Exam Question Plan

Discuss the contemporary representation of a nation, region or social group in the media using specific textual examples from at least 2 media to support your answer.

Introduction:

Identify two examples - cross reference Misfits and Fishtank and say how they both represent the youth of Britain to be corrupt.

Social group - teenagers

Nation - Britain

Region - London. Regions reflect the social group as they are also seen to be corrupt.

Theorist - Marcusse says that the mass media have the power to influence our judgement on social groups.

Main

How 'An Education' shows teenagers in London 1960s are shown to be hardworking and respectful of conservative values. Goes against present representation of London as we only see it to be corrupt in both medias.

Discuss

The contemporary of nations, religion or social groups.

Intro

• mention all three texts that your looking at and what your representation is eg. britishness.
• discuss how the nation has been portrayed through the media and if this is an correct or incorrect portrayal.
  

Main

• Use your textual examples, key scenes, and use TEA to support it.
  

Essay Plan

Discuss the contemporary representation of a nation, region or social group in the media using specific textual examples from at least two media to support your answers.

Intro

Explain the question in relation to what we are going to talk about
Introduce the products that we are going to talk about
- Fish Tank
- MisFits

Main

MisFits and Fish Tank in relation to the representation of nation.
Stereotypical view of british teenagers, and the environment that they live in. It does however in MisFits give a range of ethnic groups and social groups to show the range of society in britain.

MisFits and Fish Tank in relation to the representation of region
Representations of London and places near. Even if the show isn't set in these areas a passive audience automatically applies this representation to London as it is the most well known.

MisFits and Fish Tank in relation to the representation of Social Groups
Propps Character Theory gives lots of the false heros, etc.
Teenagers are stereotypical representations of villains and not very clever in contemporary hows, where as in the 60's and 70's Teenagers are shown as clever and dedicated students.

Plan

Discuss the Contemporary representation of a nation, region, or social group in the media using specific textual examples from at least two media to support your answers.

Introduction- Explain the meaning of contemporary representation and how you will use textual examples to represent nation, region, or social group. Use of FILM + TV
past + present + future representations

Main- 1- Nation. related to misfits and how there are portray as sterotpical teenagers. empathises this by idea of marcusse. mindless audience. passive auidence belive this to be true represent nation in negative way.
2- Region. relate to misfits , area highlights the characters

Prompt 2: How Does Contemporary Representation Compare to Previous Time Periods

In the opening sequence of Episode 1 of MisFits the comedy side of the show is focused around swearing. The Characters are stereotypically represented as negative teenage characters. This plays to the passive audience as they would take this as being the view of all teenagers. This comes into the Theory of Marcuse where he states that audiences are turned into a mindless mass. Also we see a mixed ethnic / social group of characters where as compared to coronation street that contains mainly white middle class characters.

The comedy side of the programme although mainly focused around swearing does also converge on one character who states all of the jokes through the programme. In both coronation street and MisFits it features an Irish character that is the main comedy focus. But this is also seen in Are You Being Served as this contains a gay character who is always the one to deliver comedy to the audience.

The stereotypical representations of the characters are initially shown by the camera angles and shots of the characters through the first minute of the shot. We see close-up of the Chav character, and the gangster character which shows that these are more aggressive characters through their facial expressions. We also see a mid-shot of the Weird Kid, which shows that he is not to be trusted as he stares directly at the camera giving the audience the creeps.

To what extent is human identity increasingly mediated?

Opening of misfits we watch and analysed:

The programme portrays each character as a certain stereotype, for instance, you have the chav, the funny Irish character. Although the show groups them together with the costume of the orange jumpsuit, showing them all to be 'scum'. The chavs are closely associated with violence, the one with the cap quickly gets into a fight, and we learn that the girl is doing community service because she got into a fight at Argos, associating the shop with this group.

Nathan, the irish character, insults and jokes around within the group and is hard to take seriously. This representation is summed up by the theorists Althusser and Marcusse, as they both agree that the mass media has the power to create these stereotypes.

Although we do see some differentiation between each characters as they each have their own item, these being: a cap, a hairbrush, lollypop, mobile phone, a religious necklace and a cigarette. But we can see through the generalisation of these social groups how they are increasingly mediated, making people views on them become warped and one minded.

What are the social implications of different media representations of groups of people?

