Evaluation Questions

2. How does your Media Product Represent Social Groups?
In our media product the social groups we presented were; young women, predatory middle-aged men and the representation of women in the form of dolls. We classified these groups through dress, tone of voice, behaviour, movement and appearance.

For the young-women we chose an actress (Sophie Wilson) who is quite, small and petite with a fresh young pretty looking face and portrayed innocence. This is a very stereotypical representation of women in horror films, as typically women are seen as weak characters in vulnerable situations against a predatory male, for example in the opening of Wes Craven’s 1996 Scream a young innocent looking girl is attacked whilst being alone in her house. In our opening sequence we dressed the actress (Sophie Wilson) in a pink fluffy dressing grown to emphasize to the audience her innocence and vulnerability which would juxtapose with the costume of the Scary Doll-Maker who we dressed in a big black jacket and dark trousers.
For the scary Doll-Maker, we chose a middle-aged actor (Simon Wallis) who was broad and tall, to represent a typical predatory male which is common in most horror films (including James Wan’s 2004 Saw). In our opening sequence, we wanted a tracking shot of both the young girl and the Doll-maker walking to show the contrasts of Victim and Predator. We asked both the actors to have completely different behavior and movement; for the Doll-maker we asked our actor to have a rather dominating stance (shoulders back, clenched fists), we also wanted his movement to look unusual and slightly robotic to suggest that in some way he was disturbed. This contrasted with the body language of the young girl which we thought should use soft gentle movements and wide eyes to emphasize to the audience her naivety.

Also whist filming we wanted to portray these representations through the shots we choose. For example in the workshop, we used close-ups of the doll-makers hands to show how he dominated over these very small dolls which in-turn creates phallic references (stroking the dolls face and body and dressing the doll) suggesting that he could have dominance and control over young women as well.
Furthermore, in our opening sequence we showed the representation of women in the form of dolls. In the workshop we chose a variety of different looking dolls all however, were small, pretty and had a slight glazed look over eyes. We wanted this glazed look to suggest to the audience the idea about how things can become possessed.