Social Class

The Downton Abbey poster is clearly meant to look a lot more sophisticated than the Shameless one. The characters in this poster are obviously meant to be a lot higher class too, you get this from their attire and the fact Buckingham palace in the background. You'd usually associate anyone who lives in or around the palace to be of a high class.
Shameless on the other hand is meant to look a lot rougher, everyone in this poster looks A LOT lower class than the people on the Downton Abbey. This is due to the fact that everyone in the photo either looks like or is doing something unruly, a mixed race guy choking a white guy who's swearing back at him, two skanky looking girls arguing, what looks like everyones dad (someone who's meant to set an example) sitting in the middle of them all just smoking, need I say more.





Richard Butsch (1992) who says working class males in the media are presented as; "Incompetent and ineffectual, often a buffoon, well-intentioned but dumb. In almost all working-class series, the male is flawed, some more than others

Keith Gandal's, in 2007 he said that target audiences are drawn in by the; "Sentimental rags-to-riches story," 

classes B/C1 are represented as the; "Social norm" (Gandal, 2007)

Medhurst's 1998 theory; "They are awful because they are not like us,"


The first voice you hear in the extract is a a voice with a clear regional accent, so before he says anything of worth you already know that the video is going to have something to do with lower class citizens. This is due to the fact that regional accents are generally thought of as lower than someone wita received pronunciation accent and therefore you can instantly depict that this extract is not going to be to do with Kings, Queens and castles. It's not just the accent that gives this away but in terms of the mice-en-scene, the first few images you see are of huge, skanky apartment blocks and terraced houses which are generally owned by lower working class people who either earn minimum wage or live off of benefits. The camera angle for the terraced houses with the park in the middle is a birds eye, which gives us the opportunity to see a lot of the area, I believe it is to let us see how awful some of these places are, to feed us what the mainstream media see's as lower class.

When Frank (the man doing the voice over) is introducing each of his kids, it gives you an eye level close-up of the character he's introducing whilst he says it and it is clear from each child that this is a lower class family. This is due to the fact that the children don't look like a lawyer, doctor or anyone of a high class's children, they look like the kind of kids that you would in fact find roaming around grotty estates and this is solidified by the fact that at the end of the opening scene you find the entire community drinking, hanging around a burning car with two like a huge council apartments in the background. Even when the police turn up everyone seems unfazed, they find it funny which tells me that they do things like this quite often hence why this show is representing people like this in a negative light, like every lower class citizen is a trouble maker who sets cars on fire and runs away from police.

Disability

I would say that disabled people in TV are generally portrayed as quite helpless, but make up for that with their mind, they can either be deceivingly smart or have some something extraordinary about them. Two examples of this would be 'T-bag' from Prison Break and 'Bran Stark' from Game of Thrones. Bran stark may not have the ability to use his legs but he is gifted with the ability to send his consciousness into the mind of another person or an animal. T-bag has no such ability, but he is, as I said, deceivingly smart. Countless times he has outsmarted the other characters in order to survive, if he had an average mind he would already be dead and yet he is one of the last characters left from the first season.

In this particular example, the disabled boy in the episode of 'Call Girl' does not show the characteristics of someone deceivingly smart or extraordinary. In fact, I would say that this kid is represented as weak, feeble and helpless. This ties into Jessica Evans theory who said "Disabled people are seen as childish, dependent and underdeveloped." I would describe him as this because the first shot we got of him is in the first three seconds when Billie Piper opens the door for him, the camera shot goes from a medium long shot on her to a high level shot on him, like we're looking down on him. Not just that but he comes with his dad who has to get the money out for him, help him into bed and also kisses him on the head before he leaves. These all give off the impression that this boy is in fact helpless and further supports the point that this boy adheres to Jessica Evan's 1998 theory.

Guy Cumberbatch and Ralph Negrine did a study in 1988 and found that disabled people hardly make up 1% of the roles in all fictional programmes. This supports the fact that disabled people are viewed as "unattractive, disgusting, shitty, dribbling" - (Evans 1998) - because if disabled people were seen as equals or even anything close to equals then there would be a far higher percentage of disabled people in TV. In the clip you wouldn't exactly say that the boy is the most attractive kid on the planet, how many girls do you know that would do what Billie Piper's doing for him? Notice that I referred to him as boy and kid. He is probably around the age of 16, 17 or 18 and yet I am still subconsciously referring to him as a child because although he is a young adult, he is helpless and feeble just like a child would be, and this is shown in the clip when she has to feed him his drink because he can't even move without help.

At 4:06 to 4:13 the clip shows Billie Piper in the motion of getting into a more sexual position so she's less of a carer and more of a partner, it seems like she's trying to treat him more like an equal which goes against one of Evans's theories that disabled people are segregated and not treated as you would like to be treated, in fact, it goes against the majority of disability theories because most of them give the general impression that disabled people are not treated as they should be, whilst in this part of the clip he is in fact being treated like a normal human being. There is a part in this clip that shows he is surprised by her behaviour, maybe he didn't expect her to actually go ahead with it because no one ever has before? He does say "I'm not used to being touched" so when you think about it, the fact he's surprised is not surprising. The one-two shot from 4:10 to 4:11 when it skips from her getting on top of him DOWN to him looking UP at her, the expression on his face is one of surprise and disbelief, again supporting the fact that he didn't expect her to actually go through with this.

