2. Characters & Stereotypes
For our opening we decided to use young actors aged 17-18 due to the fact that our target audience is 15-24 so
it would appeal to that particular group of people and audience. In addition to that, by using young
actors/actresses, we can reach our audience more efficiently and enable the audience to connect and relate
to the protagonists. One of the sub-genres we use is crime and in crime thrillers the detective is mainly of
white ethnicity and they are seen as good, pure, heroes or strong. But because the population in Britain has
become much more diverse recently and current society is much more used to mixing with people from all
different cultures and backgrounds, we used and challenged the stereotypes and decided to use a male a
black male as the detective. We wanted to let black people show in a good light in our thriller, which is not
common in films. Below is the detective in our thriller and Mark Whalberg in ‘The Departed’.
3. Furthermore, we developed other stereotypes- in particular gender. As both of our actors are male we used a
typical factor of an crime thriller which is usually male dominated. There is a patriarchy element which I’ve
come across in many crime thrillers, with there only being one female in sight. For example again ‘the
Departed’ with Vera Farmiga or Angelina Jolie in the ‘Wanted’. In addition our antagonist is young and black
and is carries out an attack on the protagonist. This presents a stereotypical negative view of black youths
in today’s society so our audience can relate to what is happening. Below is the antagonist in our thriller
opening, teenager Shakilus Townsend part of a gang who killed another teenage boy and Jay from ‘Kidult
hood’ who are all representative of that particular social group. The middle picture is a news report from
2009 about the Honey trap killing in south London.
