Evaluation - Question Two

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

My thriller opening represents an average teenage social group with a twist. The characters and situations in the thriller can demonstrate how family trouble can lead to disasters. I have 3 characters in my thriller production. Cameron, Grace and Harmony.

Cameron is the main antagonist in the product but remains to struggle with right and wrong. In my thriller opening 'Disturbia' Cameron is represented as a teenage boy struggling to deal with his emotions and mental illness. The majority of teenagers at Cameron's age go through several physiological illnesses such as depression and anxiety. The use of mise-en-scene specifically, Cameron's costume remains to be all in white when he appears innocent. When his other side is present he wears all darker colours such as grey and back. This was included to show a clear representation of how teenagers can typical switch quickly, due to hormones and stress. One moment they may be happy and in a pleasant mood. The next very dark and frustrated. Cameron remains to have the same stereotypical features of a teenager due to his very closed attitude. His body language is actually very isolated and he always appears very stiff, with no interaction with other people such as family. This is often how teenagers are stereotypically received. Which is convenient as our target audience may relate to his struggles and see our thriller film as some disturbed type of escapism. 

In addition to this Harmony (The main female character in our thriller) is displayed as a stereotypical teenage girl. She is seen wearing a school uniform which shows how she is someone that may be going through the normal school issues as someone the audiences age. The audience witness her struggling to get through to Cameron. This is a common stereotypical feeling as to how teenagers are displayed they long to be wanted and listened to but often feel like they are being neglected. The audience may also relate to Harmony as they may feel that they also want the best for Cameron and she may be the one to help him. Harmony was included into the thriller opening not only to show that Cameron had people how cared about him but to also play apart in the film that connected the audience in a way that didn't cause them to escape, but result in them wanted her to get through the the main antagonist Cameron.


Gender is stereotypically represented in our thriller opening due to the typical convention of the male being the antagonist and the female, older mother appearing as the victim. This is displayed when Cameron murders his own Mother (Grace). The fact that Grace is displayed as very weak and frail, whereas Cameron is more dominant in attacking her shows a clear display as how gender can be represented stereotypically. Grace is someone who has struggled with her son at a young age. As a widowed parent she has found it hard to keep up with her son and although she appears as a very loving woman she finds to hard to connect with Cameron and often ends up frustrating him. Most audience members may feel empathetic towards Grace's situation although they may struggle to relate to her because her situation is very unique and rare to be in. People may struggle to feel her pain as it is such an intense storyline and is very confusing to most people on how she can put up with such an intense mother and son relationship.


 Like in most films that are steretypical such as in genres such as fairy tales its usually the prince saving the princess and the female always being the damsel in distress which juxtaposes the position of the male, who typically plays the strong, protagonist/antagonist. Either way stereotypicall woman are normal either attacked by men or saved by men and in my thriller opening it follows the narrative of women being attacked by the stereotypically dominated male antagonist. This was incorporated into my thriller opening not only because it is a convention of a thriller, but also it gives the audience a more realistic view of how the film industry can manipulate certain stereotypes to there advantage.