2) How does your media products represent particular social groups?

Emily mainly conforms to the sterotypical female in horror films. She is young, attractive and potrayed as being quite weak and easily lead. Her being lured by Jay is particularly obvious in the walking home scene where they're holding hands, this is after she's had the vision of him chasing her, connoting that women aren't as self-reliant as men and are more easily taken advantage of - a sterotypical view of women as the 'damsel in distress'. However, in some horror films, halloween, the female characters are quite promiscuous, in my film Emily is the picture of innocence so, you could say she is a countertype,pictured are the two outfits we see her in, she wears the shorts and jumper and is holding her dress, however, her lack of promiscuosity could make her a stereotype because it implies she's the naieve victim.

Jay's character is a countertype of the traditional anatagonist of horror movies. Firstly, he is in no way disfigured and on the surface looks relatively like a normal, teenage male. He doesn't own anything dark coloured, nor does he appear menacing. We first see him being a stereotypical teenage boy (taken from the influence of the romance genre), and he comes across as gentlemanly and sweet, another countertype to the normal antagonists of horror films (Freddy Krugar - A Nightmare On Elm Street). Male characters in my film are portryed as mysterious and as having an ambiguous personailty, we do not know whether or not we trust him or if he's a good or bad character until the end of the opening (however elements of mystery are shown in the shot of his eyes, below). They are also seen as dominant over the females, which is a common convention of many horror films.

My film is also countertypical due to the fact that I have a female protagonist. I showed this by giving her more screen time and also by giving her a supernatural trait, the vision, and so an upper-hand over the male. This connotes that although men are physically stronger, women play a more important role within society and are more knowledgeable. It is uncommon for horrors to have female protagonists because of the ideology that they're too weak to defend themselves. My film defies this by presenting a lead female who seems a lot more capable (until the last shot of the stabbing) than the male lead, I have shown this in the last spilt screen of the getting ready shots, Emily is calming putting on mascara whereas Jay is sitting on his bed nervously playing with his hair (a role-reversal of the typical male/female stereotypes - women are usually portrayed as nervous wrecks and men are presented as calmer), the screenshot of this is below.