Margaret Ansu

AS Media Foundation Portfolio G321

OCR Media Studies

Evaluation Activity 2: How does your media product represent particular social groups?
Our product represents the lower class citizens of the United Kingdom. More specifically, middle aged white men of the lower working class in London who are extremely lonely. We did this through our antagonist. Our antagonist is a middle aged man from London, who is shown to be poorly dressed and poorly kept. For the costume of our antagonist was very low budget; a plain white vest, a hooded jacket and tatty blue length trousers. Showing that he obviously lives by himself and doesnt have anyone to look after and care for him as he isnt trying to keep up appearances meaning that in his life there is no one to impress or make happy showing he is alone. This also shows that he obviously doesnt earn much money if he works and that his main source of income are benefits he gets from the government. As well as that, as he doesnt have a respected high income job that would have brought about many socialising opportunities for him to socialise, he is very shut off from the rest of society and doesnt really know how to socialise with people, making him a very lonely man. This is very typical of the social group our antagonist represents. They are usually men who have not achieved most in their life and are usually very secluded from the rest of the world, causing them to be reminiscing in the past when they were young, which causes them to feel lonely. Loneliness could lead to depression and in some cases crime and these outcomes are very common in our represented social group. For it is said that in the UK most serial killers and repeat offenders of sexual assault, are middle aged White British men. Comparison to another Serial Killer from another Thriller Film

In American Psycho Patrick Bateman is a fictional character who is a serial killer, just like our character The Man. Even though the two characters play very similar roles in the two films they are both portrayed in very different ways. In American Psycho Patrick Bateman lives a double life, where his serial killing lifestyle is covered up by his sophisticated investment banker day job. On the other hand The Man doesnt live a double lifestyle and just spends most of his time as an

Margaret Ansu

AS Media Foundation Portfolio G321

OCR Media Studies

agent of someone else killing people. However Patrick is not agent of someone else but kills at his own accord. Another difference between Patrick Bateman and The Man, is that The Man has a specific trend to his victims (young white girls), but Patrick kills whoever he wants; from colleagues, the homeless to prostitutes and even children. Both characters follow some form of a typical stereotype. The Man is a typical lonely middle aged man whose poor and lives in a deprived part of London, lives of benefits and hasnt got much going on for him within his sad lonely life. Whereas, Patrick is a typical extreme rich kid who was rich from birth and has grown up to be a shallow, rich addicted to sex, drugs and excessive alcohol consuming man. Now even though both men have come from different walks in life they have both become serial killers due to their never ending feeling of loneliness and the urge to be loved. Patrick isnt presented as a serial killer, hes well dressed, well groomed and seems to have his life together with a very active social life, in addition to the fact hes still rather young. This is a play on the thriller code, that serial killers being poor lonely middle aged men who are either badly kept or extremely excluded. We followed this code in our final product The Consumer. To conclude, I believe our serial killer is more likely to be a serial and therefore is more believable than Patrick Bateman. My reason for this is because he fits the typical descriptions of a serial killer within any film. However, Patrick Bateman is still a believable serial killer because hes at the other extreme end of the spectrum where his life is supposed to be so great that there must be something hidden within him.