SOCIAL REPRESENTATION

By: Eniola Silva

OUR OPENING SEQUENCE REPRESENTED

PARTICULAR SOCIAL GROUPS IN A VARIETY OF WAYS, IN REGARDS TO ETHNICITY, AGE AND GENDER ESPECIALLY...

Research showed us (101 Productions) the stereotypical characters, of a crime drama genre as old white males who were always the 'good guys' and (using the narrative theorist Vladimir Propp's theory) "heroes" or black male youths who were usually the "villains" and the ones that were the criminals and or gang members. These were also the main characters in crime drama and the characters that the audience have to follow for the duration of the film.

After we concluded, as a group, that our findings were similar we deliberated and then decided that we were going to subvert these stereotypes and as a result, we formed Sarah and James. Sarah and James are more accurate representations of society, in terms of youth culture (age), ethnic diversity and gender roles.

We represented the ethnic minority race in our production, through our main character, which was an example of us diversifying and challenging the archetypal roles of crime drama characters. In terms of ethnicity, we made our central character black (a minority race that is usually represented negatively in the media), this action was a subversion of many crime drama films and could be viewed as aspect of our unique selling point. Although we did adhere to the representation of black people as murderers. Sarah does kill James, but in doing so becomes a hero (according to the narrative theorist Propp) because she ends the injustice caused by him the villain and the prize for the hero is James death, which leads to her freedom- although ironically she will be put into prison, a place that is viewed to strip an individual of freedom (but in being trapped by the government, she is free from the hands of James- the true criminal.

We also represented age , by having young characters- but our representation of age is quite negative and could further fuel the pessimistic attitudes of the older generation on the immaturity of the young, and the idea that the young are too young to experience the true meaning of love- but we wanted to show that love is an emotion that can be experienced by individuals no matter their age (this is the same belief we had for abuse as well, so we decided to create binary opposition between these two themes).

Sarah is the central character and by just having a male female lead we have subverted from the stereotypes, however a polysemic interpretation of our film could be that as a result of Sarah being a victim of domestic violence, perpetrated by a male figure we are in actual fact conforming to stereotype, because we are representing the female (Sarah) as weak and the male (James) as strong; we have created a patriarchal dominance.

On the other hand we wanted to represent society accurately and research provided by "Women's Aid" provided evidence that women are the predominant victims of abuse.
We did give power to Sarah because she made the tough decision to end the life of the person causing her so much distress, a decision that would have required emotional strength and an aptitude of physical strength in doing this we formed a role reversal. Sarah could be viewed by certain members of our audience as a damsel in distress but her actions and decisions prove otherwise, and just like in society women are making decisions that they know are tough and could lead them into trouble later on, but because of their divisive nature they are able to make these decisions, and stand up for themselves against misogynistic males.

Certain traits, such as murder are no longer believed by society to be perpetrated by men, now not only is there gender role reversal but also a balance in the actions of males and females. Certain stereotypes regarding the ability and capability of women are now being tarnished by the public and we decided that our media text should represent modern day society, instead of conforming to previous films within our genre.

Furthermore, by having a female as the leading role in our production, we challenged John Berger's theory that "men act and women appear." Sarah does not just "appear" in the story, in actual fact the narrative is propelled by the voice over; which is from her point of view and it in fact James (the male character) is the one who "appears" as the dark figure. We did not "put a face" to the figure to not only create mystery and enigma, but to be a representative figure of negativity, in terms of neglect and abuse. In deciding as a group to do this we are revealing to our audience that anyone could be the figure and a perpetrator of abuse is not a subjective person or particular image.

We challenged the feminist Mulvey's theory regarding the "Male Gaze." We wanted Sarah to be a depiction of the emotional distress that victims of abuse face, and so her original appearance in the beginning was not the stereotypical males conception of beauty. We moved the focus from her overall appearance (we did not represent her as a typical sex symbol and the mise-en-scene of her costume reinforced the idea of realism and our plan of mirroring society, her costume was casual and not odd for our time period) and diverted it instead to the emotional imbalance Sarah was experiencing, we wanted to create questions amongst our audience as to the reason behind her tears and not just the way her tears made her look.