Part 5 – How does your media product

represent particular social groups?

• Within my media product
which is the opening sequence
of a thriller called ‘ The
Silence’. I aimed to represent
teenagers specifically males.
This is shown successfully as
throughout the opening
sequence, the character most
shown is the male teenager
who is in the vast majority of
shots. He is stereotypically
shown to be a loner. Also
many close ups are used
when the male teenager is
shown which connotes that he
is the main focus of the film.
 Gender Representation
• The main character Scott is male and he is portrayed
as being quite weak, which is not societies general
representation of men these days. When planning our
thriller we was going to have the main character as
being a female but then decided that too many films
have the females as the weaker character so we
decided we would choose a male instead and have
the female as the stronger character. This choice of
role was so that stereotypical ideas of gender could
be challenged. They see men as strong people who
are not weak. However Scott's character challenges
this typical representation people have of males, as
throughout the whole opening sequence, we see him
looking weak, confused and desperate and he later
goes to seek help from a female. This challenges the
role of males and females as society believes that
females are the ones that mainly go to the males for
help and not the other way around.
• This screen grab from ‘The Silence’ shows this male
character being lonely and desperate to seek some
sort of companionship. This adds to his weakness as
he is not content with being alone.
• Apart from the male character Scott that we
see, the only other character shown in a
female character ‘ Madam Gem’ who plays
the Psychic women. She is represented as
a dominant character, as she is portrayed
as a strong character. When we see her in
the opening sequence she doesn’t look
confused or weak in any way. This
challenges societies as in ‘The Silence’ the
female is shown as the strong character
whereas the male is seen as being weak.
Some would say that this is not a true
representation to everyday life as the
general stereotype is that males are
superior to females. However the roles of
Scott and Madam Gem challenge this.
Madam Gem is portrayed as the
Protagonist character throughout the
opening sequence, but then near the end
when we see the Voodoo doll present, we
begin to think she may be more of the
Antagonist.
• The editing used which may hint that she is
the Antagonist is near the end where the
only shots of her seen as her chanting and
a close up of her eyes.
 Age Representation
The males character is
portrayed as a teenager and
therefore representation of
this was important. This is
represented by him being
shown as a bit of a loner,
walking alone, looking at a
dating website and spending
time on the computer. This is
one of the true
representations of teenagers
as some teenagers spend a
lot of their time cooped up in
their rooms on the computer.
This is societies stereotypical
view of teenagers today.
• Another moment which gives a
representation that this
character is a teenager is when
he goes to extreme lengths by
looking up a ‘ Astrology shop’,
thinking that this act could
solve all of his problems. This
hints that this character is a bit
immature, as he is young so he
goes to extreme lengths to sort
his problems. Teenagers are
usually portrayed in society as
being over dramatic about
situations and thinking their
problem is the ‘ end of the
world’ and this attitude is
clearing shown in this part of
‘The Silence’.
• The other character
seen is a female who
plays the Psychic
and is a young adult
in her twenties. This
is represented by the
fact that she owns a
shop , so this means
that she is earning
her own money and
has a business.
• The stereotypical view
of women is that they
generally don’t own
their own businesses
and that men are the
ones who own
businesses and run
them. So by this
Psychic character
owning her own
business this
challenges societies
stereotypical view.
 Editing
• In regards to
representing teenagers
through the use of
editing, during the ‘White
Room’ scenes we made
the editing fast paced
and choppy. Which
would portray the mind of
a teenager, which is
often all over the place
and bounces from one
idea to another.
 Typography
The typography chosen helps to
represent teenagers as it isn't
a typical well known formal
font such as ‘Times new
Roman’ or ‘ Arial’ , it is one
which looks as though it has
been scratched on by a sharp
objects. The sizes of each of
the letters are not symmetrical
and the lengths of each letter
are different. The shape and
style of the typography add to
the characters state of mind
as the typography is messy
and all over the place. It could
explain how the boys mind is
at the moment, all over the
place.