Year 12 Media Coursework Evaluation

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Jade Morgan

The cleaners in the sequence are portrayed positively as young and cheerful working class women, as is represented by their friendliness, jobs and innocent lack of experience with fear-inducing factors; one’s fear of blood, and the other’s unawareness of what force is after her, suspecting only a student.

These traits are stereotypical of the first victim, as they are easy targets before any other characters are made aware of dangers.

Contrasting to his wife, the father in the sequence is working class and stressed when his wife isn’t around to help him with their daughter’s nightmares, as is shown by his scruffy tie and anxiety in waiting for his daughter to go back to sleep before she returns.

The protagonist fits the stereotype of a young girl that is suffering from nightmares and seeing a horrifying imaginary ‘friend’. Terrified, hysterical, and trying to make her father see that her fear exists, she is suppressed by him instead, as is typical of a child that suggests anything out of the ordinary to a parent.

The various pink items in her bedroom and the way that she is surrounded by toys represent her innocence.

The antagonist has no obvious social class as it is a dark entity without a revealed identity. However, the clown only appears to the young girl and its victims; the lack of contact with people is typical of an oppressed person, alike to the protagonist, as well as a violent and antisocial character.

This also conforms to the clown, I.T, that mine is based on, though differs in how it does not speak to the child and attacks adults rather than kidnaps children.

Each of the characters are from Wales, and therefore have Welsh accents stereotypical of average, working class Welsh families. The use of a relatable, ‘normal’ family makes the audience feel more connected to and sympathetic towards the characters.

The setting of the dark but notably small (due to so few cleaners) public school also supports the idea of a working class society, as does the young girl’s small bedroom.