Evaluation of Gender
Main Character
- In thrillers female girls/teenagers are normally cast for the role of the victim as they are seen as vulnerable and unable to look after themselves, this is a common and controversial female stereotype.
- Our main character in our film is a female/teenager victim played by myself. This fits into the codes and conventions of a thriller.
- I am seen to be very distressed with the situation and the viewer can clearly see that I have been attacked, by showing me with blood all over my body and a black eye.
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| Woman as victim stereotype |
- This shows the audience I have been hurt and therefore feel sorry for her.
- I am also seen as weak as this has happened to her and this fits into the rather disturbing stereotype of women, so in some ways although I like our piece, I can see we have reinforced some not very positive female stereotypes.
- Lacey suggests that thrillers are often used to comment on the role of women in society.
- In films such as ‘Taken’ women are portrayed as being weak and a sexual victim.
- The women are seen as an object to take advantage of.
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| Our representation |
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| Character from 'Taken' |
- Another film which portrays women in a vulnerable way is ‘Paranormal Activity’ as the women is trying to get away from the ghosts and demons but as she is seen as weak and defenceless she is unable to.
- I can see why there are concerns about this kind of stereotype, but I also understand how it comes about having used the stereotype myself.
- I think this is a tempting stereotype for the genre because having a vulnerable main character creates the tension and sympathy you are looking for instantly and connects with the audience straight away because of the familiarity of the representation.
- You also have to look to the end of the film - our character fights back and so is like Clover's 'final girl', which is a more powerful representation. It would be more damaging if she accepted the abuse and this was the more common stereotype.
Males
- The attacker is a young male which also fits into the codes and conventions of the genre thriller. Every time the attacker is shown on screen, it is seen with a black and white colour to suggest to the audience this is the villain of the film and should be wary of him.
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| Our attacker |
- The stereotype that men are stronger and therefore are likely to be the attacker of the girl.
- In our piece we show an extreme close up of the male attacker grinding his teeth together very aggressively connoting the audience that he is a threatening character.
- This creates a negative representation the attacker. Due to the audience feeling sorry for the girl and knowing he is the one who is caused this to happen to her, the audience automatically feel negatively towards him.
- This is also the case with the male attacker from ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’
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| Girl with Dragon Tattoo |
- This picture is taken from an interesting article that discusses the 'revenge' idea:
- Our attacker is stereotypical - male, physically stronger, hoodie etc. We have done this because we only had two minutes to make an impact. in a real opening sequence you can take things slower. Ours had to be more bold as nobody is going to watch the rest of our film to see how things play out.
- Using the common stereotypes also makes it more believable for those who are influenced by what they read in the press - but this can be seen as cheap maybe as discussed in the article.
- The attacker fits into Lacey's idea of films of this kind enacting a patriarchal social revenge on 'troublesome' groups such as women and teenagers.
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| Aggressive representation |
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| Current press concern around abuse - society's big fear |
- There is also a contrast between the male characters.
- The police officer is seen to help the girl in need and comes across in a very positive representation.
- There is the use of a shot reverse shot of the conversation between the girl and the police officer showing him caring about the situation and wanting to help.
- He uses a very soft tone of voice to portray he is a caring character.
- Police officers are often seen to caring members of the community and we tried to portrayed this
- Police officers have been seen in the press to be caring members
- In the film ‘Taken’ The dad is seen the be the hero character which is a contrast with the villain who is a male
Our similar representation of a positive take of males
Press representation of a positive take of males
Similar character in ‘Taken’
Overall representation
- The overall representation of women are weak and vulnerable
- They are seen to have less power than men
- The overall representation of men are mixed
- On one hand the villain is seen as negatively as uses power to control and abuse women
- Also the caring character uses his power as the police officer to help the girl in need
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