Evaluation Question 2

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

The only one character shown in the opening of our film is a woman therefore I will look at how women are represented in our film ‘Delusion’.

In the opening scene, the audience will immediately assume that this character is a heartless murderer and alcoholic; this is an obvious and reasonable thing to think while watching the first few opening clips of our film. In a typical horror/thriller film the majority of murderers are antagonistic males and this opening clip instantly goes against this stereotype which means that the audience are going to be immediately intrigued and continue to watch with anticipation. Once the audience have made this assumption, they will soon find out that this person is actually very vulnerable and weak and not the strong character that they presumed she would be when they watched the opening few shots. They would presume this because it is not your everyday average middle class woman who can go around and kill people in her bathroom; but because of the way that we have portrayed this character in the first few shots this is what the audience are bound to think. In reality, this character is particularly soft and helpless and this becomes slightly clearer when you see the shot of her head in her arms visibly upset and emotional; at this point the audience may question themselves and begin to re-think their first thought of this character. In some ways we have continued to include some stereotypical behaviour for a woman to have in a horror/thriller film due to that fact the she seems powerless and shows regret and shame for something that she has done, while on the other hand a stereotypical male character in her position would seem somewhat pleased and satisfied with his actions thinking himself to be more powerful than he actually is.
The shot of her reaching for the Vodka bottle is the first glimpse the audience get of her emotions and expressions, from this first sighting you can noticeably see the indignity on her face and the sorrow she feels for committing this crime. Having her drink straight from the bottle could suggest that she in an alcoholic or it could simply be that she wants to forget the situation that she is in; either way, this is an unusual scenario for a woman to be seen in during a horror/thriller film, in most cases it would be the aggressive male with a drinking problem and it is very uncommon to see a woman in this condition. Also, the use of the plastic screen that we put in front of the camera lens creates the illusion that she cannot handle her drink because her vision is blurred and this implies that she is not thinking straight; if this was a typical horror/thriller film the woman would most likely not be drinking at all, even if she was it would be the smallest amount possible, this is because the women are generally the victims. The shot of the woman looking in the mirror gives the audience another chance to see her emotions close up and then when you see her scratching the blood off her hands it is an immediate indication that she feels guilty for what she has done. This is a typical feeling for a woman in a horror/thriller film because they do not have the strength and power that a man has in these circumstances.

In the unlikely event that a woman is the murderer in a horror/thriller film, the killings would most commonly be more planned and thought out, rather than a brutal attack causing the victim to bleed excessively and due to the amount of blood in this woman’s bath, this kind of violent attack seems to be the case. This will make the audience question her actions and analyze her behaviour more closely as they attempt to figure out the intentions of this character; they will be unfamiliar with a woman being the villain and continue watching to see the reasoning for her murder. As the film progresses the audience will gain more understanding of this character and witness the personality change and the events that lead up to this killing. The personality of this character at the beginning of our film is going to be similar to a typical woman victim in a normal thriller/horror film; innocent and naïve, but a series of unpleasant and horrendous events cause this characters personality to change and results in these killings. This is not a typical storyline for a film of our genre because the murderer is usually in the same state of mind from start to finish, but then on the other hand the murderer is not frequently a woman. We like to challenge these stereotypes of women in horror/thriller films because it shows the audience a different side to the usual films of this genre and it creates a more exciting and exhilarating atmosphere because the unexpected can happen.