Evaluation Question 2

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

Age - Teenagers

We decided to play up to the stereotype of teenagers as always texting and constantly using technology, lulling the audience into thinking that this might just be a social commentary about young people communicating too much by phone. 

When we enter the house and see that the mother is also using solely technology to communicate, it becomes apparent that we aren’t only showing the stereotypical view that young people use technology too much, but everyone does, so we are not trying to show teenagers in a bad light, especially as the rebels who believe the world would be better if everyone could speak again are teenagers. 



The teenagers in our film opening are constantly texting...



But it soon becomes apparent that they are not the only ones.

This challenges the stereotype of the older generation not being tech-savvy and complaining about the younger generation for being constantly on their phones or computers.

Gender - Young females

The use of a young female character as the protagonist in an action film challenges conventions, as she is the hero, rather than being the damsel in distress who needs to be saved by a man.
 

We didn’t dress her like a typical girly female, and instead put her in dark, neutral clothing – black jeans, green jacket and black Doc Martens – to show a tougher side. This outfit paired with her feminine features and blonde curls hopefully makes her relatable to both girly teenagers as well as more tomboyish types.

We found that there weren’t many teenage female protagonists in action movies, so we wanted to break the trend and show that young women can be just as strong and brave as a man, as girl action heroes are  underrepresented in the film industry.

In my mind I had the character of Katniss from the popular young adult book series The Hunger Games, which could be one of the first Action/Sci-fi movies to have a feisty teenage girl lead when the movie adaptation is released next year.

Out of Total Film’s list of the 100 Greatest Female Characters in movies, ‘38 are a character in someone else’s story. 25 of those are primarily a love interest. Approximately 1/5 do not survive their film.’

We wanted to do something different and break these conventions, giving teenage girls a strong role model.