The media product represents particular social groups through it's use of characters. The murderer in the opening of the thriller is a female who knew the male character she killed. The graph below shows the relationships between violent criminals and their victims.
Stranger - Red
Acquaintance - Green
Mugging - Yellow
Domestic - Blue
The statistics show that most violent criminals are close to their victims, which is represented in our thriller opening as the male character is killed by who we presume is his wife. The film is representing the female population as independent and free of will, showing a sign of change within society. This idea subverses the stereotypical role of women, going as far to challenge the patriarchal society of the time the film is set in.
Ethnicity
The media product represents a singular ethnicity of white British. The media product could be seen as very biased towards white British, due to the fact there is a lack of diverse ethnicities. However, there was a limitation to how many ethnicities we could use, as the school we go to is predominately white British. The media product does conform to the stereotypical 'British gangster' by the use of it's male characters. The male characters represent this idea by having a shady side to them. It is implied they have been involved in a dodgy dealing that has gone wrong.
The graph above shows the statistics of drug use and ethnicities.Our media product represents this graph through it's use of white characters, who are one of the biggest consumers of illegal drugs.
Class
The media product depicts the middle to upper class of society, due to the use of costume. The main characters all have formal attire to show their significance within society. Although the thriller convention usually revolves around the working class, we decided to challenge this stereotype in our media product. Class is an important factor into the character's behaviour and the events that happen during the opening to our thriller. Although ambiguous as to the reasoning of the murder, we can tell there is a struggle between classes, as the man who comes to shoot the other character is presumed to have been paid to do so.
Thrillers such as Once Upon a Time In America represent the idea of the working class and their involvement in a complicated crime. A stereotype that we are challenging is that of the working class always being involved in a violent crime, with our characters from the middle class being heavily involved in the crime.
Gender
The male characters of our media product conform to the generic thriller stereotype that portrays the males as corrupt and possessive. This ultimately leads to their demise; showing their villainous side. The body language of the male characters is authoritative and confident, showing their bloated egos, much similar to those in other thrillers such as Budd from 'Kill Bill', who represents the villainous male archetype generically found in the thriller genre.
The female character of our thriller opening challenges the generic stereotype of a femme fatale, by being involved in the crime and showing her independence. In other ways she does conform to the archetype by being vulnerable and oppressed by her male counterparts, however, her murder of them signifies the breaking of the stereotype and her freedom from their oppression. A character that shares similar traits to our female character is Mildred Pierce from 'Mildred Pierce' who is deviant from the generic archetype of the femme fatale, as she fights for her innocence and independence within the film. Their is also a slight resemblance with Marion Crane from 'Psycho' as she partakes in illegal activities to further herself. This is similar to our female character, Eve, shooting the two male characters to protect herself.
I'll give you feedback in the next couple of days.
ReplyDeleteBy the way well done for being the 1st in your group to post a response to a question in the evaluation.
ReplyDeleteYou've made some useful points about ethnicity; your use of statistics is also important and explains how you have challenged the convention in thrillers where the killers are predominantly male.
ReplyDeleteIn order to strengthen:
1) Explain how you've represented the middle classes. Think about how your production represents the middle classes as shallow, calculating, devious, isolated/detached and suspicious. There is no sense of close relationships represented in your film which indicates that the white middle class demographic is dysfunctional. Then provide screen shots as an example.
2) It would be helpful if you referenced thriller films or TV dramas which either show similar representations of this demographic or contrasting representations of the white middle class as passionate if deviant. You could reference Marion Crane in "Psycho" who steals the money in order to boy the affection of the married man she is madly in love with, in contrast to your female character who seems in control and knows what she wants!