Stereotypes
A widely held but fixed and over simplified image of a particular type of person or thing.
Archetype
A very typical example of a certain person or thing.
Films stem from books:
- Bram Stoker created the original Dracula
- Mary Shelly wrote Frankenstein
Dracuala was high class from Transylvania, Romania. He was part of the hierarchy.
Character like this always have to be male, middle aged, white and have an eastern European accent.
Stereotypical antagonist = white, middle aged males.
- This is a very recogniseable representation, which can also be known as a dominant.
Some examples of this may include:
- Freddie Crugar - Nightmare on Elm Street
- Norman Bates
- Mike Myers - Friday 13th
Horror movie heroines:
They are normally single, white and virgins
There role has evolved from victim to aggressor
Thriller
Hollywood has always been 'white' centric, for example leading actors/directors have always been male and Caucasian with black ethnic, minority actors only playing minor roles.Acts like Will Smith and Morgan Freeman broke this mold.
In thrillers they always have a white, male protagonist but in the 1990's things began to change. In the film Se7en, Morgan Freeman is playing a lead role
Having a homosexual/lesbian protagonist is almost entirely rare even in Liberal Hollywood.Being openly gay in these films is unheard of.
Thomas Harris, who created, Hannibal Lecture is critacised because all his antagonists have homosexual tendencies and sexual deviances.
Female have predominatly played the victim role, or the femme fetale (seductive and can't be trusted).
For example 'Silence of the Lambs' (1990) and the role of Jodie Foster playing FBI rookie 'Clarice Starling' meant that the representations of women had been challenged.
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