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SOCIAL GROUPS

The social groups that are represented in our horror film opening are age, gender, sexuality, race and class. The characters we have created are stereotypes which have been inspired by other media products. However some of our stereotyped characters challenge the media institution.

AGEIn our horror film opening the predominant age is adolescents.

The teenagers are stereotyped to be irresponsible and careless as they slowly walk through a park drinking alcohol and smoking not having any consideration that the location they are doing this is a young children's park. The typical stereotype for teenagers are ‘unwise’. We also used the technology prop of phones to represent the age of the teenagers this is because a stereotype for teenagers are that the social network control their life’s. However when they are on their phones they show a casual nature. Evidence for this is when the survivor ‘Riley’ is filmed calling for help on her phone when she is being threatened by the evil doll ‘Scarlett’. On the website gottobeamobile.com 75% of teenagers own a phone this therefore means that because they are working class they can afford these luxuries. Also the use of the park as the location show a innocent and young area which contrasts with the teenagers behavior of being rebellious and drinking and smoking.

CLASS

The class that we have chosen to base our characters on are working class this is because we chose their actions to be a typical stereotype for teenagers. This was because they were ‘street ratting’ this was to emphasis how they are hanging about in a street park drinking alcohol and smoking which is against the law as they are under aged. We also chose the characters to wear the ‘hoodie’ this symbolizes there rebellious behavior and in society is commonly known to be worn by teenagers in contrast with a smart suit which shows higher status and class. The location that they are in also could show that as working class teenagers they can not afford going out to a restaurant or going to a cinema therefore socializing in a free communal area.

RACE

One of our protagonist characters named ‘Riley’ in the horror film opening who was played by harmony knight was black/mixed race. She was directed to stand at the front of the group when walking towards the park and her character was created to be the last survivor. Both these reasons above show that her race in this horror film opening is represented to be very strong and a leadership figure. The rest of the cast are white this was chosen purposely to emphasis the strength of ‘Riley’ the mixed race actress. However further on in our research we as a production team discovered that the black/mixed race characters in horror films always get killed first. We as a group decided we wanted to keep her as the toughest character this was to challenge the main conventions of horror to show that we had kept the teenagers acting ‘Hard’. Also to show that we have researched the main conventions but decided to adjust some to make our horror film opening stand out.

GENDEROur gender social groups that we chose are very diverse which don’t

all meet a typical stereotype. This mainly relates to the characters played by girls who should be stereotypically feminine however we wanted to show youth’s of today and how they all have different personalities in a group. The character ‘Riley’ was shown to be masculine because of her strength and toughness of being the last survivor. We did this purposely to show a representation of a female being masculine. This followed through with the character of ‘fleur’ as she wasn't concerned or cared about her looks and was secretly very shy these are masculine traits. However the character ‘Sadie’ was very concerned about her looks and it was important to her to be in a stable relationship this is a stereotype of being feminine. We had shown this by directing her to wear a pink girly dress, makeup and her actions to be always holding hands with her boyfriend. There was a particular shot where we filmed her staring into his eyes feeling very love struck this is evidence for her obsession with him. Furthermore the males went again the main stereotype of being masculine as they weren't the last survivor a female was. However the character ’Jack’ has a trait of being masculine because he pushes ‘Fleur’ around this also shows that he has dominance and ‘Fleur’ accepts that she is being controlled by a male.

SEXUALITY

Our horror film opening shows the sexuality of being ‘Heterosexual’ this is through the two characters of Dave and Sadie. They are both in a relationship and to express their affection towards each other is shown in the camera shot where they are cuddling and holding hands. Also the character ‘Jack’ is shown pushing the character of ‘Fleur’ around and she is laughing. This could be decoded by the audience as flirting. He does this to grab her attention as he could fancy her. All thought he doesn't’t do this to the character of ‘Riley’ this is because she is very tough he could therefore be scared of this. As well as ‘Sadie’ already being in a relationship.