Evaluation task 2 - How have I addressed social groups in my film?

Our film specialises in two sub headings:

Gender

My film is very stereotypical, having a male with the more dominant role over the woman. The main character, Detective Seth, has a more powerful position than the female and this conforms to the audience's expectations as they expect the man to be more dominant than the woman. This is provident as the male detective takes charge with opening the briefcase and has all the knowledge about the mark. In the film, we portray this through high angles looking down at the female character and we have more camera time on the male character. We also took shots of the male character standing over the blonde, dead victim, who is lying on the floor and is wearing white jeans to portray her vulnerability. This is a stereotypical representation of gender and thus conforms to the audience's expectation off a powerful male investigator and a weak, powerless female victim.This film ideology of genders is a very widespread and common one as it has been represented by media since the invention of film-thrillers, and the film industry as a whole.

This stereotypical representation is seen in other films, such as Sherlock Holmes where he has to help her by saving her. Likewise, in my film, my main male character has to help his female partner in figuring out that she is a ghost to help solve the crime. Silence of the Lambs is also similar to mine as the young female seeks the help of an older male serial killer.

 For our film we researched a number of thrillers that all had similar story lines as ours, such as Hitchcock's, The Lodger (1926) and Wes Craven's Scream (1996) which are about serial killers murdering innocent and attractive women, usually blonde. Similarly, our film features a blonde victim who has been killed and is played by Abigail Daniels. 
However, there have been some iconic, strong female character in the past years, for example, Hermione Granger and Katniss Everdeen. Despite this, they have all had moments where they get physically defeated by men and almost all of them have a male supporter, who helps them in dangerous situations an acts as a savour. This could imply that the women require the help of a man. 

A real-life crime where a man has purposefully murdered young, blonde girls would be the case of Levi Bellfield, who now goes by the name of Yufus Rahim. He murdered the blonde 13 year old Milly Dowler, 19 year old Marsha McDonnell and 22 year old Amelie Delagrange. He also tried to kill 18 year old Kate Sheedy, who survived.
Additionally, serial killer David Berkowitz targeted young women with long, brown hair, but forced them to dye their hair blonde. This therefore connotes how most vulnerable and powerless girls are seen to be blonde.

Age

My film also represents the stereotypes of different age groups. Detective Seth is a 50 year old detective and carries connotations of intelligence which are reflected in his experience and job title as head detective. He has a lot of knowledge about the mark that they find on the victims and takes charge a lot. However, his partner/ghost is much younger than him and is also a victim of the murders. She is in her late 20's and has much less experience with detective work. In many films, such as Silence of the Lambs, the older and wiser person helps and guides the younger person throughout their struggles in their life. 
Through our extended camera time on the older detective, we demonstrated that he was more important in solving the crime and had to help the younger detective. Additionally, through the eye-line match, we connoted how he knew more about how to solve crimes and knew where to look and what to look for, whereas she did not.


Disability

In our film the, the male detective is able to see ghosts and appears to be speaking to himself. However, although he is ABLE to see ghosts, the audience may see him as mentally DISABLED as he is speaking to himself. This is shown through a slow motion of him giving the gloves to the floor and long shots of him speaking to himself. Therefore, this character represents the disabled and subverts to stereotypical representations. On another note, we wanted to show disability in a positive light by portraying the main character as more of a hero, than someone whose disability is negative and restricts them. Therefore, we made him a counter-type to most representations of disability in the media. As our character is not restricted to a wheel chair or hallucinates negatively, his mental disability allows him to take charge, being able to see things that other people cannot.