason and was incredibly successful because teenagers found it relatable and adults found it hard hitting and informative.

We chose to use this character to create some fun as Mitch is outgoing and a bit cheeky, which is always good fun to watch. However, because of his personality the audience can assume that he's going to get himself and Pierce into some kind of trouble, probably to do with the opening scene. This creates anticipation amongst the audience that will hopefully make them want to watch on. As the film progresses, we want to send a message that this is not the case, and hopefully this will help create the realisation amongst the audience that stereotyping isn't always true and certainly isn't right.