Lucinda 2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Our media product represents teenage students and people from middle and working class backgrounds. The main female actress in our opening is conveyed to the audience to be a middle class teenager because she is dressed in an outfit which is conventional of a people this age and from this background. The setting of the opening is in a school which also implies that she is a student. The fact that the victim is shown to be a teenage girl is significant because it encourages the audience to feel sympathy for her as our main target audience is teenage girls so they will feel like they can relate to this character more.

Middle class teenage girls are conventionally portrayed as one of two extremes: either rebellious, outspoken and sexually promiscuous or innocent and vulnerable. In our opening we chose the convention of the innocent teenage girl, and this is portrayed through her white costume and we took this into consideration during the casting process.

Working class teenage boys are conventionally portrayed as mischievious trouble makers, and our villain conforms to this stereotype. This is shown in his costume as he is dressed in black and he is wearing a hoodie which is stereotypical dress for teenage working class males. The iconography of the gun alerts the audience of the genre of the film as well as suggesting he may be criminal and a threat. The picture on the bottom right shows a similar representation of a villain in the film Kidulthood. The villain is also wearing a hoodie over his head and a knife is used as a prop.