How have I chosen to represent social group in my thriller?

For our thriller we are using mostly white males to portray the USA government as a stereotype to show how men are seen as higher up than women and also that ethnicity, especially Middle Eastern, who is still seen as untrusted.  Although the USA have a black male president historically it is white middle aged males who assume positions of power throughout the world for example Putin, Cameron and Hollande. We thought we would represent this bias within our film by having a white middle aged president.

Some films show stereotyping of Middle Eastern characters as terrorists, including James Bond films where the bad guy is always from somewhere in the Middle East or Russia. Another film that includes this is 'Munich', which is about the Israeli government and the attacks on Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics. Programmes such as Spooks adopt the position of showing Muslims as the 'other' and demonising ethnic minorities by always showing them as the bad guys. We thought we would reflect this stereotype within our film.

Some TV shows are similar to our thriller as they involve issues with the Middle East; these include '24' and 'Spooks'. 24 uses well known enemies of the USA, which include Russia and the Middle East.  '24' presents a very negative image of Muslims. Most films and TV shows paint Arabs as the baddies. Again the idea of the Arab character as the enemy is often upheld in the media where the focus is often on Abdul Hamza's metal hand and eye as an symbol of his aggression with the aim of demonising him further.

The president also mentions that the crisis is within the Middle East. We are using the issues of the Middle East and terrorism in our thriller while being aware that the idea that people from the Middle Easterners are terrorists is a common stereotype. It is well noted that historically there is a lot of tension in the media east and we thought we could reflect that tension within our film.

The assassin is meant to be thought of as from somewhere from Middle East. The thriller brings up various issues in the Middle East so this could include some things such as 9/11 and Al Quaida. These issues already exist so we amplified this within our representation as we felt our prospective audience would buy into this for the narrative of our film.