AH: Question 2

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

• In our opening we only have two characters; a white teenage boy and a person in a gas mask. We do not include a female nor do we include any ‘adults’. The teenage boy is represented as being your typical teenage boy and doesn’t have any outstanding characteristics, therefore keeps the audiences attention on the story line and not him.
• I don’t feel as if we are depicting teenage boys or teenage people positively or negatively. Although many people stereotype teenage kids to having parties and trashing houses when there parents are out, our character doesn’t do this. He is mature and simply goes about his evening the same, waiting for his parents to return. So you could say we represent them as ‘positive’, however through the opening there are examples of how the antagonist is watching him and yet the he doesn’t have a clue, suggesting he is vulnerable and weak.
• The antagonist represents no culture, ethnicity or gender as its identity is never revealed. The sense of not knowing who the antagonist is leaves the audience guessing and imagining the appearance of it. The use of an anonymous antagonist is also included in Super 8 (Abrams, 11) the film tells the story of a group of young teenagers who are filming their own Super 8 movie in a small town in 1979 when a train derails, releasing a dangerous presence into their town.