The TV show Misfits shows the different media representations of britishness through the young, disobedient cast. The opening of episode one highlights the social implications of the characters and their stereotypes primarily through their dress code and body language. For example wear a cap or vest top, or bra showing. The body language of Simon is composed and awkward in comparison to the relaxed stance of other characters, this suggests he is secretive and three dimensional and viewers will learn his personality through the series.
Media theorist Althusser's discusses the concept that audiences are influenced by the characters they watch. He believes collective identity is the key in modern society.

Comparison between 70s comedy and current

How has comedy developed/changed?

The contrast between modern and 70s comedy between MisFits and Are You Being Served (AYBS) show a distinctive change in the cultural humour between the generations. With AYBS, you notice that jokes are based much on the cultural unacceptances for homosexuality for instance which in AYBS is shown as a joke and a minority considered not high in society. The society itself usually is brought up on the traditions and the cultural norms of believing that what is shown is what the general consensus of the public believe. When a comedy is as revered as AYBS, it must have had a huge audience that enjoyed it. With welsh farmers being a joke which can be assumed to be have been funny at the time is usually now not very funny nor is considered much of a joke. Whilst in MisFits there is an interest into the art of discriminating so much that it's harsh but funny, an example of this being the irish character called Nathan.

There is a gentle sense to the presentation of AYBS as well. Showing off high class and posh voices with also in a way, very shallow acting which is very obvious to the audience then very casual, the concept seems very focused on making the audience laugh deliberately and focusing as that being the charm whilst in MisFits on the other hand gives the impression of a story with jokes that fill in to give the audience a casual sense as well so they don't feel too spaced out from them and make it feel more personal and realistic.

Most of all, you'll notice in AYBS the jokes are fairly obvious. There is a non-digetic sound of laughing in place to queue the audience that there was a joke. Reason for this perhaps was to announce that it was funny and was a joke rather then trying to be offensive to keep it's happy mood. Nowadays in the likes of MisFits, the audience have to be active to understand the humour and also allows preference to allow the viewer to see if it's for them or not rather then spoon feeding a reaction making therefore, MisFits more liberating for an audience in contrast to AYBS' way of giving expectations to society of what IS and what ISN'T funny.

Are there any similarities in the comedy?

Comparing are you being served and misfits

How has comedy developed/changed?

- Are you being served was based on everyday events and the comedy was about what people were saying. It focuses on stereotypes and slapstick comedy. A lot of the time we are laughing at someone being embarrassed or humiliated and this is shown through the canned laughter that only the audience can hear but the characters can't hear. Some of the canned laughter is over exaggerated which provides a cue encouraging the audience to laugh and stating that something is supposed to be funny.

-Misfits is based on abnormal events about teenagers discovering they have unusual powers after being struck by lightning. We feel that this is not a stereotypical comedy, however parts of the series are funny. With think that the series was not written to be just a comedy as it also contain serious elements such as murders and the crimes that were committed leading to community service. The humour comes from the characters personalities and the way they talk and react to each other. As teenagers, we can relate to some of the comedy but we are not prompted to laugh as there is no canned laughter because the series was made for a younger audience so it wasn't needed. An older audience would probably not laugh at the comedy in the series as a lot of slang is used and there are references to sex.

Are there any similarities in the com

A comparison between 'Are you being served?' and MisFits.

Are you being served is a comedy series that was created during the 1970's whereas MisFits is a contemporary comedy that has been created in the present. Are you being served is a slapstick comedy. Are you being served typically had a more traditional sitcom comedy style. This means that during the scene, events generate chances for the characters to give a sarcastic comment or some other slapstick action. This is scene during the scene 'Sexy Knickers' we saw a customer trying on a pair of trousers and a character who is a the till rips a piece of paper to make it seem as though the customer has ripped the trousers. This style of comedy, although seems a bit basic and out of date compared to modern day comedy programs, the overall style of using comedy is still used in a similar way today. We see this in Misfits where we see Nathan give sarcastic comments at every opportunity, for example when he talks to his mum about how she shouldn't kick him out, and she says that she needs to give her relationship a chance. Nathan then comes out with a sarcastic comment of 'has Jezza been crying to you at night over me'. This shows that the typical slapstick comedy is still delivered in a similar way to how it was delivered in the 1970's.

But not all comedy is

Comparison Between ~ Are you being served + Misfits.

