2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?

The only social group represented in our opening sequence is that of teenage girls, around the age of 16. 

INSPIRATION

Below are two of the characters we researched from chick-flick films to try and help us create and develop the characters of our own opening sequence- Lauren and Scarlett.

The characteristics of Tracy Turnblad from Hairspray symbolise the typical heroine in a chick-flick and so we tried to emulate these in Lauren's character. Lindsay from Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging conveys the complete opposite, as shown below, and so these were the personality traits we decided to portray through Scarlett.

In Wild Child, Poppy started out as a spoilt and rude child, but developed into a caring woman, and with this change came a change in her hair colour. Blondes are typically stereotyped to be dumb or mean in chick-flicks , and brunettes are represented as more friendly and mature. This is something we wanted to address and challenge in our film, and so we decided our 'good' girl (Lauren) should be blonde and our brunette would represent the 'bad' girl (Scarlett).

REPRESENTATION

Gender, Age and State of Mind-

These snap shots from our opening sequence show that we made applying make-up a staple part of every girls morning routine. Even though both of our girls are very different and apply their make up differently- for example Lauren wears a nude gloss whilst Scarlett opts for a bright red lipstick, both are still doing the same thing. This shows both girls care about their appearance and we are assuming all girls this age will want to look good and have a similar interest in make-up, clothes and appearance. 

Possibly the fact that we have made this assumption may put off girls that fit this age bracket, but do not share these interests with our protagonists.

SCARLETT                                                                                LAUREN

Since we were focusing on one social group, having two protagonists allowed us to represent this group from more than one angle- we represented teenage girls in a good light through Lauren but also showed them to have their negatives, through Scarlett. 

• Lauren, being the conventional and stereotypical girly girl has pink as her representative colour- her room is pink, covered with pink books, stationary and products, her walls plastered in posters as most girls her age do. She is shown to enjoy wearing girly clothes such as her heels, and satchel school bag. 
• Scarlett on the other hand has red as her representative colour- her room is bright red, along with her jacket, shoes and various products such as lipstick. She is more sexualised with her short skirt and the fact that she uses her phone as her alarm conveys the typical technologically obsessed teen. She is reluctant to get out of her bed and her room shows no sign of books, schoolwork and photos of friends, unlike Lauren's. 

Our use of split-screens really allowed us to highlight these differences and show the contrast between our two protagonists. 

RELEVANCE TO TODAY'S SOCIETY

When considering our characters we were very aware of the responsibility we held- many teenage girls can be easily influenced by what they watch and so we had to be careful with how we represented our protagonists. 

Many teenagers are given a bad name, with youth crime and bullying being the center of attention for our age group within the media, and so Lauren is a slightly unconventional teenage character in that sense. Scarlett conforms to this stereotype of a 'dangerous' teen more.

IMPROVEMENTS

1. Enhance the use of technology. We did have a shot of Lauren posting a facebook status however it was of poor quality and so we could unfortunately not use it. We could have instead had her or Scarlett texting, showcasing the importance of technology to our audience. 

2. Include Lauren's boyfriend (shown on right) in person in our sequence. We originally did have shots of him greeting Lauren at the school gates but there had to be scrapped after we changed our location for school. Using a male could have broadened our representations.