Evaluation - Q2: How does your media product represent particular social groups?

In our film, all of the actors were teenagers no older than 17 but they were just acting as if they were older than they actually are. This challenges the conventions of film noir because all of the males in common film noirs are middle aged and older i.e. 35+, whereas the women tend to be younger i.e: 20-40 years old. The detective was wearing a business uniform of a shirt, trousers, shoes, tie, coat and trilby hat to make him look as if he was older than he actually his to convey him as a mature character compared to everyone else in the film. The other characters in the film were wearing normal business clothes too however you could distinguish the difference between them through the dialogue and the fact that they are not wearing a trilby hat or coat.


The femme fatal and the man in a film noire is usually like the scenario with a spider with a fly. She manipulates him into thinking that she is the victim when in fact, she is the one who has created a victim. She will use her good feminine looks to wrap him around her little finger so that he will do anything and everything for her and then this usually leads to someone else getting the blame however, sometimes she will get found out and only then this doesn't work out to her advantage.


Features of a femme fatal:

• The iconography is explicitly sexual with long sleek hair (blonde or dark), make up and jewellery.
• Cigarettes have sexual connotations of liberation and phallic power.
• 'Dress - or the lack of it - defines the woman'
• 'Iconography of violence is a specific symbol of her unnatural phallic power'
• Framed portrait of women is a common motif.
• Murders indicate narcissism or duplicity.
• Women are generally centre frame or drawing our attention by focusing on the foreground.
• Visual style expresses mood through darkness, both real in under-.jmlit and night-time scenes, and psychologically through shadow and claustrophobic settings which overwhelm the character. 

We also challenged the conventions even further by having the femme fatal as a quite and more innocent character and the males where is control compared to a more classic film noire where the female has all of the control and seduces the man into getting what she wants in the end. Our film was in colour which is unfamiliar to a common film noire where it is set in a black and white scene. Furthermore it adds modernisation into the film and will intrigue the audience into wanting to watch more to see if there are any more twists to surprise them with. The younger generation will be able to relate to the different situations in the film due to it being set in a more modern tone and with the characters portraying their typical younger generation characteristics.


In a film noire the detective is always portrayed as being slightly naïve and falls for the femme fatal with her devious actions. He is usually dressed in a trilby hat, trench coat and a suit with a cigarette in one hand and a glass of whiskey in the other. However, in our film we reversed the role and made our detective the complete opposite to the common stereotype. In ours he takes all of the control from the more innocent and quiet femme fatal and this makes him the dominant character. He overpowers the femme fatal and the other characters so this show the audience the more modern version of a detective and how it would be nowadays in a real life scenario.
 
By having different changes in our film compared to the typical film noire, we will attract a wider range of audiences of various ages which is what most films nowadays need in order to gain more profit from sales and cinema viewings.