Notes on Primeval Characters - Gender Representation

Primeval 'fleshed out' notes

Abbey (Short Haired Female): The first female that we are properly introduced to is not represented as a stereotypical woman. She is quite the opposite. She is an atypical representation of a woman. We get this immediately as she is introduced to the scene on a giant digger. Which is a very masculine object. Normally associated with burley builders - not feminine women. However, if you listen to the digger, you will hear that all of the noises it makes have been added in to the scene post production. The noises that a digger normally makes are deep and 'diesel' like. Yet, this digger, has very high pitched, robotic noises, this can connote that despite the fact the woman is using a manly digger, she still has a feminine side to her.
As the scene goes on, the verisimilitude of the event becomes very low. We see this woman - normally a very fragile, weak figure - shoot a full barrel shotgun - whilst running, and hits her target dead on. Something, I am sure, most men could not achieve.

Nick Cutter: The first male that we are introduced to. Men are normally represented as being strong, heroic, fearless characters; yet in this scene Nick appears to be the opposite. When he is faced with a sabre tooth tiger, instead of trying to fight it off, he jumps down into a trench and helplessly tries to defend himself from the big scary feline. To make him look even weaker, the camera constantly looks down on him, making him seem small and inferior. This emphasises just how weak his character is. Again, whenever we see Nick on screen, he is positioned down the bottom of the screen which shows that he is less important in the show than Abbey (the dominant female character).
As the scene goes on, Nick finds an ounce of courage and tries to distract the sabre tooth allowing Abbey to get to safety. This is common for a male character, as they are always represented as as people that feel it is their duty to help out the female characters. Furthermore, even though he is being the hero now, his weakness and inferiority is still shown through the types of camera angles that we see him in. A multiple number of long shots that show that he is still a small character. This is also reinforced by the fact he is still placed toward the bottom of the screen.

Connor Temple: Another male character in the extract. This character really enforces the idea that men are more feminine than normally represented. His character has been dressed in pink clothing. And accessorised with a scarf - all items that are normally associated with females. By dressing his character like this, it could connote that the character is confident within themselves and has a good natured empathy.
This characters femininity is emphasised greatly at the end of the scene, when they are in the barn, every other character - including the female - is holding a gun, yet he is not holding a gun, and has to pick up a shovel to show that he - like the others - is strong and appear scary.

Weak Female (Unknown name) : This female character is contrasted with the first female that we meet. This female is represented very much more stereotypically than the first character. Firstly, you can tell that this female is much more feminine through the way she has been dressed. She has been dressed in a business suit which denotes that she is not a physically strong woman. However, it can connote that she is strong in the sense that she is mentally clever and can play people with mind games.
Her femininity is then contrasted by the fact she is shown in the same slow motion shot as some gnarly dogs - animals which are associated with being being masculine and dominant - something that this female character is not.