Gender Representations:
All of the characters in our opening sequence are Males.
Males in Action films often take a very macho, trigger happy attitude, depicting them as courageous and brave. Such a character is James Bond from the Action film franchise James Bond, he is depicted as very macho and courageous, we drew most inspiration for our characters from James Bond as he is a very archetypal action protagonist.
The cocky and confident attitude our protagonist
shows, as well as the power that he demonstrates are signifiers of conventional of male protagonists in action films
Our two agents come across as brave and macho, through the mise en scene of the suits and guns and the fact that the suits juxtapose the setting, showing the audience that the agents don't really belong there,yet vulnerable through the use of camera such as long shots and voyeur shots to make the agents seem vulnerable and powerless as in comparison to the space, they look small .This sets them up as victims in our sequence as the negativity of vulnerability outweighs the positive representation of the agents. Similar representations are made in the ending of Casino Royale, where the victim is portrayed as powerful through the mise en scene of his suit and luxury car, however, there are some long shots of him, which connote that he isn't as powerful as his appearance suggests.
All in all, in our sequence, males are represented positively as macho, courageous and brave, however the victims in the sequence are also represented in a negative light as vulnerable.
Women in Action films are often represented as vulnerable and weak, this allows them to take up the conventional action role of "Damsel in distress". If our movie was to make it into production, we would include a lead female character who would take this role...
Age:
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| Agent 1 and Agent 2 |
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| Protagonist- Ryan Hunt |
Age is a factor that we as a group didn't have control over, due to the fact that we were acting in the sequence. In order to overcome this, we decided to portray our agents as young, inexperienced and low ranking agents, this is made clear to the audience when one of the agents asks, "How are we meant to know what to get if we don't know what it looks like". This is quite unprofessional dialect which highlights the fact that these agents are inexperienced.
This inexperience is highlighted through their reactions to the situations that happen, such as when the tracker malfunctions and they panic, this shows a negative representation of age as it shows that inexperience makes a bad agent.
Our agents also have positive representations of being strong, brave and courageous enough to fight a superhuman, however, as we want them to be seen as the "bad guys" in this scene, the negative representations must outweigh the positive representations so that the audience doesn't sympathise with our "bad guys" too much.
The Protagonist in our sequence, is also a young character who is positively represented as he is seen to be very strong, because he kills two agents and has the invisibility and heads up display that the other agents do not have, and cocky because he intimidates the second agent before going on to shoot him.
has positive representations as he is seen to be quite cocky and confident in his abilities which shows a positive representation of teenagers.
The positive representation of teenagers in Hollywood Action films and British made productions are often negative, looking at the youth as anti-social or intimidating and rude and even both some times. An example of an action/sci-fi film that does this, is "Attack the block" (2011), in this film, teenagers and youths are negatively represented as in the first 5 minutes, they "mug" a nurse, this represents the youth as quite inconsiderate and juxtaposes their evil against someone who helps to save lives.
I think that due to the positive representation that our film shows for teenagers, of courage, bravery and strength, our representation of youths is quite unconventional.
Minorities
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| Dev from Slumdog Millionaire |
In our Sequence, we have an agent who is of Asian descent. This character is representative of the demographics in London, which is quite a multicultural city. The character is positively represented for the most part as he is shown to be a government agent, which is a positive achievement. The indian agent is also shown to be the calmer of the two which shows experience or bravery especially when compared with the other agent, who seems very stressed out, this agent puts up a fight against the protagonist to save his life instead of fleeing which again shows bravery and positively represents this character. There are not many negative representations of this agent in our sequence, as he has more knowledge of the mission and seems to have more experience than the second agent as the second agent asks the first agent many questions about the mission, again, this shows positive
representation of the agent. One of the biggest negative representations of the agent however, is the fact that ultimately, he dies which represents him negatively as weak and inferior.
The British film industry has been very successful recently in the genre of British-Asian films, such as Bend it Like Beckham (2002) and Bride and Prejudice (2004) and Slumdog Millionaire (2008), so it would not be unconventional for an Asian character to appear in a low budget British production.
Our other two characters are more conventional Hollywood action film type
characters. We have our archetypal male white protagonist, who is portrayed as the strongest in this clip due to the fact that he has more "abilities" than the other two agents, though he is dressed in the same way as the other agents, he is shown to have more power through the use of the invisibility cloak and the heads up display. This is a very positive representation of the white male social group as it represents them as strong and cool.
We also have another white male character that assumes the role of second agent. Again, this character is quite conventional as often in Hollywood action films, it's usually white males that take up the roles of strong, yet "disposable" characters. The characters power is shown through the characters iconography such as the use of the gun, showing power and the suit, which connotes success. These representations are quite conventional of Action films as usually, white males are shown as powerful and successful. However, In the clip, it's observable that this character is quite stressed under pressure and takes the offensive route in order to defend himself, this represents the character negatively as it is his job to deal with such situations, and it reflects quite badly upon him that he is stressed under the situation.
