Question 2 - How does your media product represent particular social groups?

This image depicts the stereotypical view of young Afro Caribbean
youths as portrayed in the media.

The opening to our thriller film, Transit, represents several different social groups. One of the most important and notable is that of the young Afro Caribbean male, represented by John. This representation of of a deviant youth from an ethnic minority may offend ethnic communities in that it reinforces the negative representation of this group by the media. For example, after the London riots many young Afro Caribbean males came under scrutiny for supposedly being at the root of the events, especially as they were shown largely on the news when the riots were actually happening.

A stereotypical view of young Afro Caribbean males and the male youth in general, shown in "Adulthood"

We decided the costume of John should be very similar to what many of the younger males were wearing around these times and also what a lot of young males still wear, particularly in urban areas with high crime rates. Therefore we chose John's costume to be primarily dark in colour, we also made sure that John was wearing a hoody and a hat in order to show that his character may be attempting to conceal his identity; much like the young males in the London riots, who were obviously up to no good. John's costume helps to portray a realistic representation of a large proportion of the male youths appearance as of today. John's concealed appearance could lead the audience to make the assumption that John is up to no good or perhaps the character with a lack of morality; thus reinforcing the common stereotype of the young Afro Caribbean males.

The character of John, showing his dark costume complete with hoody.

Combo from "This is England"

In saying this however, we also attempted to challenge this generic stereotype by making John seem like the vulnerable character by placing him within the large isolated car park; showing an obvious contrast in scale; the car park is a very intimidating, claustrophobic space. In addition, John is also portrayed as having less power than the character of Bill, a 40 year old white electrician; thus the stereotype is reversed and the older white British male is to be feared more so than the young Afro Caribbean male. This switch in the stereotypical representations of ethnicity can also be seen in the British drama "This is England" (which also aims to target the same demographic as Transit does) in the characters Milky and Combo. Milky is the only black member of the gang, although he is kind hearted and friendly; thus he challenges the prejudicial stereotype. "This is England" continues to reverse the stereotypes of ethnicity by showing the older British white male, Combo, as a violent racist. These representations of ethnicity are very similar as to those shown in Transit because John is hunted by Bill. If we were to develop the film further then we intended to make the character of John subject to racism, therefore the stereotype would be reversed; much like "This is England".

John seems to be unmoved by the discovery of the dead body of Hanna, this suggests to the audience that he has a lack of empathy and has possible criminal tendencies; thus the stereotypical representation is once again reinforced.

Gilda, a typical representation of femme fatales.

The representation of females within film is reasonably limited in Transit as the only female character is Hanna, who is a minor role in the opening scenes. This is clearly displayed by the lack of screen time she has; thus she is not dominating the mise en scene, showing a more classic representation of females in the thriller genre. However, we felt it was important that we tried to steer away from the generic representation of females because it has been overused and gender equality should be promoted as much as possible, especially in film. We achieved this through the use of costume, Hanna is not shown to be revealing or provocative; thus the audience can see that she is not overly concerned with her image and is more focused on the task in hand (meeting with John and getting the contents of the bag). This representation challenges the stereotypical view of women in film because they are usually seen wearing costume that reveals a lot of skin or they are seductive/tempting to the male characters, such as Gilda from "Gilda". Often females are also shown to be passive victims, meaning that they put up no resistance to their attackers. This representation depicts pretty blondes who dress glamourously in order to attract/seduce the male characters in to danger; something that the character of Hanna is very far from.

Severine in "Skyfall"

Although the representations of women in film have been progressing away from the femme fatale stereotype, there are still recent films that depict women as weak and inferior to men. For example, in the most recent James Bond film "Skyfall", M (played by Judi Dench, an older aged female) is the head of MI6 but as the film progresses she is portrayed as a weak character and is eventually killed. This is a problem for the progression away from the stereotypical representation of women in film, especially as the divide in gender is reinforced towards the end when a white British working class male assumes the position of M. As a result of this, the female audience will be much less likely to want to continue watching the Bond franchise as the representation of women is not shown to be changing in any shape or form. As with "Skyfall" and the rest of the Bond franchise, the femme fatale representation is almost always shown in the films through characters such as Money Penny, Pussy Galore and most recently Severine. Again this will not help to reach a female audience.

Ralph Fiennes in "Skyfall" replaces M as head of MI6.

We got the name Hanna from the thriller "Hanna" in hope that it would help to change the way that the female character is perceived by the audience. Hanna (from the film) is shown to be independent and capable of fending for herself and is of a similar age to Hanna from our film (Transit); therefore we tried to use this link to challenge the generic representations of young women in the thriller genre. We also largely based the appearance of Hanna on Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace) from The Millennium Series because she represents a progressive step towards changing the stereotypical representation of females in film, particularly in appearance and character development.

Unfortunately Hanna is killed early on in the film and so the generic representation of females is restored, thus we used the classic stereotype of females to allow the audience to identify with the genre of the film. If we were to develop the film then we could continue to challenge the representation by using flashbacks in order to further develop the plot line concerning Hanna. This would give us the opportunity to represent Hanna as a stronger lead character.

Lisbeth Salander, played by Noomi Rapace in The Millennium Series. Notice how her character bares similarities to that of Hanna from our thriller, Transit.