Reflective Research from AS

Most of today's media represent and expand upon current social issues.  Genre and plot can be influenced by political and topical issues as well as ideologies.

Purge: Election Year (2016)
This film deals with politics and current affairs, as it is about a presidential candidate who is trying to eliminate the purge. Because of this conflict of opinion, during the purge, the population try to eliminate the candidate. This film was released around the time of the American election and could represent how people feel about Trump. This film, the most successful of the three in the franchise, would have been particularly topical due to the American election in November 2016. A film about an election would have resonated with the people at the time and helped boost audience allegiance and subsequently success. There are aspects in the film that suggest the purge is making America great and this is a dig at Trump's slogan.



Get out (2017)
This is another good example of a film that tackles current affairs. It looks at the issues of racism by portraying it in a horror film. The villains in the film are not presented as stereotypical, as they have used middle class citizens, which the audience would not have expected. It is possible that this film could have been released after all the outrage that went down around police brutality targeting black people. The director of this film, Jordon Peele, spoke out about how he wants to make more horror films that reflect real social issues.


Our trailer
In our trailer, the social issue we tackled was how teenagers are seen to be rowdy, disruptive and a danger to society. Every generation thinks that teenagers and adolescents of their generation are troublesome, therefore this is a perennial theme. I think that if we were to film our opening again we should have included more up-to-date social issues such as sexual health, pregnancy and drug and alcohol use. For instance we could have possibly made a teenage girl who liked drinking become pregnant and this would cause a problem for her and she would have to overcome it. The fact that Trump also set a late abortion law could be portrayed in it as another social issue and current affair.