Evaluation of Representation of Social Groups in our Film

Representations

‘’Evaluate your representation of a specific social groups(s) in your piece’’

• We deal with two stereotypical types of representations in our chick flick teen drama "Just a Girl."
• The popular girls that have the nice houses, spoilt, wear make-up and have loads of friends are represented as being mean characters or in other words the villain.
• The 'nerd' girls usually are shown as having few friends, math elites, wear no make-up, have average clothes and in some cases wear glasses. They are represented as being the sweet innocent victim and the audience sympathise with them.
• These representations are contrasting and are highly exaggerated. Because they are contrasting, they almost cancel each other out. Because they border on parody, we do not expect the audience to take them seriously and translate them to 'real life'.
• These stereotypes have become so familiar they are almost teen archetypes. In TV programs such as Glee and One Tree Hill the popular girls are always shown as having friends around them and very often in American media as being ‘cheerleaders’.

 The popular cheerleaders in ‘One Tree Hill’.

The popular girls in ‘Glee’. The ‘Cheerios’ Cheerleaders.

Representation of 'nerd' stereotype in "One Tree Hill"

 

• Our main character played by Rachel represents the stereotypical teenager of a shy, timid and unpopular girl. The popular girl played by Rebekah represents the spoilt, rude and glamorous teenager. This is a common stereotype shown in films for the two main characters forcing the audience to compare them to create the drama.
• This stereotype usually takes it in an exaggerated form by showing the shy girl having no friends or friends with unique characteristics and doing cringe things that make the audience empathise there ‘goofiness’. Contrastingly, with the exaggerated form of the popular girl who is usually rich, spoilt, ‘dumb’ and in a relationship with the equally as popular guy.
• Our sequence opens with the  use of split screen and medium long shots which were effective in showing the clear contrasts between the two main characters and differentiating the girls’ personalities and different stereotypes with teenagers in terms of social groups for the audience - mise-en-scene was important as we contrast the girls' clothes and bedrooms and the props around them.
• The cross-cutting in the beginning between the two girls’ houses and morning routines forces the audience to compare the two.
• Similarly in "10 Things I hate About You" they used cross cutting between the two sisters in which the popular girl, sweet and the unpopular, alternative girl are made to be compared because of this editing technique. Again, it waters down the representation because of the lack of verisimiltude and the sense of deliberate juxtaposition.

 Our use of split screening portraying contrasting characters/surroundings immediately without dialogue.

 Mean Girls’ use of split screening showing the same representation of teenagers in all four boxes.

10 Thing I hate About You. Medium / two shot of the contrasting characters. 

Our contrasting two characters showing power with one character and weakness and shyness with the other.

 

• The next scenes focus on the girls’ daily routine. Cross-cutting is used throughout to put emphasis on the contrasting main characters.
• Close-ups and medium-shots are the main camera angles used as this shows the audience a clear view of their facial expressions and the different routine they go through.
• This allows the audience to clearly distinguish the two contrasting representations.
• Stereotypes of the popular girl using props such as straighteners and make-up show the type of teenager she is.
• Contrastingly the nerdy girl is show as putting on her glasses and no make-up.
• Non-diegetic music is used during the process of the girls’ daily routine. The music used is a rocky, alternative genre. It has a rebellious teenager tone to it and fits in well with our chick-flick genre.
• In teen drama, teenage life is often represented as being more interesting than it really is. We also hint at this in our representation. However, as already said, our genre does not rely on verisimilitude but is meant to be entertaining escapism.
• Dialogue is used when both girls are getting ready. A cross-cut is used to hear both girls’ responses. The nerdy girl calls her mother ‘mummy’ and finishes  by saying she is going to the library after school and that she loves her. The dialogue reinforces her characteristics of being the nerdy girl of the two representations of the social groups.
• Alternatively, the popular girls response to her mother is different as she calls her ‘Mum’ and finishes by saying she has dance practice with the girls. This shows that that her character is more girly and therefore she is in the poplular social group.

 This medium shot shows the popular teenager using her props emphasising her character.

 Mean girls showing their perception of popular girls’ make-up.

• We use mise-en-scene a lot to reinforce the two contrasting stereotypes.
• With the use of location, when filming Rebekah we used glamorous settings by emphasising the use of colour to the bedroom showing she has nice surrounding and perhaps is more privileged.
• Rebekah’s costume consisted of a pink dressing gown and matching slippers telling the audience she is conscious of what she wears and how she is perceived in her eyes.
• Rachel remains in her mismatched tom boy and plain pyjamas showing no concern of her appearance.
• The contradictory props used for Rachel consisted of academic books and the nerdy glasses.
• Rebekah’s props consisted of the mobile phone in hand, designer back and make-up (materialistic items).
• We were able to create these stereotypes so easily because this kind of mise-en-scene has become so associated with both stereotypes.

 Mean Girls’ representation of the setting of a popular girls’ bedroom.

The setting of one girl is plain and the other is glamorous.

Mean Girls’ representation of the setting of a popular girl’s bedroom.

• Long shots were often used in our piece to show the audience who the dominant and popular character was with the ‘crew’ around her and the nerdy girl standing alone.
• The corridor scene is a key scene in to the showing major differences between the two stereotypes we are dealing with in our sequence.
• We show the popular group all grouped together on one side of the corridor whilst Rachel (the nerdy girl) is alone. We show this using a long shot so the audience have a clear view of the positioning of the isolation of the nerdy girl and the popularity of Rebekah.
• In many chick-flick films such as ‘Mean girls’ and TV programmes such as ‘Suburgatory’ the ‘nerdy’ girl is represented as being an outsider by using a variation of group shots and long shots to show them being left out.
• This reinforces the stereotype of the nerdy girl being isolated and seen as being different compared to the popular girls full of confidence and social skills.
• Finally, we use shot reverse shot at the end to show the conversation between the two contrasting stereotypes.
• We used shot reverse shot to emphasise the power on the popular girl with the use of high key lighting on her face and extra screen time.
• The high key lighting puts her in a positing of power. This occurred naturally due to the sun. However, this arrangement worked out well for us.
• The smaller size of Rachel is emphasised when the camera is behind the shoulder of Rebekah showing the size difference.
• Similarly, in TV programmes like Lizzie Mcguire on Disney channel Lizzie and Miranda are shown to be spoken down on by the popular girl. A medium group-shot is used to show the size difference emphasising the popular girl’s power.

 Mean Girls show the popular girls grouped together and the nerdy girl alone.

 Suburgatory’s representation of the group shot of the popular group and Tessa (in the middle) standing alone.

 ‘Just a Girl’s’ long shot showing nerdy girl alone/left out and popular people grouped together.

Media representation of a girl being left out.

Overall

To return to some of the ideas while researching the genre, while we have used very stereotypical representations and there could be concerns that we are damaging the representation of women by showing that aspiring to be the popular pretty girl makes for a happy ending, we are not expecting audiences to relate our film to real life. It is true that a lot of teen drama ends with 'getting the boy' as the happy ending - but this is true of any film with a romance element and our film is intended to be escapist, not educational.