Evaluation question 2

How does your media product represent particular social groups? Gender is stereotypically represented in our product as in most thrillers the female plays the innocent protagonist role which is the same in our production however in most thrillers they have a male antagonist which we however have selected a women to play. This convention is ironic for our audience and makes our audience more interested, wanting to watch our production to see how these roles plan out. In a thriller the typical stereotype for an antagonist would be an older, creepy looking woman, but in our film we went against that stereotype and chose a young female adult who died as a teenager. This would shock the audience and possibly change their views on the characters featured in our thriller, questioning why the girl (the protagonist) is getting haunted by someone her age. We have two different representations of females in our production; our protagonist represents a nervous, shy, vulnerable and weak female which is stereotypical of a conventional thriller. Whereas our antagonist represents a remorseless, strong and geared female concentrating on getting what she wants, which is our protagonist.

All the characters portrayed in our production are teenagers which again allow our target audience to easily relate to them and also display how characters around 16 years of age react in dramatic horrifying events like this. I have chosen to focus my comparison with our main character and protagonist Jessica with Maggie grace running from the film Taken. I chose to compare Jessica with Maggie as they both symbolise a scared, timid and nervous character. Their storylines are different however I believe there are certain similarities. Similarities:

In both pictures we can see that both characters are shocked, scared and in a panic to call someone to get help, unaware of whats going to happen to them. They look stranded with no way out. They are both stereotypical protagonists shown to look weak and easily intimidated to make it easy for the audience to tell who are the protagonist and antagonist. Both protagonists are of similar age, which immediately allows the audience to think that they are young and therefore vulnerable and harmless, emphasizing the protagonists role in the production; making the audience feel sympathy towards these characters and leading the audience wanting to find out what happens to these characters and what the antagonist will do to them. They both have similar goals which are to escape from the danger they are in, trying to sneakily get away making sure the antagonist doesnt notice or find them. We purposely made our protagonist look friendly and innocent to highlight her role in the production; allowing our target audience to relate to our protagonist and making them want to watch the whole production to see what happens to her just as Maggie is presented in Taken.

The protagonist in my production and Taken are both dressed in typical teenage outfits; Jessica being dressed in her school uniform and Maggie in a casual characteristic outfit again underlining their vulnerability and normality, making the audience warm to these characters as they look as though they need protecting and are weak; not being able to protect themselves. By wearing no make-up it makes the audience relate them to other young females; highlighting their age, who are inexperienced and therefore unaware of danger that could occur, underlining their susceptibility

One difference is the storylines and the reason behind why the antagonist wants to put the protagonist in danger in each film. In my production our antagonists wants to put our protagonist in danger as she had killed her and therefore she wants to haunt her for revenge however in Taken the antagonist has no valid reason and wants to put Maggie the protagonist in danger for his mere pleasure.