QUESTION 2How does your media product represent particular social groups?

UNDEFINED REALITY

Which groups do we show in our film? • We show the teenage age group. The first victim is a teenager, and the

rest of the victims are planned as being teenage, which gives the impression that the killer is targeting those that made his school life hell.• We show a disabled person in our film (the killer) but we represent him

as violent although we tried to implement the idea of Multiple Personality Disorder, so that it’s clear that the killer is in many different frames of mind about what is right and wrong.• In our film, so far, there are only men on screen. The fact that one man

is dead and another is being chased shows that there are some men out there that only want to kill others, which is sort of true.

How do we show our characters? “The Teenager”• In our film, we tried to adhere to the obvious stereotypes, but this was difficult seeing

as none of the teenagers did anything that was typical of ordinary teenagers, bar the killer, but he has an explained disability. Instead of having the teenager look like a typical teenager, we made him easily identifiable, showing the audience that he means no harm and that his intentions are not to cause trouble, as he appears to be looking for someone, due to him finding a phone on the floor that presumably isn’t his own. We do slightly subvert our use of teenagers though, as he is alone. This may seem suspicious or stereotypical to somebody who doesn’t know what he is up to.

• The reason we kill off a teenager in the opening of our film is simply to show that when it comes to pain or death, they are the same as everyone else, and that they feel the same emotions. It’s not the easiest thing to pick up but the message is there. This might help to get teenagers off of a stereotypical list as more and more people who pick up on our message realise that teenagers are still human beings, but hey are more easily influenced.

How do we show our characters? “The Disabled”• In modern films, there is not much distinction between what disabilities are shown. There is more often

than not a person in a wheelchair, a person with some kind of major learning disability or somebody who is close to death or has contracted a life threatening disability. We decided that we wanted to represent our disabled character differently. We probably don’t represent him in the best way, but we give reasons for his actions and we give the audience hints of the more gentle side of his disability in an attempt to make them connect with him.

• As a result, we subvert the stereotypical representations of a disabled character by making him, for the first bit of the opening, seem overly violent and uncaring, striking without clear motives. However, this also adheres the typical representations, because in media and sometimes in the real world, people take disabled people on face value with little attempt to connect with them. We apply this to our character as he is taken on face value at first, but when he starts to show remorse, we start to see him differently.

• We think that this representation might help disabled people in media and in the real world, because it discourages judging someone based upon their initial look or actions, but to rather try and connect and see what is actually going on, our character has Multiple Personality Disorder, but you wouldn’t know that if you didn’t pay attention or just took the character too literally at first.

How do we show our characters? “The Male Gender”• As in many other forms of media, the males are more often the strong and powerful villain

with either brains or strength. We subvert to this because of you do take the male character's looks into mind, the first teenager looks thin and weak, but then the killer doesn’t seem to be too much stronger but gains his advantage through surprise attacks. Also, because of his disability, it’s presumable that his mind jumps around too much to be very intelligent.

• The male villain is also represented as being able to act however he wants without repercussion, and , depending on the franchise, the time it takes for his death or capture can vary. Two examples of this support the statement. Lord Voldemort, in the “Harry Potter” franchise, is around/mentioned in eight movies until his death in the finale. The Killer from “Dead Man’s Shoes” lasts only one film.

• Our male is different from other villains, but he is still a villain some people will just see him as that, but others might notice the differences between him and others, spreading the lesson that not all representations have to be strong or violent when it comes to the male gender.