Evaluation question 1 Part 2/2: How does your product use/challenge conventions and How does it represent Social Groups and Issues

Part 2-Social Groups and issues

3. Characters and Representation

The Detective

-Middle Classed and unsympathetic : This is seen when he replies to the suspect's confessing with "You're not the only one with a family"
-Justice obsessed
-Has an Achilles heel/inner fragility
-Stylish : He wears suspenders like Toschi and Bullitt.

Women 

This film shows 2 representations of women. There is a clear Binary Opposite between the  the suspect and the detective's wife are represented. 

The Suspect also acts as and follows some of the conventions of a female serial killer

In Colin MCormack's article "Women who kill:A Rhetorical Analysis of Female Killers in Film" he  mentions that women killers either kill: 

because they have failed to fulfill their gender roles of being a wife, mother and carer 

OR

They kill for these roles-I.e: The abandoned lover, the protective mother.  In the opening, the suspect admits being guilty for the murder of Richard Brixon but defends her actions saying "I had to do it for my family" which echoes the act of killing to reinforce the "Protective mother" role. The fact that she has been involved in previous crimes to the point of crossdressing once suggests that one of her family members have died causing her to have such a hatred towards the oligarchy who slowly tore her family apart. Maybe she is taking all these risks to protect the "family" that she must sustain.

PORTRAYAL OF CRIMINALS 

Conventionally, the criminals/antagonist in crime thrillers are often portrayed to be dislikable and distinct. Their motives are made  to be unreasonable and simply unjustifiable. In Law Abiding Citizen, the audience are positioned to hate the antagonists : Clarence J.D'Arby and his accomplice Rupert Ames. They enter Clyde Shelton's house,  murder and rape his wife and daughter in front of him, leaving him traumatized, scarred and burning with revenge.

In Alone, the suspect/pre-imposed villain's motives are made to be both reasonable and relatable to the audience. She killed Richard Brixon for the sake of protecting her family and would even be willing to be arrested for it which shows her extensive love for them. It can be assumed that most of the film's audience would be able to relate to her. At the 180 degree break she says "If It were your family, You'd do it too" which is intended to push the significant quite towards both the Detective and the film's audience.  At this point we are put in the detective' s shoes which make s us start to sympathize with him

Social Issues that are represented in "Alone"

-SOCIAL INEQUALITY: (represents binary opposites in the film)  The protagonist and false antagonist have contrasting social classes- the detective being a middle-upper and the suspect, working class. 

     >The portrayal of criminals in relation to their social class: 
Social class does have an effect on the way that  a criminal is presented in the media . For example, if a poor person commits a theft, they will be heavily antagonized and referred to with labels such as "Lazy" or :"unlawful" when in most cases, they are stealing living necessities that they are unable to afford. Meanwhile if a rich person does something similar, they will likely receive sympathy or defensive excuses.

-Corruption in society: 

This is not mentioned in the opening itself but after the murder of Richard Brixon, the detective is tasked with investigating the case. Once the suspect was founded, the Brixon family made requests for the detective to ally with them. He declines saying that it is for justice to decide who's right and wrong. Out of desperation, the family starts to offer bribes which again fails. The fact that he has even refused their bribery leads to him getting tangled in a case which he wasn't fully involved in. As he has chosen to be so law abiding and righteous, the Brixon family hires an assassin to kill his family, leading to his thirst for revenge. Refusing to become corrupt has gave him a life changing consequence.

-The Upperclass' obsession about MORAL CODEs: 

The upperclass are unsympathetic

-The over-antagonizing of criminals in our society.