Evaluation: Question 2

"How does your media product present particular social groups?"

In my film, the only characters are two women.

The burglar is portrayed as a daring, dangerous character through outfit, music and effects. The outfit mystifies the character as unusual and up to no good. The music, starting at a slow and tense pace, builds up as the plot develops with the character.

A woman protagonist is unusual: woman are often victimised to be saved by the main male character. A villainous woman is usually dominant, powerful and exciting.
An example of this is Anne Hathway in 'The dark knight rises.'
She plays astrong, confident woman who is capable of the danger a man is usually portrayed to have.
I wanted to recreate this characters identity: I think it does a very good job at challenging gender stereotype roles in film.

Anne Hathway in 'The dark knight rises' looking confident as a 'bag guy.'

This is a screen grab of me in action as the villain. The black connotes an evil, mysterious character. The black, unrevealing clothing is intended to 1) keep the character covered to as little personal details as possible so no identity other than the one I am trying to create is suggested, and 2) Ensure that the woman characters are portrayed modestly. From research, I have found that many woman characters are sexualised. Even when they do have large parts such as when the villain protagonist, they are usually modelled in tight, short clothing that make sexual suggestions about the character. It is common that the female villain is dominant and attractive: this is to engage a mainly male target audience as it is usually men interested in action. 

For example, Lara Croft, played by Angelina Jolie, is portrayed as a very sexy, dominant character. She wears tight fitting, short clothing, just like this: the more seductive, presumably the more it will attract the male audience. Obviously, this works both ways: it is common for female audiences to be the larger audience of a specific film due to a popular attraction to a male above the line talent actor.

In this picture, she has her legs on show to the viewer with guns strapped around her waist. She is giving the camera a 'come here' gesture and her facial expression and body language look inviting. This is to get people of target audience- males interested in action, intrigued by the look of the female. As this is common in action films, I wanted the female to be a confident, dangerous female without this same, generic stereotype.

Another reason I did not want this image to be portrayed from the act of a female villain is because of our specified target audience. Our target audience is 16-25, female or male. If it was too gender biased, this may influence a favourability to one gender. Also, if the women were portrayed in the sexual way they are in popular films, the age certificate may not be appropriate, narrowing our specific audience and decreasing film sales. Our target audience should not be influenced by characters of our film this way if we want to keep it neutral age and gender, or we might miss out on money if it tips to one preferred audience.