Evaluation - Q2 - Ailsa

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

In our thriller opening, we mainly focus on the social groups of gender and ability/ disability. The character of Nikki is British, her sexuality is not shown, she is around 20 and she is mentally disabled, her class is not very apparent but from the therapist's room we can see it isn't high class, so therefore it's probably one she got free from the NHS. We chose to use two female characters, this is stereotypical when wanting to convey quite emotional characters. Women are usually seen to be much more vulnerable, a lot more effected by past events and therefore it was the obvious choice to use female characters. Also for the therapist, women are perceived as more understanding so we decided on a female for this character as well.
The main character, Nikki, is portrayed as being mentally disabled because of her childhood, we presented this through her sloppy costume and messy hair. 

We also used her jittery and anxious body language and facial expressions to show her lack of power due to her disability. In the park she is seen looking dazed and lost, there is no one around her which also emphasises her loneliness. We presented her like this to create a more effective character, and it is usually easier to understand when they are stereotypical. The way we made the character presents the mentally ill character we wanted to, without this it wouldn't be as effective as a thriller. It also makes it more exciting for the audience as they wonder how she got this way, and how far this illness goes. 
We see no hint that Nikki is happy in any way; her facial expressions are always dazed and depressed, and the setting we put her in (and how she is positioned in them) makes her seem extremely lonely because of her mental disability.

In comparison to Nikki, we made the therapist much more powerful. She had neat, pinned up hair and her costume was very modest and also neat. Her posture was also more upright, this is to show how those with a disability are usually shown to be the ones that lack power. We made this character the complete opposite of Nikki to emphasise both their characters so they can be compared more. Her facial expressions, although serious, seemed content.

The dialogue we used also helped us to present our characters ability/ disability: Nikki only spoke at the end - which shows her lack of power, and the therapist spoke the whole way through, questioning Nikki. 
The camera angles used also contrasts between ability/ disability for Nikki and the therapist - for Nikki we used slight high angles and for the therapist slight low angles. There is a pan of the park, and many fade transitions are used to make the effect of Nikki not in the right mindset even better. To her, the world is lonely and everyday just merges into one, she hasn't got any sense of reality. 

Overall, I think our thriller opening shows that those with a mental illness lack power, and stereotypically women are vulnerable and understanding, and those with a job such as a therapist hold more power.