Evaluation Question 2

Evaluation Q2

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Our protagonist can be compared to Tom Hank's character in 'Road to Perdition', 

Michael Sullivan. Both characters are motivated by their families, lose family 

members to organised crime, and change their allegiances in a fashion that 

places them at odds with dark and powerful figures. The key difference 

between the characters is that Sullivan spends the remainder of his film

 running from his new enemies, whereas the protagonist of 'ShadowMan' 

specifically goes looking for his enemies in order to exact a kind of vigilante 

justice and vengeance. This character does conform to certain tropes, 

especially those surrounding revenge 

('Vengeance Feels Empty' [1] 'Who's Laughing Now?' [2]), there 

is also a sense of remorse and self loathing within the character, conforming 

to the 'Dirty Business' [3] trope. This sort of vengeful character is not really a figure 

who can be used to represent any particular social groups, however his position 

as a white man means that he is a privileged figure, and may suggest why he feels 

such responsibility to his family, as his character would traditionally fall into the 

breadwinner/protector archetypes. Our use of an older, male, main character 

is also an example of targeting, as a key part of our market is the 25-30 year old males.

In terms of gender in general, the opening to 'ShadowMan' only ever has male 

characters onscreen, which may be neglecting a need for female characters, 

and could alienate female audiences. However, the absence of women in 

the opening could be said to emphasize the loss suffered by the protagonist.

 In any case, the fully male cast of our opening sequence represents 

the world of crime as a male dominated enviroment, which in turn 

implies that men are more predisposed towards violence, murder, 

and other forms of crime. The murder of the protagonist's family

 has implications that they were unable to protect themselves, and 

that he was able to protect himself, which enforces his status as 

a would-be archetypal breadwinner/father figure.

'There is also a clear social hierarchy evident in our film, although 

this is existent in the crime world, where the two antagonists are 

at different tiers of the criminal hierarchy. This is denoted by 

their clothing and attitudes. There is evidence of wealth in the 

second antagonist, and this can be said to be categorising 

people based on income. As mentioned earlier however, the

 characters in which this is seen are both in some form of 

criminal organisation, which distances it from reality and 

social hierarchy in the workplace or generally.' [4]

All in all, our opening sequence contains strong representations 

of gender and social status. The representation of gender, although

 not wholly negative, does conform to tropes and archetypes, and 

thus could be accused of perpetuating stereotypes. In terms of 

representation of social status, although potentially negative, due

 to the categorization of characters based on income and social 

standing, is fairly representative of the world of organised 

crime, a world which we were not really concerned with in terms 

of negatively representing it.

Below is a clip from Road to Perdition demonstrating it's plot and aesthetic similarities to our
film, 'ShadowMan', the representations of male dominance and male behaviour are
especially notable, as well as that of criminal hierarchy.


 

[1] http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/VengeanceFeelsEmpty

[2] http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WhosLaughingNow

[3] http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DirtyBusiness

[4] Representation in 'ShadowMan' http://alleynsmedia-mead.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/representation.html

CM