Evaluation - Question 2

Question 2:
 - How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Looking at our film in terms of the way the characters are represented we both abide by and avert the stereotypes. In terms of the main character David, he kind of goes against the stereotype in ways that he isn’t the really tough strong male character however you have to take into account that he has just come out of a coma therefore will be weak. But one quality he does have in the strength area as he survives. He is also expressed as vulnerable in the ways of the scene and cinematography as when he is being interrogated in the point of view shots he is inferior to Sarah and looking up at her showing that at this point he is weaker than she is, which stereotypically isn’t what would happen but because our characters do not follow the stereotypes. The reason for this is that we wanted to have a film where any character could be a leading character as the storyline and the plot is set in a whole new world and people have to change to adapt to this world and to survive. This means that characters go against their stereotypes as they’re creating a new personality in this new world. We feel that presenting them this way is effective because it opens the viewing experience to new things and you witness things you haven’t seen before.

 

Taking a look at gender, female characters are stereotypically often in jobs that are less intense and less dangerous due to the fact they’re portrayed weaker. If you take a look at our character profile of Sarah you will see that she was very high up in a job that was every dangerous. She isn’t like other women. She is a decision maker, a leader a strong character. The reason we portrayed her as a strong character as she is the only female in our two minute sequence therefore we wanted her to lead. We also wanted to abolish this sexist stereotype that women can’t be strong and can’t be leaders so in the duo of Sarah and Steve, Sarah is the strong one, the decision maker and ultimately the foundation of their survival. You often don’t get characters like Sarah in films however it is more common in zombie films but still even then they start off fitting the stereotype and then the character develops as the film goes on to show the change into the new world. You see character development in Carol from the walking dead. She starts off as vulnerable and weak, she does the washing up and cleaning and in her past job she was a housewife. Now this is a very stereotypical woman at first, but Carol grows into a strong willed, determined, decision maker and this new world changes her. We want to show this but we didn’t have time to show the development as we didn’t have long but we decided instead to go against the stereotype and bring her in straight away as a strong character. The male characters in this film looking especially at Steve, he is a strong character but steps back a bit to allow Sarah to lead. He is kind of like the muscle of the duo and when something needs to be done, he does it. Now this fits the stereotype of the man however goes against it also as most men want to be the alpha male and Steve doesn’t want this, he’s happy to let Sarah lead them and then he’s there for the strength when needed. But gender is represented in different ways but we like this fact as it gives diversity to our film.

One way the characters are represented is through cinematography. If you take a look at this two shot (above) David is lower than Sarah as in this point of the film she is superior to him due to the fact she’s interrogating him. This is also shown in the point of view shot as he is looking up at Sarah as if he is inferior to her. In which case he is at this moment due to the fact he is being interrogated. Using the cinematography in this way is an effective way of showing it without directly telling the audience what’s happening. In terms of sound the characters are shown also. One way is through the dialogue. This is shown when Sarah is shouting down to David, by having loud dialogue it shows that Sarah is a powerful character and isn’t afraid to assert her authority. This again goes against the stereotype of the fact that in this world, women would be scared and vulnerable. But by having loud dialogue shows that this isn’t the case. The mise en scene doesn’t really represent the characters, other than the costumes that they are wearing. For example the bandages that David has on show that he, at the moment is weak and vulnerable but other than that there isn’t much about the mise en scene that represents the characters, it’s mainly just cinematography.

Finally when I was researching characters in zombie films I didn’t research and strong women characters, I only researched the what’s known as the ‘Eye Candy’ which is the woman that is attractive that everyone likes but often dies because they are weak or vulnerable. I think this was a reason why we wanted a strong female character because after researching that most of the time the eye candy dies, we didn’t want any deaths for our female character so we made her strong and independent which is good.