REPRESENTATION

STAR REPRESENTATION

Only having two characters, there aren't a lot of groups we can represent. In fact, most of the representation is coincidental, as the actors selected just so happen to be of a specific group.

WOMAN REP

Both of the characters in our movie are women. With their age gap, we can even see two age groups of women represented. Juliet is a teenage girl, a very common character to be seen, especially in the coming of age genre. We do portray her stereotypically, but it is as a way of opening the door to her becoming "different". I would argue it is done in a way that is non-harmful to the average teenage girl who enjoys things that are popular. The way in which we paint Juliet prior to her rockstar self is neutral, not skewed in favor of or against it. As for the older generation, Juliet's mom is in her late forties-early fifties. I feel like both cases could be argued, that she is both a stereotype and not. She's just a concerned mother, with not a lot of personality revealed in her short screen time. There isn't much I would change here, as it is important that we represent women as whole people in our films. If I could, I would include more of Juliet's mother's personality to give her more depth, but in the short time we were given for the movie opener, there wasn't time to develop her.

HISPANIC REP

It is fully an act of chance that we ended up with two Hispanic characters. Our entire group is composed of Hispanic people, so no matter which of us and which of our mothers acted in it, the characters were going to be Hispanic. I believe it is important for minorities to be given the main roles in films, and for that reason am glad we happened to be able to do that. There is nothing really indicative of Hispanic culture in the film, something I would alter now that I am thinking about it. It would be important to me, though, that it doesn't become stereotypical in its portrayal if we were to do this.

SINGLE MOTHER REP

Juliet's mom is single, something that is not really clear in the movie opener, but can be assumed by the lack of other parental figure. I would argue it is easy to assume this because there is no mention of anyone else living in the home. She's sort of a mom stereotype with her SUV and office job, but this isn't exclusive to single moms. We opted for a single mother trope because it was convenient for lessening the character amount, and when we had casted her at first, it was going to be Sarah and her mom; therefore a reflection of their actual home status. I wouldn't change anything about this, it is a living condition which we depicted respectfully and not going into much depth regarding it.

MENTAL HEALTH REP

Though probably not obvious to the typical audience member, a part of our main character is a portrayal of depression. I've mentioned on here before that Juliet suffers with depression, but now we can get into more details about it. I like to think the way we displayed her depression was respectful and not particularly stereotypical. The expression of her emotions and lack of appetite in the movie are examples of how we created this. Again, I wouldn't necessarily call this a stereotype, because those are true symptoms of depression, even if they are not applicable to all that have it. I wouldn't change the way we displayed Juliet's mental illness, because we do not minimize her for it, or lock her into the box of her depression, something I think people definitely need to recognize.