CAGED Group Representation Within Our Film

To follow on from our previous post in our group evaluation entitled "How does your media product represent particular social groups?", I have decided to use the 'CAGED' group to further display and go into more detail as to how our film - 'The Illusion Experiment" have either met, or rejected the stereotypes of these different social groups.

Class

We aimed to construct characters of a range of different class backgrounds in the film: 'The Illusion Experiment'. Whilst this may not be explicitly shown in the opening sequence, the main character may have been depicted as being from a middle class background whereas the people who have tricked the main character, who are slightly more wealthy would probably have been from a high middle/ upper class background. However, this was only a brief idea that we came across and is something we probably would have changed to avoid class stereotypes. We would possibly have thought through including more characters who have a range of different social classes to add to the diversity of the characters and to make our plot-line more original and compelling. We would also be adding many working class characters in throughout the film - we would be defeating conventions with these characters as they would tend to be the 'good' characters throughout the film and would not get into any trouble, thus defeating stereotypes of the conventional working class person that are portrayed this way explicitly in the media today.



Age 

Our film is targeted, primarily, at young people therefore all of our actors are of a young age; this was done intentionally so that our characters would be easier to relate to, in terms of our target audience. This may be seen as biased as our production has not succeeded in being age diverse. We encountered this as a problem as it was difficult to find people willing to act in our film who were of different age ranges. However, if we had completed our film, the audience would've found that the voice of the man on the phone was of an older age than of the main character. We aimed to defeat the conventional stereotype of young people as they are portrayed as being 'innocent' victims of a crime and to reveal that they had their own secrets and problems that would've been shown later on in our film. We also didn't want to give the audience the impression that the older people are the more menacing characters and the perpetrators of the film, however it was hard to portray this in the two minute opening sequence of our film, if the film was to carry on it would have been more apparent that our characters would not fit the stereotypes that society may have given them according to their age.

Gender

Our opening sequence only includes two male characters, however as our film progressed we would've entered female characters too, hopefully as many as male. We wanted to create a production that wasn't gender-biased and to avoid complying to gender stereotypes that are often used in high budget films. We decided to make sure that none of the characters in our film were 'innocent' victims of a crime, and that first impressions of the characters aren't always correct. This inludes the main character's girlfriend who is seen to have been kidknapped , however it would've later been revealed that she was a key part in ensuring that the main character was tricked and led into a sense of false security in their relationship. It would've also been revealed that the main character had also led a life where he had been involved in crime, which would have led him to being blackmailed. To improve on our opening sequence, we should've included characters of different genders and possibly including the voice of a woman on the phone rather than the main character being tricked by someone of the same gender. This would avoid the audience having a negative impression of our film in the first few minutes and assuming that our film is male-orientated rather than promoting the inclusion of different genders as characters. However, we would have predominately used female characters as the main characters if our film was to carry on - thus, defeating the stereotypical, conventional high-budget film where the main characters typically tend to be male. 

Ethnicity

We aimed to avoid stereotyping different social groups in our production 'The Illusion Experiment' however, we possibly didn't include as much diversity as we should have done as everyone involved in our production was of the same ethnicity. We found it difficult to find enough people willing to take part in our film and subconsciously, the people who were happy to be a part of our film, were of only one ethnicity. We didn't include many actors in our opening sequence, however we would've hoped that if we finished our film we would have included people across a spectrum of different ethnic identities. We would've also had to keep in mind that we should stray away from the stereotypes people often lean to in films, e.g such as stereotypes of black people as being 'thugs', fiercely independent or extremely angry. We would aim to portray the characters of different ethnicities as equal to one another and give them just as valid parts and characters. This would be a big step in beating the often negative, and offensive stereotypes that characters of different ethnicities in movies are associated with.

Disability

The first few minutes of our film doesn't appear to include characters who have a disability, however it is important to mention that the majority of disabilities aren't necessarily physical. However, after thinking through our plot-line we did decide to include characters with disabilities. To do this we would have to avoid negative stereotypes associated with disabilities, we would want to present people with disabilities as being just as able and have just as interesting characters as the characters without disabilities. We would construct a character based on their unique personality and mannerisms rather than their limitations that their disability may cause. This would be done to ensure that our production was un-biased and not offensive or rude towards people with disabilities, because at the end of the day they are equally as valid and important as everyone else.


Sexuality 

Within the opening scene of our film: The Illusion experiment, it appears that our characters within the opening scene of our film were most probably heterosexual - as the film's protagonist (Jesse) is trying to rescue his girlfriend, Alexa. However, if our film was to carry on we would have included characters from the LGBTQ+ community to make it diverse, we would have also made sure that these characters would have defeated the stereotypes that are associated with the LGBTQ+ community within the media. For example, when portraying gay characters - we would have made them look and act exactly the same as the other characters and we would have defeated the stereotypes by not making them act 'camp' and 'flamboyant' as this is predominantly shown within the media, the same goes for our lesbian characters as we would have made sure that they don't look 'butch' and 'manly' as these are not accurate descriptions of gay and lesbian people as you cannot determine what someone's sexuality is just by the way they dress or by the way they act - although this is how the media has constructed gay and lesbian people. There will be many elements of the LGBTQ+ community in our film as the majority of the relationships shown in the film would be LGBTQ+ ones, we would also have characters who are gender fluid within our film - meaning that they can move between genders and that they can have a fluctuating gender identity. We will also represent other types of sexualities that are not predominantly seen in the media, such as pan sexuality, asexuality, bisexuality and transgender people - these different forms of sexuality will be represented in a very positive way and will not be shown as being deviant and we will also ensure that it doesn't show LGBTQ+ as being a stigmatized identity as what is shown explicitly within the media today.



Regionality 

Within the opening sequence of our film, the two characters that were shown were from the South of England - most probably Oxford. However, if our film was going to carry on we would have included characters from other parts of England as well - typically the North. The characters who would be from the North of England would predominantly be the 'good' characters within the film and they would not be getting into trouble, thus, defeating the conventions of a stereotypical Northern character as they are shown to be ruthless, dumb and always getting involved in crimes and within the media. Although this would not be the case in our film and it would be the characters who were from the South that would be the ones that were getting involved in crimes - defeating the stereotypes that are explicitly seen in the media.