2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Our film opening focuses on teenagers, featuring our two main protagonists who are 17 years old. Therefore, age representation is an important feature of our film, in the opening as well as when other adult characters appear further on in the storyline.

Stereotypes of teenagers:


• Carefree attitude
• Lazy
• Out with friends

• Partying

• Drinking alcohol

• Drugsa

• Crimes

• Gang culture

• Boyfriends/girlfriends

• Texting

• Technology

• Rebellion

• Moody

We kept with these stereotypes in order to present a realistic view of teenagers, however we didn’t want to represent teens negatively as they are our primary audience and to attract them the characters need to be appealing, relatable and positive.

We present teens as independent in our opening, as they are alone in the scenes. Through dialogue, the teenage girl is suggested to be very strong and self-sufficient, as she holds the power during the conversation with her dad. We used framing here to present her as powerful: she dominates the frame and stands on the stairs. On the other hand, the kidnap shows her to become weaker in the opening scene. Throughout the rest of the film, the teenage characters act to contradict this and present teenagers as strong and responsible. In addition, our use of props satisfies the stereotypes listed: we used WKD bottles and a mobile phone.

There are also gender representation issues that our opening scene addresses:

We have both male and female characters in our opening scene, and they are presented as equal in terms of power and importance.

Our female character, Dannie, is independent and seems in control when talking to her Dad. We can tell this through the dialogue, especially lines such as 'Dad, I'm 17 now, I can look after myself!'. However our opening sequence does not portray females as in power all of the time – Josh is also powerful. Dannie texts him to ask is he is ‘still coming over’, which could be suggesting that men are in a position of control in relationships. When Dannie is kidnapped, she is portrayed as a stereotypical weak female and when her boyfriend needs to save her, she is a typical damsel in distress.

Despite his dark clothing which connotes strength and authority, Josh is not portrayed as brave or strong when he discovers Dannie is missing – his point of view shot is blurred and moving very fast, suggesting confusion on his part. This condraticts the male stereotype.

Films that present teenagers in a similar way: Stormbreaker (Sax 2006) and the Harry Potter films, where the protagonist teens are in power and end up saving the day.