How does your media product represent particular social groups?

By Josh Manley

What is a social group?

• Definition - A social group is a collection of people who interact with each other and share similar characteristics and a sense of unity.

• Social groups pervade society. They define roles provide people a sense of belonging. Some social groups are easily recognised and clearly defined, whereas others are more subtle and difficult to recognise.

Social groups presented in my product

• Young Male • Teenage Female

In our film opening we decided to represent two main social groups. Despite only these two groups being included, we have presented them in different ways.

Stereotypical clothing indicates the age and class of the protagonist as to be youthful (20years of age) and middle class.

The young teenage antagonist challenges the stereotypical teenage girl in many fashions.

Young Male

• The social group of young males is represented in a significantly negative perspective in our film opening. We included a 20 year old male protagonist to represent this demographic in several ways.

• Firstly, our protagonist is demonstrated to be tresspassing which is displayed by him noticing a "You Are Tresspassing" sign, yet still carrying on with his activites despite the sign also stating "Leave Immadiately, You Will Be Prosecuted If Found On The Premises". This represents this specific social group as being mischeivous and vexatious as he dissmisses the sign, showing a clear attitude towards rules and laws.

Young Male

• Additionally, this social group is also portrayed negatively through the protagonist's use of obscene language. During the opening, the characters exclaims "where the fuck am I?", projecting it at the CCTV. This use of profanity and blesphemy is stereotypical of the youth and specifically males, illustrating them to be profane and crude.

• However, this attitude could perhaps be condoned due to the situation he is in. Regardless of the age, gender, class of a person, most would react in similar manners.

Setting

• The setting is very significant in representing both of the characters included in the opening. The derelict locations is evidently heavily vandalised through the recognition of graffiti and broken objects. These types of locations clearly attract the young male through his rebelious and adrenaline seeking nature. The graffiti symbolises that the people attracted to the location, typically teenagers, aim to take ownership of the property. Once again presenting the social group of young males to show interest in criminal activity and also vandalism.

• This setting is also very influential in representing the teenage female antagonist, illustrating her to oppose the stereotypical teenage girl. It will be controversial to the audience to discover her in this type of location, specifically behind railings and acting obscure, as teenage girls are usually seen as innocent and vulnerable.

Teenage Female

• The female antagonist was acquired the use of very strange and obscure body language in order to illustrate her to challenge typical paradigms of teenage girls. This perhaps results in the audience feeling uncomfortable as they would not usally associate the antagonist to be at the location, or to behave in this manner.

• Also the costume used is once again rather controversial as it presents her to be abnormal. She is wearing a pure white gown with brown boots, which is unusual for a teenage girl. The colour of her hair also furthers the mysterious view surrounding her.

Teenage Female

• Further controversial decisions were made in terms of displaying the girl as unusual and strange. An example of this is the use of the prop of the wooden plank, which she drops in the CCTV sequence, in order to imply her violent nature which symbolises her power. This opposes stereotypes applied to female teenagers.

• Opposingly, the antagonist is shown to conform to some stereotypes given to young teenage girls. This is demonstrated through her attachment to the prop of the doll, illustrating he innocence and youth. This impression can also be furthered through the colour of her gown being white, which implies a sense of purity and innocence.

Summary

• Overall, our product represents two different social groups in various fashions. The young male conforms to negative stereotypes given to the social group, surrounding their vulgarisms and rebelious behaviour.

• Contrastingly, the antagonist female teenage opposes the majority of stereotypes applied to members of this specific social group. She is seemingly dominant and aggressive through interest in violence, shown through the wooden plank. However, she also is illustrated to conform to the positive stereotypes given to female teenages. This is recognised through her attachment to the doll and the colour of her dress which implies her innocence