Evaluation Question 2:

2) How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Our particular social group: Teenagers.

From the beginning of our opening sequence, it looks as though we are representing teenagers as the digital generation, as they are seen looking down, not speaking, and just texting.

So when the audience sees the montage at the beginning of the sequence, they would probably think of the digital age and how teenagers have embraced technology, and make them question whether or not digitalisation is actually benefiting the children of today, especially as it has resulted in not speaking. This stereotype of teenagers being the tech-savvy generation has been represented in many films and television programmes, for example Gossip Girl.

However, when they continue watching the sequence and realise that this is not a film on the anti-social behaviour of the teenagers of today, they view the film differently and the representations change.

In our opening sequence, we have chosen to represent teenagers through our main character Ava, a strong, edgy and independent girl. We dressed her in dark trousers, a grey top, khaki jacket and black Doc Martens to make her look tough and slightly tomboyish, but had her hair down in loose blonde waves to add that hint of feminism and beauty. We wanted her to look strong yet still pretty and girly, as we needed her to be our main action hero, yet still beautiful to make the female audience look up and relate to her.



We see Ava listening to music while taking the bus home, and we hear the loud drum and bass mix that she is listening to. We chose this song as we felt that this would be the type of music she listens to: strong, powerful, upbeat, young and slightly rebellious – all of which reflect her character.

This slightly rebellious notion is also emphasised when we see her mother type ‘I saw your gradesheet…’ and she rolls her eyes and walks away, representing the difficult, almost hard to control teenager stereotype, shown in many different films and television programmes, for example Tracy Freeland in the film Thirteen and Marissa Cooper in the TV series The O.C.



However, unlike the stereotype which is seen in a bad light, we look at it in a positive. Although it seems like Ava may be a difficult, moody teenager type, she is actually strong, independent and feisty: all the right ingredients needed for an action heroine.