Evaluation Question 2

How Does Your Media Product Represent Particular Social Groups?


Stereotypical Teen Couple: I used Google to search for pictures of "cute teen couples" and the results were as follows:

Katy & Luke:I also collected some screen shots of the film opening on Youtube and compiled them together like so:

As far as I can see- despite the lack of will power in keeping their hands off each other(!)- the stereotypical teen couple are very similar to Katy and Luke in their appearance, activities and chemistry.


As far as social groups are concerned, the type that I was going for when coming up with the concept of our characters, I suggested a 'Skins Teen' style, which may need some explaining...
Firstly, 'Skins' is a very popular television show about a group of teenagers. The show's main audience is teenagers and in my opinion, the ability to relate to the characters is what makes the show so appealing and popular. Now, most of the teenagers on 'Skins' are the 'grunge' type and enjoy drinking, smoking, doing drugs and sometimes partaking in other rebellious behaviour, which is in no way what we wanted to portray with our characters. Why say that the characters are based on this show then? one might ask, the answer to which is that we did not intend on copying the characters from the show exactly, but make our characters have the sort of edge that most of the teenagers of today now have (minus the alcohol and drugs of course). We also considered (500) Days of Summer as means for inspiration for characters, since it is a very popular film with teenagers nowadays and it has been the main inspirational piece of real media for our opening as a whole. The two main characters are young, smart and quirky, which is the main image we want to portray through our characters. The female character, Summer, is strong-minded and intelligent but with a certain unpredictability that is very charming. I believe that this is the perfect description of Katy, who coincidently looks remarkably similar to Summer's actress, Zooey Deschanel! Below are their physical similarities.

As for Luke, we wanted to base one of our characters around another popular group among modern teenagers: the "geek chic" look. A style is deemed "geeky" if the clothes being worn are either based around games or comic books, or if the clothes are the type worn in an office, for example a shirt, tie and jumper. Another very popular show among teenagers now is The Big Bang Theory. All of the lead male characters are 'geeks' and we felt that Luke's character should be based on those of the cast of The Big Bang Theory with regards to looks. Personality-wise, however, we imagine him as more similar to Michael Cera as Scott Pilgrim in Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, who is awkward, funny and sweet but tough. We did, however, wish for Luke to be a bit smarter than Scott, as his character tends to be slightly immature and dim at times. Below is a picture of Luke against a picture of Sheldon, one of the main characters of The Big Bang Theory, with annotations of their similarities in costume.