How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Our media product contains a white male and female character. After a great deal of research and interviewing target audiences we found the people that were most interested in our film were people aged 17-24. Keeping this in mind we decided our film should contain at least 1 character in this age range. Keeping this in mind we got an actress who was 17 to play the female in our product(as seen on the left). The female dresses in casual clothes and is presented as nervous and distressed. We did this to contrast the male character in the scene who has a calculated and stern demeanour. Our actor who played this character was 17 but by not showing his face and dressing him in a formal suit we were able to make him appear older to have a more imposing and dominant presence in the film. The sharp suit makes the male seemed professional and rigid while the girls casual clothes contrast this making her seem more urban and plain. 

As well as this the jeans and casual wear makes the female seem of a lower social class than the male again giving the male another layer of power over her. The females body language is also very shaking and restless. Her hands fidget throughout the scene and she is hesitant to open the letter given to her by the male. This contrasts the male who's movements are stern and precise. He walks very firmly and tosses the note to the female when she does not respond to him showing how little time he has for her. The dialogue also shows the dominance the male exerts over the female character. He speaks to her in imperatives and commands her to meet at the train station. When at the train station he does engage in any friendly small talk and cuts down the exchange to what is needed of him.

Overall the reason we presented the female like this is because we wanted to show how helpless and scared her character is in this situation. We also wanted to subvert noir conventions of the 'femme fetale' character who is usually a seductive woman who lures males into comprising and dangerous situations(eg eva greenes character in sin city, seen to the right).

The male however is a familiar noir character archetype, the stern, no nonsense male who is there to do his job and who often uses women to fulfil his needs or to acquire what he wants.