HOW DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT REPRESENT PARTICULAR SOCIAL GROUPS?

​gender

We felt that the film portrayed females to seem weaker and more vulnerable. This is because we went with the concept of using a stereotypical victim. The actor we chose was Charlotte Weygang who is blonde. The stereotype here is that blonde females are usually weaker physically and mentally than the average person. With a weaker appearing cast, the zombies seem more dangerous given that their victims are more vulnerable.

We also included some Males as victims. The males that we used were mainly people who had smaller/skinnier body builds. This was to create the illusion that they were also at a weaker survival disadvantage. The zombies were a mixture of genders which tells the audience that both genders are just as at risk as the other. Overall we can say that we do not have a biased effect within the film as both genders are depicted as weak through the use of stereotypes.

Zombies and victims

​Within the film we had stereotypes such as those that would imply the victims to be much more vulnerable to the average person in an apocalyptic situation. For example the female victim was blonde and the male victims were smaller builds which suggests a mental and physical vulnerability.

(Our OTS of zombies against glass)

(Scene from the walking dead of zombies against glass)

​We also have conformed to the stereotype that zombies are slow walking which is an effect that has been used in media in the past. We used slow moving zombies to conform to the stereotype as their lack of speed is seen as less threatening when confronted alone but when they swarm into a large number of zombies then they become much more deadly, to represent this stereotype we used a large number of sluggish zombies in our OTS. We used a forest to location to show how in this type of event no where is safe from danger and so fills the horror stereotype that no where is safe from harm.

​social class

In our OTS we represented social class by showing our zombies as being a random assortment of upper or lower class people. The random gathering of different social classes in our group of zombies is used to represent that no class is safe or different from any other victims that are in the OTS. This goes with the stereotype that any and all people are affected by zombies in media.

(Upper class zombies in our OTS)

(lower class zombies in our OTS)

To represent the different classes in our zombie horde we had some of our horde members wearing higher status clothing such as shirts and ties, to represent lower class we have some of our zombies wearing scruffy clothing and an untidy look to show how they differentiate between the social classes that are in our zombie horde, this is how our OTS represents the high and low classes of the social hierarchy, this is how our OTS was able to conform to stereotype.