QUESTION 2: HOW DOES YOUR

MEDIA PRODUCT REPRESENT PARTICULAR

SOCIAL GROUPS?

GENDER - FEMALEThis is the only female character in the whole opening sequence so her portrayal of females is very important. She is a white, and young adolescent with blonde hair. Blondes in thriller films are usually stereotyped for their innocence, such as in Along Came a Spider, Megan who is kidnapped, is blonde, and wears no makeup, which could be argued as showing her purity and vulnerability.There are some stereotypes of our protagonist, as she has bright pink nails. This is due to the fact that she’s stereotyped as a very “girly girl”, because she is also wearing a considerable amount of makeup. There are also stereotyped as a typical teenager, as she flicks casually through a magazine and is also watching the television, and also seems very laid back due to her posture being very slouched. This to the audience, would seem quite alarming, as to why somebody would want to kidnap her, because as of yet the audience have not been given any reason why she would be the target of a kidnap.We chose to use a female of this age because thriller and horror films tend to use young girls as the “princess” in them.

GENDER - MALEPortraying gender of males in our opening sequence was very different because our male’s face, as the villain isn’t shown. This, along with the fact lighting is very dark adds a very sinister feel to this character. We understand he is a male, due to the fact that the audience will be under an assumption the stalker of a teenage girl is more than likely to be male, plus, the car the male is pictured in, it would be assumed to be driven by a man. The male is pictured in a dark hooded coat, black typically having negative connotations such as danger, death.

The stereotype we have created for this male makes him seem quite creepy, and having an unstable state of mind, due to the fact he is sitting in his car with lots of pictures of this female, and watching her on his computer. Plus, in the car we can see bottle of alcohol, tablets, and a lighter, so we can understand the sort of life he leads. The likes of Jack Torrance in The Shining is also seen as alcohol dependent, and whilst this isn’t explicitly indicated in the opening sequence, we can understand through the fact he carries it around such vices are very prominent in his life.

AGE

Age in our opening sequence is important because the protagonist, Heather, is the same age as our target audience, of 15-24 year olds, so she fits into this demographic. Heather’s age is indicated through her clothing, a lose jumper and jeans, she is not dressed in a school uniform which gives the audience that she either 16 years or older.

The age of the male character is unknown to the audience, because due to the suspicious nature of the character we have tried to conveyed, his age is not seen. We understand that the male is white, and of a slim build, and due to his quick actions when grabbing Heather this indicates he is young rather than older.