A young male actor plays the lead role of Red Riding; by choosing to have the main character portrayed as a young man this generates a large female audience. Eddie, a young reporter always turns to his supervisor for advice. His supervisor is played by an older, fatter man. This could be used to show that with age there is wisdom and experience where as Eddie has none of this and is always finding himself getting into trouble due to lacking the experience that his supervisor has. However as he is young and is able to take risks, be brave and also promiscuous, something of which todays younger generation maybe described as. By having these age stereotypes of old peoples wisdom and the younger carefree characters the audience is able to relate to characters.
Eddie interviews and forms an intimate bond with a older female character, this could be used to represent the changing views on age gaps between couples, as these types of relationship are becoming more common in todays society. The couple could also show that the woman is dependent on her partner as the women does not work and requires his support. This again fits into the stereo type of men being the ones to put the food on the table. All of the victims are young girls and the mothers of these girls all seem to be single mothers. This could be representing how hard life is as a single mother and that everything is that little bit harder, especially grieving, as the mothers have no one to rely on. This also shows the common representation of women being the weaker gender and is dependent on others. As well as this the fact that young children have been killed shows how precious they really are and how they are dependent on adults. The serial killer being an adult could represent the unstable household of today and how over time children’s up bringing’s have deteriorated, they no longer are able to play out on the street or simply go to the park as such because of all of the adults that do not understand how precious it is to have a child in your life.