The opening shot of this scene is a wide, establishing shot of a living room in a house. The room seems quite plain and dull without much in it which suggests a working class family or 'stereotypical' british lifestyle. In the center of the scene is a female character who is percieved to be Irish because of her dancing. The music complies to this as is it tradition Irish music.
There is then a cut to three characters on a sofa talking about the dancer. They are wearing black clothing and the male charcter is holding an urn which suggests that a funeral has taken place. The male character is sitting between the two female characters to create a contrast. The two women seem quite happy and are sitting in a 'femenine' way with their legs crossed whereas the male character is sitting with his legs apart looking upset and drinking a beer which also creates a stereotype for men. They also seem to be friends or family of the dancer by the way they are talking about her. The lighting is kept to natural with the only source of light seeming to come from the onewindow in the room which also shows a small house that would belong to a working class family.
After this, the music goes out of key and stops, showing that something dramatic has happened. Close-ups of the character's appalled expressions are then shown to create enigma as the audience don't know why they are so shocked. When we see that 'Chris' is wearing women's clothes, the audience can see another stereotype withing the family; that they don't want to be different. They are so shocked about what Chris is wearing because they obviously arn't used to it and they want him to be 'normal'. Contrast is used again for this by Chris wearing white whilst everyone else is wearing black: this makes him stand out more as being 'different' and also creates a stereotypical 'gay' character; attention seeking and 'camp'. The way he stands also adds to this as he has his hip popped to one side and he is standing like a stereotypical female. The woman that faints in the background and the woman that runs away shows a dramatic contrast between Chris and the rest of the character's lifestyles. Chris is obviously more used to the dramatic and obvious lifestyle that is normally connected to places like London where people stereotypically don't care what people think and stereotypical Ireland where everone knows everyone else and the lifesyle seems to be much quieter and discreet.
After this, another stereotype is created: Mercedes is shown in a bar wearing lots of make-up and looking like almost the opposite of the characters we have just seen. She is perceved to be a 'slag' and seems to be a million miles away from the characters in Ireland. She seems to be what people would believe to be a female character as she seems to be a lot like the dancer in Ireland; attention seeking and needy. She is having flashbacks of a relationship with the character in Ireland and, although they are shown to be completely opposite in both gender and lifestyle, they are still connected.
This scene shows a lot of contrast between gender and lifestyle and also uses many steretypes to create recognisable characters and storylines. However, all the different representations are needed to create a healthy balance and an interesting episode.
Friday, 12 December 2008
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