EVALUATION 1 - Representation

Have we subverted or conformed to stereotypes of your genre? Compare our own characters to those of other trailers. Write an analysis of the representation in our trailer.

In film it is important that you follow the typical expectations and stereotypes of the genre; the reason for this is to engage audiences and to attract those that are interested in the chosen genre. However, it can also be effective to subvert these stereotypes to make the film/trailer stand out and be original to the rest of the typical trailers. Subverting the typical expectations can also be effective in engaging audiences much more and generally surprising them and thrilling them with unexpected events/characters.

In our trailer, we have conformed to the majority of stereotypes of the horror genre. Beginning with the location, we have used a house location; typically, audiences are immediately aware that the house is supposedly haunted through its appearance however, there has not been much in our trailer to suggest that there is anything wrong with the house. Although, from seeing the house location - audiences will straight away make the assumption that it is haunted and will be suspicious of the events that may occur.

We have incorporated the character of an innocent and vulnerable young girl who is found to be in a daunting situation in a supposedly haunted house. This is stereotypical as the audience would not necessarily expect the young girl to be there alone making the situation more intense; but essentially puts themselves into her shoes of thinking what they would do. Throughout, this would add tension as the audience would know to expect that something bad will happen and knowing its a horror... its inevitable.

Also, the way we have represented the young character as an individual starts out by conforming to what we typically expect; however by the end of our trailer, this representation is completely reinforced where we see her actions become quite aggressive and she experiences an event of being possessed. This would typically not be expected of a child or in fact a young girl; therefore subverting the stereotypical representations.  Theorist Tessa Perkins evaluated the idea of ‘Rethinking Stereotypes’ – this involved the idea that stereotypes are not always true and how they are not rigid and can change. She also proposed that people often believe some parts of a stereotype but not always all of it – and these are active participants of media. Our subversion of the typical representations would conform to Tessa Perkins’ theory where we have not portrayed our characters how audiences would generally expect and are therefore proving that stereotypes are not always true.


The second character in our trailer is an elderly women which in horror, tend to be represented as evil and quite creepy. The way we have represented this portrayal is through her presence and also the clothing she is wearing. Firstly the netted head scarf round her is partly covering her face and not revealing her whole identity which is quite creepy in the sense that we can't see who she is, also the all black clothing that she is wearing has quite negative connotations such as, evil, power and death. This creates a negative representation of her character which in our horror trailer, we wanted.
The stereotype of elderly people being quite authoritative and wise with there actions is essentially adhered to in this situation.... mainly because of her presence and the way she is appearing in the situation. The idea of the eerie presence of the old women is effective in creating a negative representation against her which we aimed to have and this makes the audience feel more tense as stereo-typically in these situations, something bad happens.

The location/setting of our trailer is in a house and we chose this as we felt like with the characters and story line we had, this was most appropriate and realistic. Also the situation that occurs in our trailer is at night (when the young girl is sleeping) and it would therefore create a more intense atmosphere. However, we have not chosen to create that tense, eerie atmosphere of a haunted/abandoned house... stereotypical of a horror. The reason for not creating this atmosphere as we want it to be more realistic and for the audience to be able to picture the situation. As a typical expectation, people feel safe in their own home; however the representations of the characters we are portraying and the situation that arises subverts to this expectations and as a result adds to the scare of our trailer.

Claude Steele’s theory of Stereotype threat suggested that if a perceived stereotype is popularised then members of the stereotyped social group become increasingly at risk of living up to the characteristics of the stereotype – the stereotype has become normalised. We are able to link this to our trailer as audiences may feel like it is normal to be similar to the characters that are represented in our trailers; and as a result may follow in their footsteps and this could be a general threat to the society and media industries.