2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Ty's (a member of our group) character is the protagonist in Killjoy (our media product.) From our research, we identified that films of the thriller genre often place the archetypal innocent victim characters into a suspicious, life-threatening or terrorising situation. For example, in Alfred Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps (1935), Richard Hannay (Robert Donat) is at a London music hall theatre when shots are fired. This is similar to the opening sequence of our media product; Ty’s character is in a car when a handgun (prop) is pointed in his direction. Therefore, placing our protagonist in a peculiar situation is unexpected, so it shocks the audience and draws their attention by generating mystery.

A shooting in an unconventional setting

Ty in character

 The characteristics of the protagonist in our films are noticeably comparable to those of the conventional "innocent victim" characters featured is Wes Craven’s Nightmare on Elm Street and Scream franchises. Generally, “slasher” films feature a narrative about a psychotic killer stalking young victims. Therefore, in the pre-production phase of the film, we decided that Ty’s character would be young to symbolise innocence. This is because youthfulness emphasises the vulnerability of Ty’s character; an innocent victim dealing with deranged adversaries.

Kaden in character

On the other hand, Kaden plays the antagonist, an assassin. We feel that Kaden’s character is representative of the stereotypical cold-hearted and emotionless trained assassins regularly featured in thrillers. For example, Kaden’s character is costumed in a suit. We based his costume on Agent 47 (Timothy Olyphant) in Hitman. Agent 47 is represented as intelligent, insuppressible and invisible. Therefore, Kaden’s character has been written to occupy similar character traits. For example, the invisibility of Kaden’s character is suggested by the character secretly hiding in the back seat of the protagonist’s car. Also, similarly to Agent 47, the antagonist in Killjoy is wearing a red tie. We feel that the colour red symbolises that Kaden’s character is merciless, which promotes the stereotypical representation of assassins as pitiless.

Hitman: character inspiration for Kaden's costume

Furthermore, Kaden’s character is carrying a handgun (prop). The handgun builds suspense in the respect that the audience are anticipating its use. Weapons are often used to convey characters in thrillers. For example, Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem), the antagonist in No Country for Old Men, uses a captive bolt pistol as an iconic weapon to kill his victims.  The handgun of Kaden’s character is used similarly. The prop symbolises Kaden’s character reputation as a merciless assassin, without the character requiring much dialogue. Therefore, the weapon is enigmatic because the audience will question the assassin’s motive for shooting people.


Ultimately, our opening sequence represents males because it does not feature female actors/characters. Therefore, our opening reinforces the stereotype that men are the dominant gender, thus they are involved in action and conflict. Our characters also fit well with the thriller character conventions of innocent victims and assassins. Therefore, this enables our target audience to relate to our characters, which increases the realism of our film and the social groups that they represent.