1. How to discuss representations of strong women

2. When you are describing a representation, it is essential that you use appropriate terminology to describe how the representation is constructed. The following are some descriptions of the film 28 days later which attempt to explain how one of the female characters has been constructed. The response that describes the representation best is the one that uses terminology accurately to describe the representation in detail, explaining how it has been constructed.

3.  Danny Boyle has created an awesome movie full of action and excitement and very strong characters. Selena is very strong and there are many scenes when she shows she is an awesome fighter. There is a scene where she takes on one of the infected and kicks his butt!!

4.  In one scene, Selena hacks to death an infected person that tries to attack them. They are scary but she is stronger than them. Therefore, this is a tuff woman character.

5.  Selena is not a traditional female character. The scene in Jim’s parent’s house demonstrates this. It is very tightly edited and there are lots of loud diegetic stabbing and hacking sounds. As Selena hacks into the infected person with a machete, each sound is emphasised.

6.  Selena is represented as a strong female character. At the end of the encounter in Jim’s parent’s house with the infected with an low angle shot of Selena. In the next shot, which is tighter but still from the same angle, we see the determination in her face demanding to know if Jim was bitten, conveying her strength. Her acting along with the camera angle depicting her dominance in the situation contributes to this representation of a strong female character.

7.  In the encounter in Jim’s parent’s house in 28 Days Later, Danny Boyle has carefully constructed the scene to represent Selena as a powerful female character. He uses a range of codes to achieve this effect, including diegetic sound, dialogue, editing, camera angles and shot selection. Examining this scene closely reveals how the character has been constructed. After the infected is slain as a result of Selena’s quick thinking we see a low angle shot of Selena depicting her as dominant. Boyle cuts to a high angle shot of Jim portraying his weakness in contrast to Selena. The return shot of Selena is a tighter shot to emphasise her determination demanding to know if Jim has been bitten and convey the savagery of her physical abilities. When she discovers Mark has been bitten she immediately and remorselessly hacks him to death. The pace of editing and emphasised digetic foley sound of the hacking reinforces her pragmatic approach and survivalist thinking, contributing to the representation of an extremely strong female character.