ZS EVALUATION Question two

How does your media production represent particular social groups?

Our media production focuses on the social group of white, british, teenage girls and conforms to stereotypes which suggest that they are mischievous but still naïve and weak.

Our protagonist who is possessed is a young woman which suggests that women are not in control and that they are weaker than men in general. This is conforming to other horror film such as The Ring (Verbinski, 2002) which use a female protagonist because horror audiences expect this of a horror film. In fact, The Ring which was originally taken from the Japanese film Ringu (Nakata, 1998) was changed to have a female protagonist instead of a male to make it more typical of a psychological horror. Films such as When  a Stranger Calls (West, 2006) also use a female protagonist to show their vulnerability.

In terms of camera work and angles we have used a high angle shot of our protagonist in bed to show her vulnerability and lack of power. We also used a worms eye view, low angle shot to show our villain. Low angle shots show the character in the shot to be powerful and strong. These contrast of shots shows the idea of good versus evil.

By having our villain as a male we are also conforming to the stereotype that men are stronger and more powerful than women. Most horror films have men as the villains because they seem scarier and more dominating than a woman would be. 

Overall our opening sequence reinforces traditional traits of women being weak and vulnerable and also reinforces British and Western ideoligies.