Evaluation Task 2

How does your media product represent different social groups?



To the right is a picture of Cleo. Her role within the film opening is to appear seductive, lustful and shameless. She is also dressed to give off this impression.

Similar to Cleo’s character is Jinx Johnson from Die Another Day (Played by Halle Berry). Her first appearance in the movie is her walking seductively in a bikini out of the sea. Immediately, James Bond (played by Pierce Brosnon) notices her and gazes at her as though she is now an object that he wants to obtain.

Continually, this is what we wanted to achieve through Cleo’s character. Halle Berry’s character conforms to the stereotype that women in films in order to gain attention of a sense of importance must use their sexual assets.

Although this may not be something we liked and feel is true ourselves, we thought that using this technique would be most successful in establishing Cleo’s character.

Our media product does not want to promote dressing promiscuously or behaving in such ways but we did need to get across to the audience that Cleo’s character is a danger to Chloe and Cameron’s relationship. We needed to make her appear a threat and characterisation was the best way to achieve this effect.

Using women in films to destroy/use/take down the men is an ongoing trend and will continue to be used in film making so long as women are seen in such lights. Examples of this are the characters of Nyah Nordoff-Hall (Thandie Newton) and Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) in Mission Impossible 2. Nyah is a beautiful thief whom Ethan must trick into believing what he tells her. He is advised to remain emotionally objective but falls for the beauty that is Thandie Newton.

Overall, as this would be the best way to make the audience aware of Cleo’s intentions, I believe that what we decided was for the best. Though if we had a larger budget and more time, we would have liked to include a female that does not use her assets or sexuality to achieve power over men.

Accordingly, I feel that women being presented in such ways dematerialises them and turns them into objects of desire. It would have been positive to have achieved this had we had more time.