At no point in the entire clip did the boy smile, not even for a millisecond, not even a grin. I would put this down to nerves, the fact that he knows that in the next hour or so he's going to be losing his virginity and taking the next step to becoming a man, I would say becoming independent but unfortunately that will never be the case because he will always need a carer, which is sad. The parallel editing going on from 2:47 through till 3:12 shows that his dad is just as nervous as his son because of his fidgeting with his seat, radio, window etc. This part of the clip is there to make the audience feel awkward and it does its job. The reason his dad is in the car fidgeting because he's probably less than 100 metres from his son having sex. When you hear your neighbours or your friends having sex you feel awkward, so just imagine if you were there whilst one of your family members were having sex, not a pleasant thought. This again adheres to Evans theory that disabled people are seen as childish, and unattractive not only because the boy is nervous or in other words "dribbling" but because his father has to go through that awkwardness of staying in the car so that when his son has finished he can go get humanoid sort him out because he cannot do it himself.

To conclude, Longmore's theory is that we "often stigmatise and shun" what we fear and then goes on to state that "disabled people allude to these fears" is not adhered to in this text, it is in fact opposed. This is due to the fact that at no point did Billie Piper insult him or be condescending to him in any way, her speech is filled with pity but at no point does she try and disgrace him, as I previously stated she tries to treat him like a human being. I would say that this clip is trying to make you feel awkward, make you feel pity for the disabled character but it may also have a hidden meaning, that disabled people are in fact equals and should be treated as much.






Jessica Evans (1998) - "Disabled people are seen as childish, dependant and underdeveloped. They are regarded as 'other' and are punished by being excluded from ordinary life. Thus popular images and rhetoric of disabled people abound which comfort us with people who are imperfect, helpless, unattractive, disgusting, shitty, dribbling."

As Cumberbatch and Negrine (1992), Barnes (1992) and Longmore (1987) point out studies of the representation show that disabled people are screened out of television fiction or else occur in a limited number of roles.

"What we fear, we often stigmatize and shun and sometimes seek to destroy. Popular entertainments depicting disabled characters allude to these fears and prejudices or address them obliquely or fragmentarily, seeking to reassure us about ourselves."(Longmore, 1987, p. 66)

Jordanova (1989) - "The idea of otherness is complicated, but certain themes are common: the treatment of others as more like an object, something to be managed and possessed, and as dangerous, wild, threatening. At the same time, the other becomes an entity whose very separateness inspires curiosity, invite inquiring knowledge."

Medhurst (1997) argued in terms of power relations and the constructions of stereotypes; "they are awful because they are not like us."

Evans (1998) - "Old people in our culture are also segregated and treated as though they are waiting to die. There are close associations between dependancy, illness, dying and death. It seems that increasingly in our culture there are pressures that encourage a reversion to infantile feelings which have to be madly defended against."

How are young people stereotyped in the media?

Laziness - I'd say that a lot of adults believe the younger generation to be lazy/idle because of the recent developments in technology that makes it easier to stay at home as apposed to going out with friends.

Stanley Hurst - “Adolescence is inherently a time of storm & stress when all young people go through some degree of emotional and behavioural upheaval, before establishing a more stable equilibrium at adulthood." Hall also argued that:
1. The common mood of teenagers is a state of depression.
2. Criminal activity increases between the ages of 12 & 24.
3. Young people are extreme and need excitement; “Youth must have excitement and if this is not at hand in the form of moral intellectual enthusiasms it is more prone to be sought in; sex, drink or drugs.”

Osgerby goes onto argue that; “The portrayal of youth is not entirely pessimistic,” he argues that “Mixed metaphors” appear when analysing the representation of youth. He claims; “Dual stereotyping of youth,” creates these mixed metaphors that Dick Hebdige (1988) termed; “Youth as fun,” and “Youth as trouble maker.”

Skins clip

In will be analysing this five minute clip of Skins, detailing whether this clip adheres to any theories about how youth are represented in the media. It is common knowledge that young people are the most discriminated against in the media, this clip both adheres to and opposes some common stereotypes about youths in this day and age.

The starting credits straight-away display to us some of the stereotypes of youths and adheres to what Dick Hebdige said, he described “Youth as fun” and “Youth as trouble makers”. It adheres to this because the non-diagetic music in the opening credits is upbeat and happy (“youth as fun”) but the pictures are of kids doing drugs, drinking and partying (“youth as trouble makers”). It also adheres to but at the same time opposes Stanley Hurst’s theory. He stated that young people must have excitement and seek this out in sex, drinks and drugs but he also stated that the common mood of teenagers is depression. In my opinion, the credits oppose his point about depression because the majority of the youths in this clip look like they’re having a good time, even if their lives are tainted with profanity, hence why it adheres to what he said about youths seeking out excitement in sex, drugs and alcohol.

The first camera shot that we see is an extreme close-up of what seems to be the main character, it then zooms out into a medium shot of him under the covers of his bed. The design of the mattress doesn’t exactly make the youth of today look very good because the design of his sheets are two naked people, again adhering to Stanley Hurst’s theory which is basically that youths like sex, drugs and alcohol. There is a common stereotype that youths are lazy, the start of this clip opposes this. This is due to the fact that his alarm is going off but he is already awake, unlike later in the clip where the main character rings his friend who is laid asleep in bed not answering phone because he can’t be bothered, this character (who I believe is called Sid) adheres more to the stereotype that youths are lazy.