Evaluation question 2

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Our media product conforms to the stereotypes that is represented with the particular social groups and is quite common in psychological horror as it makes the audience suspect that the characters are “normal” and helps to build the atmosphere and tension around those characters. However, the last scene of our film does not conform to these representations and so the characters subvert the stereotypes that are traditionally labelled onto them.

In our film the main protagonist is the character Lucy Smith and is a young girl that is struggling with mental health problems which represents her character as being weak and vulnerable however in the opening scene the audience do not find out that she has these mental health problems as we only hint at her having them. The way we represent her conforms to the stereotypes of females as they are often shown as being weak and inferior to males.  In the bathroom scene, many of the shots are from behind Lucy which implies that someone may be watching or stalking her and we used a whip pan to show her reaction to seeing something in the mirror and conveys her ill state of mind and thinking but also shows she is very on edge.  This supports the representation of women and younger characters as they are usually portrayed as being weak minded and being the damsel in distress, however in the last scene Lucy can be seen killing another character (Joe) as he bullied her over her mental illness. This subverts the representation of women as men are normally the ones seen doing violent acts in film.

Also in our film is the side character and antagonist Joe. He only appears in the final scene of the opening and he conforms to the stereotypes of males as he bullies Lucy in our narrative which typically is represented with young/teenage male characters which Joe is. He is also dominant and demeaning towards Lucy as he says, “I’m not the one who deserves to die you freak” which suggests that he is a cold and demeaning character. He also goes to grab Lucy which shows his aggressive nature and this in turn makes Lucy stab and kill him. This subverts the typical representation of males as he is being killed by a female character and he is represented as being weak and vulnerable.