EVAL Q1b - Representations

REPRESENTATION

The Media Students book on representation:

it emphasises that, however realistic media images seem, they never simply present the world direct. They are always a construction, a re-presentation, rather than a transparent window onto the real- It prompts the question: how do groups, or situations, get routinely represented in the media? This relates to the world of political representatives: people who "stand in" for us - as union of school reps, or our representatives in Parliament. 

(To take this further, even if we lived in a utopian society where every politician had the whole population's best interests at heart and could turn this into 100% efficiency practically, they would still only ever represent the population, not truly present it)- 

It signals the way some media re-present certain images

This is very similiar to Stuart Hall's theory of representation, which he gave (so to apply that directly here, his presentation isn't truly presented through this Youtube video, only represented).  

So however realistic and how hard I tried to achieve verismilitude with my characters and . That is also why one can for instance exaggerate some characters, as it never a true presentation of the world, even the most skilled social realistic directors can't achieve this.

AGE

My primary target audience are teenagers, so the characters are all teenagers. Representations of adults in my opening sequence are negative. The three secretaries and female teacher are gullible enough to fall for Hugh's charms and the teacher even gives in to bribery.

If my film carried on I would make sure not all teachers are represented negatively as either gullible or ignorant. But in order to create a real focus I would add some teachers that are putting pressure on homework.

None of the teenagers are doing work, this is a quite realistic portrayal of teenage activity I have experienced in my own school.

GENDER

The Bechdel Test

Here the feminist media critic Anita Sarkisian looking at recent films and highlighting that the majority of films are still influenced by a patriarchic society. It is not clear what the other girls are talking about when Rachel feels she doesn't fit, but it could be gossiping over boys, it looks like very stereotypical girl chat. But throughout the main film as Billy and Rachel would be talking a lot about their relationship, so particular through the break of heteronormativity the Bechdel Test would be broken.

The Cinderella Syndrome

That women are in need of men. 

Reflects that sometimes teenagers just go into relationships out of loneliness, and the feeling of needing attention.

SEXUALITY

Hugh

As he is the antagonist I wanted to really stereotype him. My main influence was Hugh Grant's characters from the Working Title films, who turned into more negatively after playing the hopeless romantic in Four Weddings & A Funeral and Notting Hill, as womanisers/slacker/upper middle class/"intellectual" Daniel Cleaver and Will Freeman, with Will Freeman's opening voiceover about having little compassion for "other people's ratings falling" (opening scene is not available on YouTube) being intertextualised in Hugh's voiceover.

The first 45 seconds of this clip demonstrate very well the character traits of Freeman, that simply in theory make him very unlikeable but the humor his charming and impression of self-flawlessness make him likeable to the audience, that I wanted to integrate into the character of Hugh. 

Another influence from Skins, the one countertype being that he is bisexual.

This is similiar to how Rachel would probably would end it officially with Hugh after finding out that he plays around. 

Applying Freud

Psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud introduced the term "innate bisexuality", saying humans are all bisexual by default, but are conditioned through psychological development (enforced by what many now call a heteronormative society).

Through hinting the character of the posh jock's bisexuality, and starting a narrative of the protagonist, Billy, wanting to try and optimistically see if Rachel can be interested in the same gender, it creates a narrative which makes audiences think more flexibly about sexuality. 

As Billy and Jake's friendship grows, they would maybe try out to see if they open to expanding their monosexual orientation. This goes hand in hand with my original idea I got from Twelfth Night, where the characters find themselves attracted to both genders.

Sexuality Expressed

A lot of the examples of rom-coms and some teen films address sexuality, not very graphically, but is shown on a minimal basis. The toothbrush is a signifier of. This is also an element of realism, hinting at teenage exploration of sexuality. 

ETHNICITY

A Western film with an Asian protagonist isn't rare, but they are still vastly outnumbered by  films with Caucasian protagonists.  

ABILITY/DISABILITY

No major disabled characters represented, only shortsightedness through the students wearing glasses.

CLASS/STATUS

Billy 

middle class to upper middle class, living on mother's money.. Money can't buy you happiness

Rachel 

lower middle class to working class. Could be an orphan, or also extremely neglected by her parents. 

Hugh 

one of the richest students, upper middle class to upper class

Jake

working class, outsider in a rich school.

other students

middle class

REGIONAL IDENTITY

Billy - Chinese-American

Rachel - Northern English

Hugh - Southern English

Jake - Northern Irish. I haven't anchored the nationality yet but in order to create more diversity he would be of that nationality. British films of Working Title such as Johny English and Wild Child show when representing the UK, they do sometimes include Scotland and Wales, also positively represented (if very brief, still underlining that England is the norm and still reinforcing anglocentrism  If I had emphasised too strongly it could have bordered on racist, similar to the over-Italian stereotyped portrayal of the restaurant chef in Bridget Jones's Baby.

Other Students - From a quick glance one can see they are not all Caucasian, however there are a lot of nationalities that won't be apparent.

Adapting To Society

A message I wanted to strongly send is that being different isn't a bad thing, and that Billy trying to fit in by taking off her lipstick shows how useless it is. So soon later in the main film she will have put the make-up back on.  There is a trope in films such as The Proposal of a not good-looking, shy, geeky protagonist being turned into a "beautiful swan" through haircut. As highlighted in the top 10 videos by MsMojo this originates from the fairytale Cinderella where the Great Fairy Godmother turns the aforementioned "empowered protagonist" into a beautiful girl with a dress. 

In Skins the goth character of Rich also undergoes this process, when he is given a haircut to shorten his hair into a Beatle-like (in the early 60s this was considered a radical/rebellious look). And throughout the whole next (and last) season, Rich has no objections to this haircut, as well generally not listening to Goth music. A similar narrative was used for a character, Frankie, who had her hair grow longer in the second season, and this was also when her possible bisexuality stopped being explored.

This a trope I even saw in a recent German hit teen film, Fack ju Göhte, where the sister who in this case is being dragged into suicidal actions by a friend is given a makeover by a prostitute 

So there is message in this trope that one will eventually be made more glamorous and normal if one changes one's look to fit into mainstream images. 
So similar to how in Bridget Jone's Diary Bridget accepts that she is slightly overweight but that she can still be happy with herself as a person, Billy and Jake learn throughout the film that they can be outsiders and be happy with their individual quirks.

STALKING

A criticism of romantic comedies is that they portray the search for love no matter how unrealistic it looks, which goes into complaints about stalking.  

Your favorite rom-com is actually super creepy par thewashingtonpost

I hadn't thought of stalking when setting out the narrative, but in retrospect one could read it as her stalking a person who evidently has no interest her, and at the moment might not even biologically be capable of having emotionally.