Key concept essay

The two trailers I will be analysing will be ‘To fast to furious’ and The Terminator’. The purpose of a trailer is to inform the audience of the film that is coming out and to persuade them to go and see the film. These two films are of the action genre.

Firstly the mis-en-scene of The terminator shows the predominant woman dressed in a tight red leather one piece suit she is also shown to be revealing some cleverge. Although she may be represented as a strong women who is fighting back against a man, her costume suggests otherwise that she is only there to fulfil a mans fantasy, this can relate to Laura Mulvey’s theory of male gaze. The woman is there only for the man to look at. The colour of her one-piece suit is red. The colour red connotes passion and love but it also is the colour of blood and anger, this suggests that she could a passionate woman again is only there to fulfil a mans fantasy. The representation of women is demeaning and women are being objectified. Similarly to the trailer of ‘To fast too furious’ the representation of women in this trailour is shown differently to ‘The Terminator’ but the representation is still negative. The women are dressed scadliy clad and are hardly wearing anything. They have no real purpose in the film as the film is about cars, therefore they are just there to sell the film and for male pleasures.

However men in ‘The Terminator’ and ‘To fast too furious’ are seen as the dominant sex, this can suggest we are still living in a patriarchal society where men are the stronger sex. The props used such as guns and cars are usually associated with the target audience however the use of guns can portray men to be violent and gives a negative stereotype of men in society. Social issues which can be linked to this point is that men and boys would be influenced by what they watch in the media, this story as been in the news recently.

The fast paced music and quick shots in both in ‘The Terminator’ and ‘To fast too furious’ can help us to recognise the genre of the film and the target audience. These types of shots is used to emphasise the fact that the film is an action film and has a fast narrative. In the narrative for the ‘The Terminator’ there is a binary opposition between man and woman and robot and man. These binary oppositions (Levis Strauss) can create an enigma for the audience because they want to see who will win such as the robots are the baddies and the humans are good. Binary oppositions is a common convention used in the action films and is an element which appeals to the target audience of men and young boys aged twelve and above. Similarly to ‘The Terminator’ ‘To fast too furious’ has binary oppositions in the narrative however the binary oppositions in ‘To fast too furious’ create a culture clash between white people and Chinese Asian people. This creates a negative representation of Chinese Asian people because they are portrayed as the bad people of the narrative and that they are evil.

The genre of film appeals to the interests of the target audience of men and young boys aged twelve and above. These types of audience are known for there enjoyment of cars, guns and fighting. By creating a film a film, which appeals to the target, audience’s interests and hobbies can make a film successful.