How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Religious Fanatic

Our film features a very negative depiction of a Christian fanatic. He is presented as the main antagonist in the film and during the opening sequence, beats someone up and then kidnaps them, as well as express radical opinions and intentions in his speech. He shows classic extremist behaviour. Also, he is presented as being possibly homeless, wearing dirty clothes typical of a homeless person and performing his speech in an underground location, suggesting that he is squatting. The dramatic down-lighting, meant to evoke a divine influence, highlighting the religious motivation behind the character.

Influences from other films

From this clip of John Doe from Se7en, we took the latter part of John Doe's speech, his angered intensity and the kind of motivation. In this way, our antagonist is similar to John Doe.

Influences from real life events

Our antagonist is similar to Anders Behring Brevik in terms of extremism. Although not as violent as Brevik, they both maintain similar Christian fanaticism and the motivation to carry it out violently.

We took inspiration from Christian street preachers in terms of the speech our antagonist gives, using similar language. Also, they resemble our antagonist in terms of their outspoken views, and the Youtube recording is meant to be a more modern and fanatical interpretation of street preachers and televangelists.

Homeless

Our film also presents homeless people in a very negative light. Again, this is because the main antagonist is a representation of a homeless vagrant, living underground, and also being violently insane and criminal. He is dressed in a very stereotypical costume of clothes a homeless person would wear, although in terms of mise-en-scene, we were limited by scale and budget, so he is not presented as homeless as we would have liked.


Middle Class

The victim played by Jack, is a stereotypical middle class teenager, who in the film is presented as the weak victim. While it subverts the traditional damsel in distress role by giving it to a male, it still places the social class most likely to be presented as useless, the middle class, as the character in the victim role. His only part in the opening sequence is to be beaten up, kidnapped and then struggle at the very end, so he takes an extremely passive role in the film. The character is dressed in an average smart-casual costume, and although the location is unconventional for that character, it is necessary to the narrative.

Influences from other films

In this clip from The Silence of the Lambs an example of the typical, although upper middle class instead of  simply middle class, victim. This is similar as both are kidnapped and do not resist and kept hostage by the antagonist.

The girl, Kim, is kidnapped in the film Taken, and is similar again in terms of a middle class victim. Although she is still upper middle and female, she is still portrayed as a complete victim. Also, Taken is a more action-orientated and fast-paced action film, so the similarity is slightly tenuous.