How does your media product

represent particular social groups?

Similarities DifferencesRole in the film

Both characters are seeking/have sought revenge.

Hayley’s motive to punish is purely to teach the antagonist a lesson whereas Clementine’s is to avenge a loved one.

Costume Clementine wears a more army-like attire – cargo trousers and a sleeveless top. Hayley wears a hoodie and a skirt.

Make-up Both characters wear make-up to show their bloody appearance.

Hayley is more of a sterotypical ‘tomboy’ as she lacks make-up, however Clementine does wear make-up

Props Clementine is tied up in the first scene (where she is heavily represented). Hayley threatens the other character with surgical tools.

Dialogue Clementine remains silent, whereas Hayley is a more mocking, threatening character.

Hayley Stark from Hard Candy Clementine in Kill Another Day(our production)

One social groups that we represented in our production was young females. This representation was made through the character of Clementine, who was also the protagonist. Another film that included a young female protagonist was Hard Candy. Here, I am going to outline the similarities and differences between the characters of Clementine and Hayley Stark.

We represented the social group of females differently to how they are stereotypically represented – as damsels in distress who require the aid of a male to save them, which was shown in my research into characters in thriller films. We showed this social group through the character of Clementine. Clementine is the protagonist of the production and is represented as being a young female who doesn’t conform to the stereotype of a damsel in distress or a ‘princess’ as suggested by Propp’s theory or is simply used for the benefit of the male audience as implied by the male gaze theory by Mulvey.

In our production, we represented different social groups through the characters of Butch and Clementine. The two characters in question were of the D socio-economic group – the working class. We intended to represent these characters in an anti-stereotypical way, especially avoiding the stereotypes of their genders.

Instead, she is violent and independent and does not rely on the other main character, her brother. We represented her in this way because we wanted to avoid the stereotype of her being the one vulnerable as conventionally in the thriller genre, females are often represented as being able to hold their own as found from my own research of the films Hard Candy and Red Eye. We represented her in such an anti-stereotypical way through the mise en scene, primarily in the first scene. The character wore army-like clothing in order to show that she is a serious and determined character and she was also adorned with bruises to show that she was able to survive a beating and therefore emphasise on her lack of vulnerability. This is a positive representation of females because, from my research, I found that it is not always the case that females are represented as being strong and independent, especially in opening sequences, as I discovered from the analysis of Sleeping with the Enemy, the female protagonist was weak and oppressed by her male partner.

In second scene, however, we represented females differently. We showed Clementine being in a more domestic role by giving the character direction of washing up. This represented her as being more innocent and naive rather than how she was previously represented. We put her in this sterotypical, female house maker role to emphasise more on the character development. This is a more negative representation of this social group because it is fitting to the stereotype that women are not as strong as the men.

Conclusion

The character of Clementine does follow the stereotypical representation of females in the second scene of our production. This is because she is seen in a domestic role which is typically applied to the female gender as she is shown washing up and not looking particularly violent or heroic. Although, in the first scene, Clementine’s character actually goes against that of the stereotypes. Instead, she has a more masculine role and is portrayed as a hero rather than a victim as represented through the use of mise en scene – her costume and make-up.

By representing this character as not being a stereotypical young woman, we were able to make a production that fit in with the generic conventions of the thriller genre because often this genre avoids sticking to stereotypes and in fact, sometimes switches gender roles around to make the male character the one who is weak.

I think that our overall representation of the character determined from both scenes is positive. As our narrative is non-linear, the audience will be able to distinguish between who Clementine was and who she turned into which in itself shows the escape from the stereotype that she was.