Gender and Age Representation in 'Lovely Bones' - Natalie Sergeant

Lovely Bones - Representation of gender and age of the young girl

2 Years old

At the beginning of Lovely Bones we first see the girl at a young age of 2. We can tell this information from her size being small like a child when compared to an adult. Also many of the shots our high angle or eye level that emphases this idea of her being small but also weak and needing to be protected due to her size.

We see innocents in her due to her fascination with the penguin snow glob. As most older people would not be interested in the item, she has a strong attraction and curiosity towards the item as she doesn't know what it is and due to her lack of knowledge we she her as innocent to the world.

 

As we can see she surrounded by toys that not only emphases her young age but also her gender. Her age is represented by the tops as they are soft, easy to play with and also safe. Her gender is shown in them due to them being all sweet and nothing gendered towards boys, such as the cuddle bear. She is also interested in the penguin, this can seen as cute and small so would be an interest to more of a girl as boys might want more stereotypical toys such as cars and solders.

We also see as a girl due to her clothing and hair. She has blond curly hair that is not seen towards boys as the will have very short hair and most boys wont have curly hair. Her clothing is a red dungarees and white slightly frilly shirt, this is seen as girl clothing as most boys would have more dirty and have more lazy clothing where she looks more feminine due to the frills. We also see sweetness of the characters and a child like innocents from this.

14 Year old

 

We then see the girl 12 years later where she is taking the equal vent of "Selfies", this is seen as a girly activate for girls to take photos of themselves. We also see her holding a cut out of a boys face showing that she is in her young teenage stages due to this being a stereotypical activate for girls to fantasy over dream boys from bands or actors. 

 

Even with the girl being 12 years old we still see a child like innocents of her as she is still exploring and running around without a care. She is wearing light pink cardigan with matching trousers and a white shirt. These clothing shows she's a girl as girls are more likely to wear so much pink and that styles of clothing where boys would wear less things with paten but more for comfit. 

Comparison
With in our thriller opening, we also use a young actor to emphases the feeling of innocents. We also have our character wearing white to show this innocents of not understanding the world around them fully yet.