Question 2

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Within my opening sequence I used two characters, a female victim who was played by Sophie Ledwith and the male killer played by Tom Tovey. Sophie played the victim who was eventually murdered by the killer; this is a very conventional representation of victims within the thriller genre. The victim tends to be a female gender to represent vulnerability as females are stereotyped as the inferior sex. My group and I chose to use this convention, as we believed it was a successful method to relate the audience to the narrative of the opening sequence.

Tom played the villain who murdered the female victim, this is another conventional choice of characters as stereotypically males are portrayed as the superior gender therefore the female would be very powerless compared to him. I chose to abide by the convention as it is a very effective element used within thrillers. This characters was tall and had his identity hidden, I believed this would appeal to our audience, as they would most probably react in the same way the victim did. Having the killers identity hidden created a larger impact of suspense on the audience, as they were unaware of the killer's appearance therefore unaware of what he might do.

I believe my characters build a relationship with the audience as they are of similar ages therefore can connect with them in a stronger way, this included the characters wearing very conventional clothing for their age group. This will make it more relatable for the audience watching as they become aware of the age of the characters through this. There are many different existing thrillers that include female victims and male killers for example;

• Halloween- Male killer, many victims equally of both gender however main victim was female.
• Scream- Male killer, many victims all of the female gender.
• Psycho- Male killer, other victims however main victim is female.
• Last house on the left- Male killers, female victims.
• Hide and seek- Male killer, few victims however main victim female.