Task 2: How Does Our Media Product Represent Particular Social Groups?

Our thriller’s opening sequence consisted of three male actors and two female actors. The male actors are all represented as being, logical, understanding of technology, breadwinners, aggressive, interested in business and politics (obviously because it is a political sub-genre) and dominant. We can see that Roy is dominant over Lesley in the corridor scene as he is asking her questions and she is replying straight away. All the male characters therefore have adhered the male gender stereotype. However, there are some stereotypes that they don’t conform to which are, they’re messy and dirty, sit around watching football and hang out in the pub with mates.

The two female actors in the play are very anti-stereotypical as they don’t conform to many of their ideologies. In our thriller they are assistants to the president, and world leaders so they share many of the same ideologies as the men and conform to very little of their own genders stereotypically written parts. So, they are dominant, understand technology through the use of the webcams in the film, are interested in business and politics and are breadwinners. The women in are film aren’t shown at the beginning to be interested in celeb gossip, doing housework, shopping with girlfriends, or gentle.

All of the characters in our thriller are middle aged or older. This means that age is represented as a position of power as all the characters hold high political positions as the leaders of The United States of America, The United Kingdom, Germany and France.

There is no obvious or intended relation to sexuality in our thriller. So there is no representation from gender of the sexuality of any of the characters apart from the obvious stereotypical physical attributes.

The social class of politics is represented through mise-en-scene as wealthy (suits and ties), and high status (presidential figures). However, the set for the president is meant to be ‘secretive’ which is anti-stereotypical of what you’d normally expect to see with a President, which is the White House or at press conferences.

Most of the camera angles that are used are shot from the same height as the character(s) in that frame. This gives the audience the sense that they’re in the same position as the world leaders, therefore making them feel more involved in the film. The audience then feels as though they are on the same level of social class as the world leaders.

The quick edit of cross cutting between the scenes where the world leaders are getting ready and the president is walking down the corridor give the audience the impression that the social class of the world leaders included a fast passed hustling and bustling lifestyle.

The non-diegetic sound effects used also indicate that there is a lot of tension and pressure involved in the high social class of world leaders.

After the opening title sequence is completed, I believe that the film will go on to show how the United States military mainframe is completely corrupted by the hacker. They government would have no way of restarting the system and after hours of disorganization there will be a full scale attack on the East Cost of America from the Middle East. However, at first the United States will not know who it is that is attacking them. Until, the leader of the terrorist group broadcasts a live message all over the states on national television. At the end of the story, there is no fairy tail, the American Military Mainframe remains heavily damaged and out of use. The attack on the West from the East would have ended for the moment and there would have been much causality along with the American President. The film will end with American attempting to build its systems back up. There will be a sequel to the film too, in order to finish the saga.

Here is a table me and Lavi completed in class together. It shows the stereotypical attributes of the male and female genders: 

Through mis-en-scene, we can see from screen grabs that our media product conforms to the ideologies of what real life and existing media products. 

Barack Obama: Current President of 

The United States of America. 

Danny Glover as the President 

of The United States in '2012' - 2009. 

The other obvious social group that is represented is the 'computer genius' hacker. We have represented this group as a potential threat to the political group and to the rest of the world. We have conformed to the stereotypical representation through the non-diegteic music which builds suspense in the opening sequence.