1. Question 2
How does your media product represent particular social groups?
In this evaluation I am going to talk about how my media
product represents particular social groups. Social groups are
used in all sorts of media texts to represent different people’s
lifestyles, personalities. Sometimes films challenge social groups
and don’t have stereotypical social groups in situations e.g. A
group of girls being in a gang beating up people! In my film
opening I have followed and challenged different social groups.
The first social group I am going to talk about it social class.
Social class can be categorised into 3 different groups. Lower
class, middle class and upper class. Lower class is the class of
people employed for wages especially in industrial work, lower
class people are usually on a low income and are seen as low
status in society. Middle class people are your typical working
people on an average wage who do manual jobs and upper class
people are the wealthiest members of society and have the
greatest social power. Although social class isn’t a major part in
our film there is still aspects of different social classes
throughout the film opening. At the start we have a upper class
news reporter and we have shown this by dressing him in smart
clothes and making him act in a high status way the suit and tie
that he is wearing signifies his sophistication and how he is
upper class. We also have shown the lower class people as low
status by making them being isolated and trapped by the
zombies. For example we have the character of Beth trapped
inside her room in fear of being attacked from the zombies, as
you can see here:
2. As Beth is portrayed as lower class we assume she is victimized
and unable to save herself from the zombies. This is also shown
by the lighting as there is low key lighting it connotes danger
and fear from the character. As Beth is in her room it shows the
stereotypical teenager of being in their room all the time. This
then can show the audience her age and also her social class as
we know she will be more of a lower class as she is only a
teenager inside a small enclosed bedroom.
The character of Leo is shown as a higher status than Beth as he
has the weapons to defend himself from the zombies and is
clearly educated in knowing how to survive in the apocalypse.
This is also shown from the lighting as we see the light behind
Leo as he tries to fight off the zombies:
3. The light behind Leo can also connote ‘a light at the end of the
tunnel’ to show that there is hope in the world as Leo is going to
try save everyone. It also shows that he is a good person as the
high key lighting can signify he is calm and a noble person. We
chose to follow the stereotypes of each social class to help tell
the story of our film and to make it more realistic.
Another way we have represented individuals in the film opening
is by gender. We have both male and females in the film
opening and each are represented differently. Stereotypically
men are strong and fearless compared to women who are seen
as the weaker sex. We have followed this stereotype as the
character of Leo is a male and is seen as the hero by trying to
save the world compared to Beth who is a female and is sat
inside her room worried and upset and not trying to help anyone.
We have shown Leo as fearless by how he acts and stands, when
he meets with the zombies he stands strong and tall to show
that nothing can get in his way and he is out there to fight away
the zombies. Beth is shown as weak as she is sat in her room
worrying and with her head between her knees to show she is
4. trying to hide away from the danger. We have also added in
non-diegetic sound of fast heart beats to let the audience know
that she is scared. As we have followed the stereotypes of how
males and females react in scary situations it can come across as
both negative and positive representations, it will be a positive
representation of males as they look more in power and a higher
status but will be a negative representation of women as they
seem the weaker sex and a lower status in society. Another way
we have shown gender is within the news scene:
The news scene involves a white upper-class male who is a news
presenter and is warning people about the zombie apocalypse
and telling them to ‘stay inside and wait for rescue’ and then
the TV cuts out due to bad connection from the chaos of the
apocalypse. This could show that males like to give out orders
and are in control as they are a stronger gender and could give
out a negative representation of the male genders. The
characters of Leo and Beth have also followed stereotypical
5. genders by what they wear. Leo is wearing stereotypical male
clothes e.g. trainers, jeans and a jumper whereas Beth is
wearing stereotypical female clothes e.g. jeans and a pretty top.
The locations in our film opening vary as we have a news room,
an abandoned corridor and a bedroom all of these are used in
the stereotypical way as the news is reported from the news
room and the abandoned place is where the zombies and action
occurs and the girl is scared trapped in her bedroom. The news
room is a modern and high quality looking place, so this tells the
audience that you have to be of high status to be able to work
there and the people there are very important. The abandoned
corridor is dark and eerie, this helps add tension to the film
opening and shows that something bad is going to happen there.
The bedroom location is a challenged stereotype. Usually you
tend to see bedrooms being high key lighting and a happy place,
but we have challenged this as the lighting is very dark and the
girl is definitely not happy in the room.
The props used within the film opening doesn’t fit the
stereotype of the characters social class. For example Leo is
shown as a much higher status/middle class man but yet he has
weapons such as swords and this isn’t something you expect a
middle class man to have. We challenged this as it brings
excitement and action to the opening and grabs the audience’s
attention and signifies that the characters are in danger unless
Leo uses his weapons to fight off the zombies.
Most of the characters are young teenagers except for the news
reporter. As most the characters are young it stereotypically
means they can’t fend for themselves or survive out on their
own as stereotypically they are seen as ‘immature or
troublesome’. This stereotype is then challenged as you see
6. characters like Leo (who is an average 17 year old) with all the
weapons trying to save the world! This then brings across a
positive representation of teenagers as the audience can see
that they can survive on their own and are actually strong
minded people. The oldest character is the news reporter and
he is in his mid-50’s. He therefore represents the older
generation in the film and therefore comes across as well-
mannered and of a higher status, which follows the stereotype
of older people. Most zombie films have a range of different
aged characters and the ‘hero’s’ are usually adults. As we have
mostly young teenagers it makes our film more unique and
different to other zombie films out there.
Throughout the opening you see reference to the zombies and
they are only seen for about 10 seconds and in not much detail.
We did this to create enigma and it also means that the
audience won’t know anything about the zombies. They won’t
know what they look like, act like or what their past lives were
like. As the audience won’t know the zombies social class,
gender, age or ethnicity it shows that anyone can turn into a
zombie no matter of their background or personality. We have
done this so that the audience can relate to each of the
characters and put themselves in the situation the zombies are
in so therefore grabs the audience’s attention.
I think that in my film opening the most dominant ethnicity in
the opening are British white males and females which is
stereotypically what you’d see in a typical zombie film; however
there are different social classes within this. The most common
social class is lower class. This is because the lower class people
are stereotypically seen as weaker so therefore are more likely
going to be attacked by the zombies. I think this helps create a
7. better story line and so that the audience can relate with the
different characters.
Overall as you can see we have represented different social
groups in many ways including social class, age, gender and also
the settings and props used. We have challenged and followed
different stereotypes of social groups and every choice we have
made has helped make the film opening successful and unique,
all of which will draw in the audience and make them want to
keep watching our film.
