How do representation construct reality?
Representation is a construction of a new reality.
Stereotypes-A widely held belief about a certain group of people
Stereotypes are essential for media producers. It is a way of targeting an audience. Stereotypes are humorous. Stereotyping is useful, as it allows producers to easily construct media products, and audiences to easily decode them.
Superhuman ad- context
The advertisement Super. Human. was created to promote the 2020 Paralympic Games by Bradford Young, the Oscar nominated cinematographer and the first African American cinematographer to be nominated for an award in 2017 for his work on the film Arrival
It was devised and created by Channel 4’s inhouse creative agency 4Creative and produced by Serial Pictures and Some such, a global production company. The trailer is the third campaign for the Paralympics undertaken by Channel 4, who were broadcasting the event, and was part of a bigger campaign including posters and social media.
The advertisement explores the sacrifices made and the trials endured by Paralympic athletes in preparation for the 2020 Tokyo Paralympic Games.
Meet the superhumans 2012
-Lower production value
Superhuman analysis
While the Super.Human advert presents a range of complex representations of people disabilities, and also provides a more generalised representation that both disabled and a broader audience may bee able to relate to and identify. The woman in a wheelchair is not only represented through her disability, but also her status as an athlete, a white woman, working class and facing problems. By presenting a generalised and broad representation, the advert seeks to normalise her disability. The sense of relatability is constructed through the low key natural lighting which constructs a stereotypical representation of living in the UK. This is further anchored through the mise-en-scene of the wet concrete floor and the weeds sprouting out of the doorstep. This combination of media language constructs the UK as a sad and miserable place. Furthermore, it functions as a symbolic code, suggesting the depression and adversity faced by the Paralympians in the advert. Moreover the doorstep functions as a binary opposition and emphasises the hypocrisy of a powerful and strong woman who is unable to go into a local café. This setting infers that both local businesses and the UK government in general are not dong enough to include people with disabilities, and draws attention to hard hitting issues for more general audiences. By drawing attention to a very specific issue faced by disabled people, the producer seeks to draw to this issue and to challenge the population of the UK to be more accommodating to disabled people who are otherwise just like them.
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