Evaluation Task 2:

In what ways does your media product represent a particular social group?

In the opening scene of our thriller our characters represent particular social groups and we used stereotypes in order to portray these groups, mainly with the use of costume and setting.
 

The young girl and business man are father and daughter, thus both are white upper class citizens with a reasonable amount of disposable income. This is shown in the setting of both characters. The girl is shown during a wide shot to be in her large garden thus infers that because she lives in a big house she has a substantial amount of wealth. The bathroom and corridor that the business man's scenes are shot in both display a reasonable amount of luxury. The wide shot of the business man leaving his 'house' show how grand the building is, again emphasising that they are from a wealthy social group.

 

 

 A wide establishing shot shows  that the young girl is dressed in  black dungarees, a cream flowery shirt and Nike trainers. The girls clothes do not depict a large degree of wealth therefore contrasts with her surroundings and backgrounds. This infers that she does not indulge in her fathers money which may explain why she defies him and hangs herself in protest to his actions. Her hair has two small plaited pigtails in it and she is wearing a cross around her neck while also carrying a Bible. Her attire suggests that she is reasonably eccentric but with a modern twist. Her hair and the use of the Bible depicts the idea that she is quite innocent and naïve. The cross and Bible automatically put her into a religious social group, but her clothing and hair suggests that she may be a hippy as well. Hippies have a very established social group, and many times through out history have taken extreme actions during protests. Additionally extreme religious groups  take drastic actions in order to prove a point or cause chaos, therefore by combining these two social groups the girls motives to commit suicide becomes very poignant. We have used stereotypes in her clothing and props in order to create a meaning quickly so that the audience make immediate assumptions and judgements.
 

The business man belongs to a very specific social group of the white upper class who have a large amount of power over the rest of the country. This corresponds with recent statistics from BERR that 93% of owner managers and self-employed people are white. This leads the audience to immediately accept the power of the businessman. He is dressed in a smart suit with polished shoes along with an over coat  thus implies that he has to seem well dressed in order to show his status while having the income to pay for the suit. By using close ups to portray expensive watch, pen and ring this emphasises the luxuries the man can afford thus again conveys the social group he is representing. By using extreme close ups of the words in the contract, we are able to represent the idea that the man has considerable power as he is able to demolish large Churches.