Question 2

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

In my opening thriller sequence there is only two main characters. The antagonist and the victim. The purpose of me doing this was so that there was only two characters telling the narrative to the audience which would make it clear and easy for them to understand and would not confuse them. 

The antagonist has an hidden identity. Nobody knows who he/she is or

anything about them. This is evident in the picture on the right when the most you see of the antagonist is a black hoody and none of his face or facial features. The audience just know that the antagonist wants to harm the victim and has a plan of doing it. This engages the audience more and helps build a relationship as they do not know the reasons to why the antagonist is planning to harm the victim but want to watch and find out more to see if his identity will be revealed. This straight away helps build a relationship between the audience and the victim as they feel she is innocent and has not done anything for the antagonist to have hatred towards her and wanting to harm her. This builds a different type of relationship between the audience and the antagonist as they do not really understand the storyline behind the antagonist and does not really feel any type of emotion or sympathy for the antagonist in any way shape or form. This is conventional to the thriller genre as the audience do not know anything about him other than the fact that he wants to hurt the victim and is wearing all black to hide his identity which portrays evil and death which mat foreshadow his death. This straight away builds a relationship with the audience and the characters as they see that the antagonist is a bad person and wants to harm the innocent victim as his black costume makes him come across as being dangerous and scary. This leads to them building an opposite relationship with the victim as they would feel more sympathetic for her and would want her to be safe and not in danger from the antagonist which they now know is capable of harming her as he is bigger and stronger than her. 

On the other hand, the other main character is the female victim. She is a female to portray her weakness and she is a young, 15 year old, teenage girl which portrays her vulnerability. Her vulnerability is evident in the picture on the right as the audience can see how scared and confused she is through the mise-en-scene used of facial expression as she is seen crying and upset in this shot. This will help them build more of a relationship with her as they will see how upset she is as she is crying and they will feel more sympathetic towards her and worry for her and wanting her to be safe and not in any danger. Making her this age also means the audience will understand the narrative more and feel more sorry for her as she is the same age as the target audience so they would feel as they care for her safety more. She is a blonde girl which stereotypically means she may not be the smartest person which portrays the fact that she will be helpless. The victim will be wearing a white t shirt which will signify her purity and innocence. This is also relatable to the audience of the same age category as her costume will look very similar to the school uniform that nearly all of the audience wear on a regular basis. The victim will be portrayed through the narrative to just be an average teenage girl and this is evident when she will be browsing her social media account on her laptop one day after school, as all the audience has most likely done before which shows it is realistic, before she wakes up in an isolated basement. These will all make the audience build a relationship with her easier as she will be portrayed as an average girl and everything about her and what she does will be realistic which will make it easier for the audience to relate to and understand. This will be conventional to the thriller genre as the victim will be small, weak and helpless compared to the antagonist which would make the audience intrigued to find out what she has done wrongly t be targeted and also find out if she will escape safely without being hurt or harmed in any way by the antagonist.