Thriller opening sequence – Evaluation: Question 2

‘How does your media product represent particular social groups?’

Within my thriller there are many, differing representations of social class, age, and gender. In terms of gender its men who I focus on representing. The first idea is that within the male gender, the men are always fighting to be in the alpha position. This is a common stereotype that is often explored within the entire thriller genre. To put it simply, the stereotype is that men are always fighting to be leader. This idea is explored and portrayed in my thriller opening. For example, the scene where Joe Blaxall’s character is looking up towards the antagonist (over shoulder/ high angle shot) the idea that Harry Ames’ character has taken charge as is in the lead in

the fight to be top dog, is made clear as Joe Blaxall’s character is literally looking up at him. And this whole idea that Harry Ames’ character is in charge is clearly portrayed. Another gender stereotype within my thriller opening is the idea that men are more violent/ more confrontational than women. In my thriller, I made sure that I excluded the use of female characters, this was because I wanted to conform to the common stereotype within the genre that the leading protagonist and antagonist are male. This is common within the

genre most noticeably in most of the Batman films (the battle between Joker and Batman).

Age. Age is another social group that I represented in a few different ways, within my thriller opening. The first idea is that teenagers are a group of kids who are independent and live in their own world. For this representation, I used the character of Harry Ames. The whole idea is that teenagers are people who are very cut off from each other in terms of mentality, by this I mean every teen is individual and is does their own things for themselves. I used cinematography and lighting to explore this idea within my thriller. During the dialogue scene, between the characters of Harry Ames and Connor Southwell, Harry Ames’ character is placed on one side of the screen and there is dark, dead space next to him. This represents the idea that he is cut off from everyone. Literally, but also metaphorically. The dead space connotes the idea of the gap between him and the other characters, as well as the metaphorical gap between teenagers.

I’m not too sure if you can class ‘society’ as a social group but I’m going to. As I previously mentioned, the dead space on screen during the dialogue represents teenagers. But, not only is it there to represent teenagers, but is also to represent the structure of society. The idea is that there is a dark and light side within society. The dark side is the idea that within

society there are patches you don’t want to come across. This could be literal dark places that seem unsafe, but also the idea that there are people within society that you don’t want to come across. Whether that be gangsters or members of the government. This idea may be a bit unclear at first, but once close attention is given, the idea becomes clearer and more vivid. This idea is not a particularly common one within the genre itself, but is almost common within the sub-genre of crime thrillers. Again, referring to Batman and the idea that Gotham City is like what I am trying to project society as. When I say the ‘light’ side of society, I mean the people in society who pay their taxes, contribute to society, and don’t cause any harm, and get on with life. This should make the idea a bit clearer.

Another social group who I wanted to touch on, rather than give full attention to, is middle class people. This representation is through dialogue and plot, rather than editing

camerawork etc. The idea is that middle-class people are very hard working, and must do everything themselves. I project this idea to the audience, again, through the character of Harry Ames. The idea is that he has gone out by himself and planned this interrogation himself and kidnapped his rival himself etc. I wanted the audience to use inference to figure out that he is a representation of

middle-class people, and potentially for some of the audience to maybe relate to the idea. As I said, this idea is a brief one, but an idea that could be important to the audience.

Going back to age, another representation that I created was that teenagers are very rebellious. To give some background, the plot of my thriller is that a ‘deal’ has fallen through and caused the collision between two teenage gangs. The plot alone, directly represents teens as rebellious. A very common stereotype in general as well as in thrillers. Most noticeably in the action-thriller Kickass and its sequel. The chiaroscuro lighting that I used within the shed represents this representation/ stereotype. The idea that one character has taken another and surrounded him in complete darkness suggests that he does things his own ways and controls himself. This idea is crucial to my thriller as teenagers who watch it may be able to relate to the idea that they can do stuff themselves, but also adults/ parents can relate to this idea that they are rebellious and somewhat naïve.

Another gender representation would be the stereotype that men always use violence between each other to achieve supremacy. I mentioned earlier, the stereotype that men are always fighting for the alpha position, and want to expand on this. The stereotype of male violence is very common within the thriller genre. The diegetic sound of the punch in my thriller, obviously, conforms to this idea of violence being used to achieve supremacy. In

the thriller genre, itself it is explored in many action-thrillers. For example, in the Bond film Skyfall. The battle between bond and the antagonist Silva.

To conclude all of this, I used representations of particular social groups to create an informal and potentially relatable effect on the audience. I focused most on male and age stereotypes, to create and project these representations.