How does your media product represent particular social groups?

In my film opening the protagonist is played by 17 year old Antonia. Throughout the sequence is she dressed in a plain white dress. We chose to have her in white because we thought that it symbolised vulnerability and innocence, as she was not fully clothed it meant that there was less of a physical barrier between her and the audience. From the character being coded as vulnerable we thought that it would highly increase the chance of the audience having sympathies towards her. In Girl Interrupted the protagonist Susanna, is also dressed in simple clothes. When trying to cast and create the character of Olivia, we tried to base her on Susanna. Although in some ways we thought that it would add more to the character of Olivia if we subverted certain character traits. For example, Susanna openly smokes, but we felt that if Olivia did this then it would take away from her sense of innocence and youth, and have connotations of rebellion. Another way in which Olivia differs from Susanna is the age difference. We chose to cast Olivia younger because i thought it made the narrative storyline which contains abuse seem more shocking to the audience and have a much deeper impact. Also from her being younger she would maybe attract a younger audience. Where both of the characters are within the locations are similar also. Both of them have scenes, or implied scenes that they are within a mental institution. From this it will suggest that both of the characters are mentally unstable and need support to get through life, therefore adding to their sense of vulnerability.