Genre Research: Drama

Genre: Teen Drama

Genre Conventions: Usually a story of adolescence and the struggles of growing up either socially or physically. There are many stereotype cliques such as jocks, cheerleaders, nerds, etc. There are the usual “teen issues” such as peer pressure, bullying, or being an outcast. Usual setting is in and around high school because most teens are in high school. The movies are also usually voiced over to hear the main characters thoughts as he/she go through high school.

Genre Conventions (production techniques): Closeups of characters, low and high angle to represent either strength or weakness in the character. Usually sad theme which means there is usually dull lighting to show blandness. There is normally modern music or modern to the time period of the film to relate to audience. Clear and wide shots help establish the groups of school.

Film Sample #1 (13 Reasons Why): This show embodies the teen drama genre perfectly. There is one main girl who is being bullied by a large group of people which makes her eventually kill herself. The group is the stereotype jocks who like to have girls all the time, that spread the rumors about the girl. The girl also always felt as an outcast and she didn’t belong with anyone. They use grey and dull lighting to show the sadness of the girl. The girl has to deal with emotional and physical problems in and around school. Since the show was made in 2018 there is a lot of current sad songs that bring out the emotions of the audience during the show. The girl narrates the whole story through tapes she made after she killed herself allowing the audience to listen to what she thought and felt during school making the audience really connect to the character.

Film Sample #2 (Mean Girls): This film also perfectly embodies the teen drama genre as the whole film is based around a stereotypical high school with very distinguished cliques. The movie is about a new girl who comes to her new school but falls into the wrong clique. The “mean girls” who completely change how this girl acts, thinks, and looks now. The movie clearly separates cliques as seen in one scene when all different types of people were standing and one girl names all the groups, “the ROTC guys”, “the Asian nerds”, “the cool Asians”, “the varsity jocks”, and “the cheerleaders”. In this movie people on one clique don’t talk to people not in their clique. This movie also takes place in and around high school. The movie also perpetuates stereotypes such as the “popular pretty girls” who are shown as self-centered and dumb. The main character or the new girl also narrates the whole story as it moves along to give her thoughts and feelings about what was happening.

Other Examples:

Teen Wolf

Vampire Diaries

Fault In Our Stars

Riverdale

 

Glee

1. One issue I want to bring up in my project is the issue of social media and how everything is saved. This is a big issue a lot of people seem to not care about. This tends to happen especially in high school. People just do not care what they post and don’t think there will be and consequences later. I would like to make a film that has someone send a picture or video that has something very bad on it. Then this video gets leaked and it all comes back to bite the main character as he or she thought posting this harmless video will have no consequences.

2.In 13 reasons why this is represented as the main character had a picture taken of her with her skirt up. The boy who had this photo then took the picture out of context and flipped it to make it seem like they had hooked up and “she wanted it”. This is not true and shows how social media can flip everything upside down. After this incident her life spirals out of control till she takes her life. This is a very real example of what social media can do to people, and that’s why I would like to bring It up in my film.

3. I feel like 13 Reasons Why was very accurate in representing this issue. They used one tiny harmless photo and made it blow up and circulate around the whole school much like photos and videos can in today’s world. It even shows that social media can take a life which it has currently in the U.S, many teens commit suicide because of bullying online that follows them into schools every day. 13 Reasons Why had a very accurate representation of this issue and it blows up this issue to more than other people will see this post, but they bring it to the level that those post can physically and mentally hurt people just like the main character of this show.

4. I would retain the serious aspects of this representation as this is a serious issue. The way that 13 Reasons Why presents this issue is very dark and serious as social media destroys a poor girl’s life all over one stupid post that ruined her life. I believe this issue requires serious attitude because stuff like this occurs almost everyday in schools and I would like to shed light on that. I would not like to make the issue as complex as 13 Reasons Why did. In the show, the one photo leads to another bad thing which leads to another bad thing, and so on and so forth, but in my film, I would like to make it clear and straight to the point. Probably only using one photo and show how that one photo can flip someone’s life upside down,