Representation

Representation

Representation is about the choices that are made when portraying a type of character in a film. As you cannot portray every detail, feature and characteristic of someone in a film, certain characteristics and appearances are highlighted or enhanced to create a stereotypical character. There are many different types of stereotypical characters in teen films.

Jock

The jock is portrayed as stuck-up and self-centred. He acts out aggressively verbally and physically, especially to the people who he sees as 'uncool'. The jock is muscular and athletic, he is generally either the captain of the Basketball or Football team. He is seen as handsome by the girls thus making him popular among'st them. Due to this popularity, he is rude and arrogant to his fellow pupils and also his teachers. The jock is generally portrayed as unintelligent, he always gets the lowest grades in the class and fails to complete homework. However due to his athletic ability, the teachers are more tolerant towards him. 

School Cheerleader
The school cheerleader is always really pretty and the most popular girl in the school, but she knows this therefore she's very rude and self-centred. Generally, the cheerleader is tall, blonde and has the perfect figure. She criticizes over girl's looks or figures in order to make herself feel even more better and superior than them. She generally dates the jock, which in generally most films end up breaking up towards the end. The parents are usually rich which means the cheerleader is able to dress in the most expensive and extravagant clothes; the stereotypical colour of clothes she wears are pink and white. Generally, the cheerleader has a friend that sucks up to her and is too stupid to realise that she only uses her to do things for her although the audience can clearly see it so clearly. She is very egotistical and craves attention, and when she doesn't get it she gets very spiteful and would go to extreme lengths just to get it. 

Nerd
The nerd is generally friendless and bullied by the other pupils in the school. This is due to the nerd's smartness and also his/hers out-of-date dress sense and big, thick glasses. They tend to be socially awkward and keep themselves to themselves; when they are not at school, they are at home doing homework or playing video games. The nerd is always the person who gets the highest grade in the class and answers all the questions the teacher asks, which in some films, actually makes the teacher take a disliked feeling towards the nerd as he comes off as annoying and because he's so clever. The only time the nerd is spoken too is if someone wants advice or want something done. 

Outcast
The outcast is usually the new girl that joins school, most of the time half way through the academic year, which makes her the outcast as everybody is already settled in with their groups of friends. The outcast usually makes her first friend very quickly by engaging in a conversation asking about the school or for directions, and throughout the film, turns out to be her most loyal friend when things go wrong for her. She dresses casually and her personality and characteristics are very down-to-earth and modest, she is moderately smart and tends not to get in trouble with teachers and other pupils. She is naturally pretty but doesn't realise it, due to her prettiness, the cheerleader or school princess takes an automatic dislike to her as she sees her as 'competition' for prom queen. Throughout the film, confrontations between the two become more and more heated every time; but after each confrontation, more people start to take the side of the outcast instead of the cheerleader as they usually would and by the end of the film, the cheerleader is left with no one on her side as they've all taken the side of the outcast. If the film is based around the time of prom, then the outcast ends up being voted prom queen.