Both of these examples are from the comedy genre however are from very different time periods. Consequently they contain very different forms of humor. All humor is Based around sexual references, however in are you being served and all comedy in the 1970s the comedy is based around sexual innuendos in comparison to the current comedy where the jokes are more crude, blatant and up-front.
Overall the comedy subject hasn't changed much however the content has become more crude to remain shocking.

How has comedy developed?

Both MisFits and Are you being served feature comedy elements for the audience of that time.

Are you being served typically had a more traditional sitcom comedy style. This means that during the scene, events generate chances for the characters to give a sarcastic comment or some other slapstick action. This is scene during the scene 'Sexy Knickers' we saw a customer trying on a pair of trousers and a character who is a the till rips a piece of paper to make it seem as though the customer has ripped the trousers. This style of comedy, although seems a bit basic and out of date compared to modern day comedy programs, the overall style of using comedy is still used in a similar way today. We see this in Misfits where we see Nathan give sarcastic comments at every opportunity, for example when he talks to his mum about how she shouldn't kick him out, and she says that she needs to give her relationship a chance. Nathan then comes out with a sarcastic comment of 'has Jezza been crying to you at night over me'. This shows that the typical slapstick comedy is still delivered in a similar way to how it was delivered in the 1970's.

But not all comedy is the same between the 70's and now. We find in 'Are you being served' when two of the employees are serving a customer that they use small tricks to try and make clothes bigger, for example putting their knee inside the arms of jackets to make them bigger. The other character then tries this with a pair of trousers and ends up ripping them completely. They then use canned laughter to show that this is a particular comedy event, but now adays this is out of date and not funny enough for today's society. We then find that in todays modern comedies, stereotypes is a key role in producing comedies. This comes through them having 5 characters each with a different stereotype, for example the stereotype of Nathan, the Irish Kid, who is a stereotypical loudmouth character that says things before he thinks. Also the powers mean that they have additional comedy areas to explore. This comes through when we see Alisha's power which is Sexual Pheromone Manipulation, which ends up using sexually styled comedy for the audiences pleasure. This shows that not only are they using stereotypes they are using sexually styled comedy to generate modern day comedy.

The Sexually styled comedy in MisFits is a stereotypical controversial comedy area. This means that Channel 4 have decided to explore a more explicit style of comedy that wouldn't have been acceptable to broadcast in the 70's but is on the edge of what is acceptable now, showing that our perception of comedy seems to have changed to the modern day style of comedy.

Misfits + Are you being served

the comedy in AYBS is very promiscuous and lets the audience connote what each statement means, for examples with the holes in the mans trousers and jacket. MF on the other hand is very blatant comedy, usually it comes through the Irish character Nathan, who's rude adaptations of situations and outbursts are funny to teenage audiences. Both comedies are similar though in the fact that the comedy comes purely through speech, all the characters appear normal in appearance and there's no slapstick element to it. The comedy has changed form over the years but it hasn't changed subject. Sex is the main factor in both but AYBS is more innuendo where, as I've said, MF is blatant and forced in the audience face by the characters.
A difference would be the insulting comedy in MF also towards Simon, who is called a pervert and a twat throughout, and although we shouldn't laugh at someone being insulted, the way its delivered is very comedic.

Comparing Are you being served and Misfits

How has the comedy developed or changed and are there any similarities in the comedy?

The comedy in are you being served is very subtle without the use of swearing of angry/ aggressive behaviour. Instead the comedy used was based on sexual innuendoes and having the line 'Are you being served' asked before any of the staff members talk to each other. Also the comedy style used in this series looks at mocking certain groups of people and the stereotypes/ behaviors. An example of this is the homosexual references and the differences shown between the young and older generations and how they interoperate costumers and their demands.

In contrast to this Misfits uses very rude and open comedy if regular use of swearing and sexual references. However there are elements of the comedy which are more or less the same, an example of this is how the joker of the group is an Irish man and the group member who most of the abuse is aimed at is a man, who is said by the other members to have 'mental issues.' Both of these instances, again are mocking people who are different or have problems.

Is the comedy controversial?

There are parts in both Are you being served and Misfits which could be classed or seen as being controversial. This is because they mock/ abuse minorities within the members of the group.

Also in Misfits death and killing people is put together with comedy which could, to some audience members imply that killing can be fun.