Evaluation Question 2

How does your media product represent particular groups?

High school dramas are often set in or around high schools and throughout show many different social cliques. The classic codes and conventions of teen film come from American films where one of the most widely used conventions are the stereotypes and social groups. The wide range stereotypes most commonly used include:

• The Jock/Cheerleader
• School Diva
• The Geek/Nerd
• The Rebel

When brainstorming our ideas for our opening film, we as a group decided we wanted to do a High School Drama, and knew we had to include various 'social cliques'. However, in contrast to the classic "American" stereotypes, we decided it would be a interesting idea to base our social cliques on the current popular "Uk/London" social groups and stereotypes. 

The social groups we thought of that were currently most popular were:

. The 'Starbucks Girl'

Which would be a british representation of the "Princess character". As in London it is a little bit of a jock that popular and trendy young girls go to Starbucks, as it is the trending place to hang out with friends and if you go there you are automatically considered "cool". 

. The 'Hood Rat'

Another British representation of the american Rebel

. The Hipster (a person who follows the latest trends and fashions, especially those regarded as being outside the cultural mainstream) The hipster is a very comical stereotypical thing for people to call each other for fun. It is a very well known "character" used today and we thought since it is well known it will be able to represent that particular social group well and the audience would relate more to the character. 

How the character outfit represented the particular group

The "Starbucks Girl"

The "Hipster"

The "Hood Rat"

 

Our teacher gave us the advice with our costumes to be overdramatic to properly show and capture the stereotype; so how we did this for example with the "Hood Rat" character was get a very over exaggerated fake knife to show the comical side of the film, as well as "The hipsters" over sized glasses and the "Starbucks girl" holding the coffee cup just like the stereotype. Although these representations are over exaggerated, they are all positive representations because they are portrayed so comically and it creates quite a positive image; for example, even though "The Hoodrat" is a mean and threatening character, it is still a positive image because of how comically big and fake the knife is. Also, the sound in our film is also another way the whole opening is positive and comic because of the sound effects and upbeat music used to enhance the funny side of the opening for each character; for example, the overly loud bang sound when the knife is unveiled.

Because this is a High School Drama instead of a Teen/Youth Drama we only included classic teenage stereotypes as it is based mainly on students and how they get to college. And because of this we did not include any Adult Stereotypes, for example "nagging parents".