Consideration of representation in your film and stereotyping

Stereotypes in our Production

Our detainee is a 17-year-old teenager schoolboy who lives in London. To the public, teenagers are always seen as mischievous and troublesome due to how the media and other forms of public communication depict them. In our scenes, we have chosen this stereotype because it allows the audience to question whether he is a victim or a culprit due to his appearance and his suspicious actions in both scenes. We used this stereotype to confuse the audience to add to the mystery and investigation in the film to make them feel more involved.

Even though it is not very visible during the scenes, the detective in the background of the screen is an aggressive and impatient character as he is questioning the detainee. This is a stereotype because a lot of people in society see the police as forceful and aggressive and we reinforced this stereotype in our film because it adds some tension and conflict between characters as shown as he says “waste of time” and walks off of the screen in frustration.

Another stereotype we used for both characters is their appearance; even though we gave them their costumes to make them look friendly, both of the detectives are wearing semi-casual clothing which is a stereotype because the police can be seen as unprofessional and lazy which is how they are represented in series and movies. This is used in our film to make the audience question their profession and whether not they can be trusted since they don’t take their appearance seriously.

We used this character to challenge the other stereotype of the other detective and to juxtapose the two ideas. This character is a calm and friendly character that coincides the detective that is harsh and aggressive and we used this idea as a symbol that not all members of the police are indolent and ignorant towards their responsibilities. We did this by having slow movements throughout the scene, having a low and quiet tone of voice and words like “son” along with non-forceful paralinguistic features.