1. How does your media product represent
particular social groups
By Jaydeen Lee

2. Representation
When assessing the development and production of my group’s two minute film opening; we had
to take into account- class, race, gender, age and sexuality. The choices we made in terms of
casting and characterisation would effect the film opening either positively or negatively if not
executed well as we are making a drama. We looked at a few examples on the Pearl and Dean
website and realised that most big films like- Attack of the Block and/or The Colour Purple, were
successful because they heavily relied on the audience’s ability to conform associate the
characters to stereotypes. As a group, we felt it was clear that there is a realism in some
stereotypes and/or at least an expectation from the audience for the casting to reflect their
stereotypes.
So as a group we had to evaluate how the cast we recruited may impact on the representation of
certain social groups. If we decided to disrupt the natural connotations linked to certain
stereotypes we would need to asses how this may impact and possible confuse our audience. For
example the Dexter series (which conforms to the natural stereotype of a detective but subvert the
audience’s expectations through his double secret life and blood thirst for death, creating a quite
cynical tone and atmosphere in contrast to the Mise en scene and chirpy upbeat music)

3. Casting choices
Planning, as a group to have the two protagonists of a working class
background. We manipulated the common stereotypes of the working class by
adding in dialogue, altering the Mise en scene and using a range of camera shots
to steer a negative representation of the working class. We realised that the
common stereotypes and conventions are rough, uneducated and dependant,
although they may not reflect reality today, but historically they are associated
with this particular social class.
We intended to use the cast to our advantage by conforming to the existing
negative stereotypes attributed to their race, gender and class. In my opinion I
think we did well executing this as we believed the roles fit our characters well to
give off that natural feel. However, we could have used casts of a different class
and race which would have made our production authentic and would challenge
the conventions of a drama. i.e. abuse within the upper/middle class

4. Race, gender and age representation
Although we had casting limitations i.e. our original adult actor suddenly
cancelled and we could not find 2 other white male actors; which would
have fit our first cast idea. We understood that the actors that were available
worked better with what our idea was. With a Black female and Asian male
playing as our cast they fit well with our genre. As the negative stereotype
of single black mothers would be associated with the mothers characters.
Also the different ethnic backgrounds allows diversity and allows these
different ethnics to play key roles in film opposed to old-fashioned films in
which different backgrounds were either villains of side cast additions.
The next slide will highlight this...

5. Race, gender and age representation
Mother Son stereotype Possible changes
The mother was played by a
young, black female. She is
addicted to drugs and uses
her fostered son to feed the
addiction. She is the vixen in
the film opening and often
abuses her foster child. The
shot of her opening the fridge
exaggerates her inability to
control the addiction.
The son was played by a young
Asian male. Who’s parents had
died and is in the care of his evil
foster mother. At the beginning he
is walking by himself to show his
loneliness and emphases his
fragility through the use of low
angle shots.
Both protagonists conform to their
stereotypes.
The mother conforms to the
negative connotations of her race.
Often we would associate the
black actor as being one of
violence. She subverts the gender
connotations of a mother by
neglecting her foster child.
The boy also conforms to the
negative stereotype of a Muslim
boy. He is seen as week and in the
film opening neglects morning
prayer, to emphases a loss of hope
and faith.
He subverts the gender
stereotypes of a male as being
strong as he is inferior and
vulnerable, but this could be seen
as a representation of his age
If we were to produce a film beyond the
film opening. We would have included a
positive black female character to create
a balance. This would highlight racial
profiling is not always accurate and that
there is some positivity in different races
.
Also we would include a strong and
positive Muslim character. To help the
boy regain faith and hope and to shed
positivity to such a dark situation.

6. Age
We looked at how the age of the two protagonists may represent both youth and the adult. Both are
represented as binary opposites. The age of characters can have some negative or positive perceptions
by the audience. The existing connotations of youth used in our film opening are- vulnerable, innocent,
dependant and fragile. Compared to the associations of the adult- authoritative, dependant, weak, and
stubborn. Age is a very important factor and in many ways a well established stereotype if done.
We felt that given our genre was drama which has emphasises on negative narratives, problems and
style. It would make sense to the audience to correlate our cast with very negative connotations and
apply them to our genre. We used the dialogue to highlight the narrative of the film opening and
through this many of the negative connotations can be seen.

7. Gender
We had the idea throughout our plan that we would have a male boy actor. We chose a
male actor as we have looked at many examples- The Girl Next Door- Gregory Wilson. And
found that movies around this nature/genre have female actors as the vulnerable victim
and so we wanted to highlight that abuse happens in both sexes. This was a conscious
casting choice to cast a vulnerable male, to subvert his expected gender stereotypes
Initially our original plan was to have two male actors. However, unfortunately, one of our
male actors was unable to take part in our film. The idea of having a male adult actor was to
conform to the negative stereotype of men being emotionally detached and aggressive. In
fact on average, 2 women a week are killed by a current or former male. Therefore the
audience can then associate his character with these negative stereotypes, easily as it is
established regularly by the media and different institutions.
Instead we had a female adult actor and realised that this could still be effective. This
difference in genders can highlight the emotions issues both casts have and their inability to
comprehend. Also the positive connotations we would associate with her character would
be caring and understanding. However, by subverting this it create and element of shock for
our watchers and further emphasises her ‘evil’ character as she goes against the stereotype
of a caring mother.

8. Sexuality
Both casts are heterosexual. We decided to not have any homosexual
cast as it would distract our audience from the main plot. Also this
would be too much information for our cast to know in the first two
minutes and could possibly give away the whole story.
This would also be very, hard to execute as the male boy actor is
religious and would not feel comfortable. Even though it would have
been a very interesting concept, we wanted to keep it simple.
In addition it would also be hard to execute as we wouldn’t know how
to hint that the actor is gay in the first two minutes. As our time was
very limited and our minds fixated on trying to stick to our initial plot
we decided this would have been the best idea.