Kayvon Nabijou - Question 2: How does your media product represent particular social groups?

The two main representation issues that we focused on in our film were age and gender. We took inspiration from similar characters in existing coming-of-age rom-coms such as Scott Pilgrim from 'Scott Pilgrim vs. the World' for our protagonist Michael, and Jordana Bevan from 'Submarine' for our helper Tris.


Gender
In our chosen genre, gender stereotypes are often quite different to many other genres, where both male and female characters may show traits that perhaps audiences would recognise more clearly in the other gender. We had both positive and negative representations of both genders, shown below:

Like Brad, Michael is an anglicised version of the stereotype - a 'cross' between Scott Pilgrim and Oliver Tate (Submarine).

To conclude: We had mixed representations of gender - however all the character types are recognisable by our audience.

Age
Age was our most important representation issue as our target audience was British teenagers and young adults. We chose to challenge the common stereotype of teenagers being rude, noisy and rebellious that is so commonly portrayed in films such as Youth in Revolt and Superbad.

Our protagonist Michael, although appearing pathetic and childish at the start of the film, quickly decides what a sensible plan of action is through the narrative. Whilst Brad and Lara and negative representations of teenagers, Tris and Michael show the more mature, aspirational representations of teenagers.

To Conclude: We have represented teenagers in a way that is not commonly seen in the media, but in a way that our target audience will relate to and understand through their own personal experiences as well as other films with similar representations, such as Submarine and Scott Pilgrim vs the World.