Our protagonist can be compared to Tom Hank's character in 'Road to Perdition', Michael Sullivan. Both characters are motivated by their families, lose family members to organised crime, and change their allegiances in a fashion that places them at odds with dark and powerful figures. The key difference between the characters is that Sullivan spends the remainder of his film running from his new enemies, whereas the protagonist of 'ShadowMan' specifically goes looking for his enemies in order to exact a kind of vigilante justice and vengeance. This character does conform to certain tropes, especially those surrounding revenge ('Vengeance Feels Empty' [1] 'Who's Laughing Now?' [2]), there is also a sense of remorse and self loathing within the character, conforming to the 'Dirty Business' [3] trope. This sort of vengeful character is not really a figure who can be used to represent any particular social groups, however his position as a white man means that he is a privileged figure, and may suggest why he feels such responsibility to his family, as his character would traditionally fall into the breadwinner/protector archetypes. Our use of an older, male, main character is also an example of targeting, as a key part of our market is the 25-30 year old males.
In terms of gender in general, the opening to 'ShadowMan' only ever has male characters onscreen, which may be neglecting a need for female characters, and could alienate female audiences. However, the absence of women in the opening could be said to emphasize the loss suffered by the protagonist. In any case, the fully male cast of our opening sequence represents the world of crime as a male dominated enviroment, which in turn implies that men are more predisposed towards violence, murder, and other forms of crime. The murder of the protagonist's family has implications that they were unable to protect themselves, and that he was able to protect himself, which enforces his status as a would-be archetypal breadwinner/father figure.
'There is also a clear social hierarchy evident in our film, although this is existent in the crime world, where the two antagonists are at different tiers of the criminal hierarchy. This is denoted by their clothing and attitudes. There is evidence of wealth in the second antagonist, and this can be said to be categorising people based on income. As mentioned earlier however, the characters in which this is seen are both in some form of criminal organisation, which distances it from reality and social hierarchy in the workplace or generally.' [4]
All in all, our opening sequence contains strong representations of gender and social status. The representation of gender, although not wholly negative, does conform to tropes and archetypes, and thus could be accused of perpetuating stereotypes. In terms of representation of social status, although potentially negative, due to the categorization of characters based on income and social standing, is fairly representative of the world of organised crime, a world which we were not really concerned with in terms of negatively representing it.
Below is a clip from Road to Perdition demonstrating it's plot and aesthetic similarities to our film, 'ShadowMan', the representations of male dominance and male behaviour are especially notable, as well as that of criminal hierarchy.
Below is a clip from Road to Perdition demonstrating it's plot and aesthetic similarities to our film, 'ShadowMan', the representations of male dominance and male behaviour are especially notable, as well as that of criminal hierarchy.
[1] http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/VengeanceFeelsEmpty
[2] http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WhosLaughingNow
[3] http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DirtyBusiness
[4] Representation in 'ShadowMan' http://alleynsmedia-mead.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/representation.html
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