Throughout our film in the stages of planning and production, there are particular social groups in our film that may have been represented as traditional gender stereotypes.
Gender
There are various ways in which we represented gender . For example the character Eve appears would be familiar to our audience demographic (16-18 year old girls and boys ) Thus if this demographic can identify with her the film will be more appealing. Firstly, her costume is in the style of contemporary high street fashion brands. It creates a sense of realism to the character. Her jeans and leather jacket indicate add force to her character, unlike the classic femme fatale Eve in 'Once Upon A Time In America' and Gilda in the film of the same name. Eve and Gilda are iconic and glamorous, and also victims.
Eve (Missing) like Eve (Onc... and Gilda(Gilda) neverthelss is a victim of domestic bullying/violence.
Eve (Missing) like Eve (Onc... and Gilda(Gilda) neverthelss is a victim of domestic bullying/violence.
There is another layer to Eve, (connoted in her her contemporary costume) she is not totally passive, she has the courage to run away from as a result of some form of abuse which connates to her not wanting to be found.While it also adds realism.
We could also argue that the costumes used by the female and also the male can also show the realistic nature of the world that we live today. Using the girl in terms of the stereotype it can suggest her being vulnerable which is what is typically associated with young females. Similarly the male character is stereotypically seen as the predator and also the superior figure. This portrays the sterotype as we see nowadays that male following girls and being dangerous.Age
When analysising the stereotypes concerning age, we can focus on what happens in our thriller opening compared with real life. If we look at this young girl who is running away from home, from the end shot above we are able to see that she is being stalked by an enigmatic figure. This links back to our lives where there are stories of young woman going missing or being kidnapped from their lives by predators; stereotypically men and it usually is.
'Eve' is considered to be the victim in our film; stereotyping her inferiority towards 'Seth' who is also considered to be the strong, dominant force between the two characters.
Ethnicity
When considering ethnicity in a stereotypical fashion; we hear things about people being taken but are usually of the white ethnicity. From Kill Bill where this girl has been injured it can be related to ethnicity because she has been hurt/taken.
We can also relate this ethnicity to a story that happened a few years ago when Madaline Mccann was abducted on her holiday in Portugal. The stereotype kicks in as she was a young white girl at the time and was taken with no trace which can relate to our opening as the cliffhanger leaves us wondoring if she has been taken away and will be seen again, or even the question of what has happened to her? This is also similar to the shot above in the gender where the male and female characters meet.
Secondly, we can also analyse our male character to the stereotype he represents. If we think of stereotypes concerning male predators, they, more often that not tend to be of the ethnic minority; perhaps being black or asian, however we do see a number of white predators or menacing figures in kidnap. For example the story where the chinese man killed a family of four. This perhaps doesn't exactly relate to our film in terms of kidnapping but gives the basic idea of the matter.
Our film goes against this stereotype of ethnic minority by having this white figure in our film. Here we can see the predatory aspect to him looking for this girl.
http://www.york.ac.uk/news-and-events/news/2003/one-third-missing/
This website shows a study of men and women going missing. It suggests in "The study showed, that people of any age can go missing, from very young children to people as old as 90. Among adults, men (67%) were much more likely to go missing than women (37%), while teenage girls were more likely to go missing than teenage boys". This is a quoted from this website above.
"Reasons for going missing also varied widely but the vast majority, 70% for young people and 64% for adults, went missing deliberately due to the breakdown of family relationships, to escape accumulated problems, including domestic violence, and due to mental health problems."
This quote also comes from the website above which I have referenced.
It can also be said that it is unusual for girls to intentionally go missing but this is an issue not defined by my take on ethnicity for example. My film tends to focus on a girl who has intentionally run away from what appears to be as a result of an abusive relationship. The enigma of this is why she has run away and potentially put herself in more danger by wandering the streets on her own where potential predators could be lurking.
http://www.york.ac.uk/news-and-events/news/2003/one-third-missing/
This website shows a study of men and women going missing. It suggests in "The study showed, that people of any age can go missing, from very young children to people as old as 90. Among adults, men (67%) were much more likely to go missing than women (37%), while teenage girls were more likely to go missing than teenage boys". This is a quoted from this website above.
"Reasons for going missing also varied widely but the vast majority, 70% for young people and 64% for adults, went missing deliberately due to the breakdown of family relationships, to escape accumulated problems, including domestic violence, and due to mental health problems."
This quote also comes from the website above which I have referenced.
It can also be said that it is unusual for girls to intentionally go missing but this is an issue not defined by my take on ethnicity for example. My film tends to focus on a girl who has intentionally run away from what appears to be as a result of an abusive relationship. The enigma of this is why she has run away and potentially put herself in more danger by wandering the streets on her own where potential predators could be lurking.
Well done Dean. Your understanding of representational issues in media texts is developing.
ReplyDeleteTo strengthen:
Re Ethnicity: You tend to make sweeping statements here without enough back up from research. I suggest that you delete what you have written and instead reference real news stories. Link to website:
http://www.york.ac.uk/news-and-events/news/2003/one-third-missing/
To quote from the study: (If you include this information then also include the website as a source of your information).
"The study showed that people of any age can go missing, from very young children to people as old as 90. Among adults, men (67%) were much more likely to go missing than women (37%), while teenage girls were more likely to go missing than teenage boys.
Reasons for going missing also varied widely but the vast majority, 70% for young people and 64% for adults, went missing deliberately due to the breakdown of family relationships, to escape accumulated problems, including domestic violence, and due to mental health problems."
Thus Dean you could say that it is unusual for girls to intentionally go missing but this is an issue not defined by ethnicity. Your film focuses on a girl who has intentionally run away from what appears to be an abusive relationship. The enigma is why she has run away and potentially put herself in more danger by wandering the streets.
Well done for exploring stereotypes. Your film does represent traditional gender stereotypes with the girl being pursued by who it seems is a predatory male. Or?
Keep up the good work.