Question 2: How does your media product represent particular social groups?

When initially coming up with our idea and throughout the entire production process, we put conscious thought into how we were going to represent social groups. In most cases we developed the already existing stereotype, with the exception of age in which we solely conformed to the stereotype. We felt this was imperative not only to create a realism in our representation in relation to society, but to also create relatable characters - an element key to ensuring success of our film. The areas I will be focusing on are age and sexuality but for an overview of all our representations click here.

Age

All characters in our film fall into the teenage age spectrum - specifically the ages of 16 and 17. With the word 'teenager' comes a very specific stereotype of a girl/boy in the process of developing into their personality, with an air of recklessness towards drugs and sex with no care for schoolwork. One TV Drama that fed off this stereotype is Channel 4's controversial Skins that boldly explores the problems teens have within their lives. The following trailer shows the extent to which drugs, sex and partying play a part in the social lives of the Skins characters. 

However, Skins received much criticism for it's overly positive representations of teenage activities, when the encouraged view is that this behavior is dangerous and reckless. Subsequently, it was rated an 18. For this reason, we chose to represent teenagers and their antics still in a realistic light in order to conform with the typical representation - but did this more negatively than Skins in order to apply for a certification of 15. 

We abide by the typical representation by connoting our teenagers to be on drugs. Not only do we do this by showing someone supposedly rolling drugs (no drugs were actually used on set), but we also utilized point of view shots to show that our perception is through the eyes of someone on drugs. We used echo effects to do this and also used slightly blue grading to add to the surrealism of the scene. What's more, many of the characters (for example 'the sleazy male') were behaving rather eccentrically to not be on drugs, suggesting that they were. However, unlike Skins we do not encourage this lifestyle to be glamorous as we portray the overdose very graphically with shots likely to shock the audience. This is representing to the audience a situation when the light fun of suburban teen life goes wrong, done with a realistic approach. The following reactions of worry from the majority of the characters also induced a negative portrayal as the abusive use of drugs marks the end of the 'fun' of the party. 

However, in some respects our portrayal of teenage behavior is positive. What can be noticed from our opening sequence is that everyone is accepting of one another with no element of sexual orientated or race conflict. They seem a lot free-spirited than the stereotype often suggests, with teenagers renowned in the media for gun and knife crime, homophobic prejudice and countless other behaviors that portray them badly. Despite this, we want our audience to recognize that our representation is just realistic as the one often displayed in the news.       


Sexuality

It is obvious from our opening sequence that sexuality is a theme very predominant in teenagers' lives. We can almost see what our 'sleazy male' is thinking when he approaches Eve and we see couples kissing and lounging on one another. From the very start of the planning process, we wanted to ensure that equal attention was placed upon both our couples - one being homosexual and the other being heterosexual. This was with the intent that our film would encourage both to be looked on with normality, whereas the subject of homosexuality is typically met with humor. 

During our research, we discovered that a homosexual character is typically defined by the fact that he/she is homosexual. An example of this is Damien in Mean Girls. In this comedic teen drama, he becomes a comical character solely due to his sexual orientation. A lot of focus is drawn to his emasculation for this reason. This is a montage of his funny moments, most revolving around the fact that he is gay.

However we wanted to convey the topic of homosexuality with indifference, a trend that is gradually developing in the media. One way we did this was by ensuring that our gay couple was no more feminine that our straight male couples. In fact, one member of our couples takes the lead in the overdose scene saying: 'Get over here!', 'Snap out of it!', and 'Call an ambulance then!'. We gave him commanding dialogue to portray him with dominance rather than the femininity gay people are often characterized with.

Not only did we make them appear like the completely average teenager in manner but also in their appearance. They are not wearing any element of pink, which is typical to gay characters, but are simply wearing stylish clothes without being overly groomed. This ensured that we didn't exploit the stereotype.    

The main point we wanted our representation to show was that every teenager has the potential to be themselves even in a negative context such as the huge influx of revenge at their school. This is first seen with the homosexual male and also seen with Eve, as they step out from the crowd and become their own person.