Evaluation Question 2

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

I looked at our main female character and who she would have similarities with. The first character that I feel shares many similarities with is Angelina Jolie in ‘Salt’. Salt is an action thriller spy film which is very much similar to our film opening.

Angelina Jolie is shown as a strong independent woman who is being accused of being a Russian spy and is constantly on the run in an attempt to get away and clear her name. The difference between their roles is that Angelina Jolie is innocent whereas our main character is an antagonist agent but with the similarities of them both women on the run. The look of both characters is very similar with the fair skin, greenish eyes, long hair and similar makeup. The only major difference between the two characters is the hair colour and ethnicity. Our character has a typical spy/agent look with the black clothing (black jacket and trousers) and hair out however, she has brown hair rather than black which differs from stereotypes as well as her being Hindu (brown) rather than a white woman. Many action thriller films with females as the main character (including Salt) portray them in a sexy stereotypical way which we wanted to escape from and did so by keeping our characters look very simple. The women in most thrillers are either innocent, trying to protect someone/something or have help from others. We chose to break this convention had keep the female character independent who has male companions but does not need help from them, suggesting the strength of women in modern society.
In addition to all this, a major difference between the two characters is their age. Angelina Jolie is a lot older and mature looking whereas our character is only 17. I tried to look slightly older to give it a more professional feel but it was difficult due to my age.  

Another character that shares similarities to our character is Jason Bourne from The Bourne movies such as The Bourne Supremacy. The film is also pretty much the same sort of genre to ours and Salt. Jason Bourne is a former CIA assassin who has suffered from amnesia over the sequels. The story line is differs from ours as he focuses on attempting to gain more information about himself and his past as he is involved in a conspiracy which the CIA are a part of. A similarity in story line is that he is on the run as well as our character however, he is on the run as he is being accused and framed of stealing documents, on theft of $20million in allocation money whereas our character is guilty and is doing it to gain money.

The main difference between the two characters is their gender and age gap. We chose to have a female as our main character to break stereotypical representations and conventions of characters. The dress sense is once again very much similar to Jolie’s in Salt and our character (black clothing). The similarities between Jason Bourne and our character suggest that women in modern society are just as strong and able as men and should not be underestimated, breaking the stereotypical image of women.

All of these factors pull together to link to my target audience. I feel as though it appeals to my target audience of 15+ because of the modern and young look of the character. Having a female character in comparison to a male character offers the young generation a different experience rater than watching a stereotypical form of a male.