KS: Evaluation: 2

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Only 1 particular social group is prevalent in our film opening narrative, this would be the teenage, white female. Firstly we decided on the female stock character rather than the male and this is a conventional feature of horror films that the victim character is a female yet the antagonist a male. We then decided on the white ethnicity for our main character, as not only was this an obvious and easy ethnic background for our actress to locate, but it also represents a large percentage of the social demographic, a usual, yet in some ways predictable ethnicity for our horror films main character. The late teenage social group appears in our opening as we feel this age group is appropriate for its target audience, and certificate 15+. The narrative includes other marganalised characters such as white family, including middle aged parents and a younger sister, and the older male psychologist; however these do not appear in our two minute film opening. 

Our main female character is not represented in a positive light, but a possessive, insane and unstable young woman, therefore can be negatively interpreted.  She does not depict traditional gender roles but instead challenges social norms. Although woman are usually presented as the emotionally unstable characters, they traditionally reflect materialistic sexual characters, or house wifes marganalised by the male characters. Teenagers are often depicted as argumentative and moody, geeky or rebellious, we however challenged all these stereotypical presentations. Instead we presented our female character as psychologically unstable and particularly creative, allowing her mind to transform the way she thinks and believes, to become possessed by dolls. 

This social representation is obvious through her untraditional costume for a girl of age 18, thus reflecting a young doll like child, rather than usual street clothing that a traditional teenager would wear.

The non verbal language also both reflects and challenges gender stereotypes. The twitching of the eyes, the scratching of the face and ripping down of wallpaper reflects the traditional unstable presentation of women, however to a greater extent, instead presenting women as insane inferior characters, behaving in bizarre and inappropriate ways. 'The Grudge' however presents a similar style and behaviour of women through their possessed, cannibalistic character, smeared with black makeup and blood, a more extreme challenge of traditional gender roles than that of what we displayed. 

The mise en scene we displayed our female character in does also challenge social norms in an ironic way. Where usually women would be seen putting on their makeup in the mirror, instead we presented our possessed girl scratching her face and smearing liquids aggressively on her face in the mirror. Rather than decorating the house, as a traditional house-wife would do we had our female character ripping down the wallpaper, and covering it with blood. Also rather than showing protection over their children or family members, we showed our female protagonists obsession over her dolls. And so although the settings of our film opening depict traditional gender roles and ideology, the mise en scene, props and non verbal language do quite the opposite.

The sound we used does however reflect traditional gender roles, but not of the teenage age group but one much younger; for example thing child like singing and laughter we used in our voice over presents the feminine and happy gender traits however of a younger child. The heart beat we used could also be interpreted to represent traditional gender roles in a positive way presenting their passionate and loving nature or negatively as their passive controlling and obsessive lives, thus reflected as the heart beat pace quickens and the volume increases representing the different sides of their personality and the turmoil they go through. 

The camera work used in our opening does not necessarily reflect either traditional or non-traditional social norms but instead conventional horror techniques. The editing technique in the mirror scene however, influenced by the 'Black Swan' does again reflect their changing personalities and their obsessive and possessive natures, watching over people in a controlling way, and sometimes not realising their intentions. The close ups used on the hand movements and eye twitches further reinforces their turmoil. Also the tracking shots around the ruins scene as she trails around the locations reflects their free willed and calm personality, however this can be negatively interpreted as why was she there? What was she doing wandering around?

When considering macro issues of our film opening, and how it serves to reinforce or challenge ideologies I can conclude that although it reinforces minor female personality traits it challenges the traditional ideologies that women are just subservient, marganalised roles to men, blank slates lacking individual personalities and beliefs, but simply conforming to western ideologies. Instead our opening suggests greater depth to women's personalities, underlining the pain they go through and their lack of withstanding influences from the stronger male, in this case she is possessed as a result of the male psychologist taunting her, and so instead we constructed her conforming to the traditional ideological discourse of women as weak and vunerable people leading passive lives.