Task 2: How does our product represent particular social groups

Our film represents social groups through teenagers and the common case of bullying in a school environment. We also represent the mentally disabled through our main character, who is autistic. An example of a film which deals with the social group of autistic people is Rain Man. Whereas Rain Man deals with happier sides of aspergers ours deals with the darker side of it, in a way more like the book ‘The Curious Incident of the Dog at Midnight’. However, another program that represents teenagers and bullying is the common E4 television programs such as Skins, Glee and 90210. These all deal with the common situations of bullying in a minor scale, compared to our film which deals with harsher bullying, reverting to deeper consequences and worse punishments. Whereas skins shows bullying and consequences on a very small scale, we wanted to show what could potentially happen and what does happen in some cases, at an extremists point of view.

Other films that are similar to this, and that we tried to base some of our characters on are films such as Girl interrupted (including Angelina Jolie), The Ring and The grudge. These films all include one aspect which connects them together. This is that they all include a psychopathic maniac as their main character. We actually based Elizabeth, on the girl out of The Ring. For example, the ring is a film which is based on a young girl who kills every person who watches a video take 7 days later. This is similar to Elizabeth’s diary in the way that she is responsible for the killings, and the killer is a little girl.

They all represent their group by having characters that are constantly alienated, lonely and have mental health problems, and eventually end up doing terrible things to both themselves and others around them. For example, in all the film people around them either suffers similar illnesses (girl interrupted) or death.

Girl interrupted is is a film that was made in 1999. It is about a girl called Sussana who is supposedly forced by her parents to check herself into a mental hospital because of she tried to commit suicide by an overdose of aspirin. Throughout the film Sussan inflicts self harm on herself and is constantly trying to hurt herself. She does this due to being depressed and troubled but ends up being unable to leave, after her (voluntary) check in. This is alike Elizabeth’s diary in the way that Elizabeth attempts to commit suicide.

Suicide and self harming are represented in our film. this was also represented in the media reporting of the group of Bridgend teenagers who commit suicide. The media represented the Bridgend teenagers as being part of a cult and victims in a communtiy driven to dispare through drinks and drugs. Through the space of 13 months from 2007 to 2008 seventeen teenagers committed suicide by hanging themselves. They were all driven to this through being bullied, and fights between a group of friends. The media failed to represent the issues of mental health preoblems and self harming that afflict teenagers. In our film we attampted to adress the issues of mental health and self harming surrounding them eventually leading to our characters susicide.