Influences on Gender

Gender

In our thriller opening we included three male characters and one female. Following Propp's character types, we stereotypically used a male villain. This is used in almost every thriller, examples are the James Bond films and the Dark Knight Trilogy that all contain a villain that is of the male sex. The Bane in Batman is seen as very muscular and powerful over the other characters due to his physical build which we have attempted to replicate by using an actor who is much bigger than our victim.Another convention our opening scene met is the typical 'damsel in distress' type character, being the female victim. This links to the 2008 film Taken which also features a teenage girl as the 'Princess', relating to Propp's character types. She is very weak and is kidnapped within the first few minutes of the film and the character is vulnerable as there are only two teenage girls and no males.

The technique of displaying the female as inferior to the male antagonist is common across many films in the thriller genre. We have incorporated this into our feature, we used specific camera angles, such as two-shots and low- angled shots to portray the girl as the smaller character in comparison to the man. More specifically, we used the shadows of the two characters as this allowed us to present the antagonist looming above the victim and the girls shadow disappears as his shadow engulfs her. Also, as the antagonist drags her along the beach, he is hunched over her like a predator dragging away their prey.

Another feature we incorporated into our thriller was keeping the male character as mysterious and unidentified for as long as possible. We did this by choosing the antagonist to wear a hoodie which meant his face could be covered. It is very common in thrillers for masks to be used and in general for the villain's identity to be kept hidden, an example of this is the beginning of The Dark Knight. Although the intention was to make sure that the audience was aware this was a male antagonist type character. We displayed this by the use of camera angles portraying him as more powerful than the female victim and all the others in our film. Therefore this is why we have been influenced to use a male character for this villain role as it is not only stereotypical but it is also easier in terms of showing him as the most intense character.

During the party scenes there is still only one female character shown, this furthers the idea of her being alone and defenceless and displays the authority of male characters in our thriller. An example of this method is in the recently released 'The Boy Next Door' which is also known for displaying a vulnerable female role. This proves that is it very common for thrillers to use the technique and leads to why we were influenced into including it in our thriller opening scene.