Discuss the contemporary representation of a nation using specific examples from at least two media to support your answer.

Discuss the contemporary representation of a nation (Britain) using specific examples from at least two media to support your answer.

The British nation has many stereotypes which can be both negative and positive. Some stereotypes that people outside Britain have created are that British people have received pronunciation accents, embracing of our multi-cultural society and proud of our monarchy and heritage.  However, within Britain we have different stereotypes of ourselves and the areas in which we live in. For example, people from the South of Britain are often stereotyped by Northern counties as middle class with lots of money, who are ‘city workers’. This could be a result of London being located South.  Similarly, the Southern counties stereotype the Northerners as not well off, all of them live on council estates and do more physical jobs.  These stereotypes have been explored within the media through television and film, which I am going to discuss.  I believe that both of these media platforms both reinforce and reinvent the stereotypes that exist.

The first television programme I will discuss is Little Britain, written by Matt Lucas and David Walliams.  The entire series is a comical representation of the variety of people in Britain, shown through specific characters in small sketches.  One character that represents the British working class group is Vicky Pollard. She is a teenager from the North who already has a number of children. The mise-en-scene in each sketch is representative of her character – her costume in particular is a major stereotype. She wears the common ‘Kappa’ tracksuit in hot pink, which represents her as being poor. She also wears her hair piled on top which is a common trend among the lower class. She wears lots of gold, flashy jewellery in every scene and wears old trainers which also represent her as poor. Vicky’s character relates to the stereotypes of the working class as this is what they are thought to wear most of the time.  The way that Vicky talks is also representative of this particular group – she talks very fast, with a strong accent suggesting that all working class talk like this. The fact that the audience have to listen hard to understand Vicky suggests that people struggle to comprehend what the working class people say.  Furthermore, she uses very basic lexis during her speech for example “yeah but not but”.  The use of these words suggests to the audience that she is not very articulate and therefore uneducated, which could be generalised to the rest of the British working class.         One particular scene with Vicky Pollard starring in is a very negative representation of her group. The non-diegetic sound at the beginning of the scene is some garage music, which is thought to be popular among this group which represents all working class people as enjoying listening to garage music.  The scene involves Vicky being caught stealing from the pick’n’mix in a supermarket and after being escorted outside by a security guard, she is actually stealing a till from the shop as well. The mise-en-scene in this particular sketch is important for the comical effect – the till she has stolen was hidden in her baby’s pram which represents working class mothers as not very caring for their child.  The fact that she has been caught stealing in such an amateur way further suggests that she isn’t very clever.  All of these factors contribute to the negative representation of the British working class.

In other television programmes such as soaps, British people are also represented.  In the BBC1 soap ‘Eastenders’, the people of East London are shown here in a number of ways.  The stereotype of British people having a good community spirit is portrayed in Eastenders as the soap is centred around the theme of everyone knowing everyone else.  All the characters who live in Albert Square go to the same local pub in the evenings, and this setting is often where the drama happens. This could represent British people of the Eastend as if they like to drink alcohol and like to have an argument in the pub as this is what happens in most episodes. Since the soap is focussed on this, it represents Londoners as being argumentative and aggressive which is a negative stereotype.   The stereotype mentioned earlier regarding the multi-cultural society we live in is evident here in Eastenders.  Recently, more families of ethnic minority have appeared in the soap such as the Truman family and the Masood family.  This is representative of the real Eastend and how it is becoming more multi-cultural, which is one positive stereotype.  Other families that are stereotyped in this soap are the Branning family. This family consists of a broken marriage between Tanya and Max who have four children; Bradley, Lauren, Abbi and Oscar.  The family has had their share of drama, with the reason for their divorce being because of Max’s affair with Bradley’s girlfriend.  This is a negative representation of the ‘typical’ Eastend family because of the infidelity and lies that have occurred recently.  On the surface, the family appears normal and happy, but under the surface they are troubled which is maybe a generalisation of people in the Eastend.  In fact, most families in Eastenders have been through a divorce (Ian Beale, Phil Mitchell etc) which is also a negative representation of Eastend people – the stigma of divorce is a negative one.

The second platform i will explore is ‘film’, and more specifically ‘Love Actually’ which is directed by Richard Curtis. The audience expects this film to be similar to the directors other films, for example ‘Notting Hill’.  The British people in Love Actually are of a middle class background, and who live in London.  Because there are no contrasting characters in this film, the audience are decieved in thinking that this is a common stereotype in London.   From the costumes of the characters, a stereotype is made – Martine McCutcheon’s character is always seen to be well groomed, with hair and make up done  and in expensive looking clothes.  Hugh Grant’s character is always seen in a suit, which suggests he is educated and has a good job in the city.  The speech is all ‘recieved pronounciation’, which could also be percieved as a ‘posh accent’. For example, using sophisticated vocabulary from the characters shows the audience they are well educated which could be seen as posh.  This represents the London middle class as posh and well educated, which could be false.   One of the main storylines is the relationship between a black male and Keira Knightly’s character. The director may be showing that London is a multi-cultural society, where people from different races often marry. However, no Asian or non-British white people are represented, which contradicts this.

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