Lukshini Kuhanathan Media Mr Becker

Research Assignment 3
Representation 1. Samantha lay says that the thing that should be acknowledged about film is that its by and large a business medium rather than an education tool. Also notice that in mainstream films you will not find that it has a focus on characters but in social realist texts, it generally focuses on characters. 2. William observed that the portrayal of specific characters in realist texts has gone towards social extension. 3. Social extension means extending the range of characters this will enable the mainstream to include groups and individuals on screen. 4. Hallam and Marshment noted that social realist texts introduce characters who dwell in the ways of society and who might appear in the backgrounds. 5. Hill has noticed that in British social realism, when there is social and economic change social extension had started to largely involve the representation of working class at moments. 6. The social extension urge has led British filmmakers to change social and representational inequalities in relation to class. 7. She believes that the working class way of life us also constructed by these visions from specific political standpoints which are generated from some assumptions mainly about what is realist and the issues and the characters that are used to portray social realism. 8. Dodd and Dodd argue about the representation of working class in the documentaries of the 1930s saying that win terms of representation, the documentaries also worked to interest the working class male body. 9. Lindsay Andersons opinion of cinemas treatment of the working class is that the British cinema has under represented the working class. He strived to improve upon previous conceptions of realism. 10. The aspects in which the work of Anderson and his contemporaries represented a major break from what they called it to be the stuffy and clean

Lukshini Kuhanathan Media Mr Becker

documentary realism. In feature films and documentaries the working class characters were more energetic and vibrant. 11. Overall Representations include: British social, Working Class and Realist Cinema. This shifts from representing working class characters as producers of labour to consumers of goods. This shifts from production to consumption, accompanied and facilitated by move from depicting working class characters in communities and workplace, where they are more capable of collective bargaining and action. This leads to envisioning them in the more privalised domestic and leisure time settings. 12. Both 30s and 50s documentary share overwhelming preoccupation with working class males. 13. Women were being directly addressed to encourage war effort. Also women were the main target for the spiteful attacks of their working class heroes. 14. The expectations of the way women were typically depicted during the period is that they were mainly picked on and targeted to be vitriolic attacks of their working class and also were encouraged for war effort. Also what was different about their representation is that they were made to be more of a threat to masculinity by using their obsession of motherhood, marriage and settling down. 15. The changes that occurred in the way women were represented in the 80s was that knower days women are represented more broad and can do more variety. In the 80s women were only represented to do certain things and were able to do certain things. However, now in this society the way that women are portrayed has changed massively. 16. The portrayal of women in social realist films in Britain has taken a retrograde step, with women being portrayed as skilled consumers, unsupportive of their husbands or the victims of domestic violence and sexual abuse. 17. Hallam suggests that working class shifts from production to consumption, accompanied and facilitated by move from depicting working class characters in communities and workplace, where they are more capable of collective bargaining and action. This leads to envisioning them in the more privalised domestic and leisure time settings.

Lukshini Kuhanathan Media Mr Becker

18. The significant change in narrative which accompanies this shift is from political to private because their focus on cultural aspects tended to preclude work. 19. Higsons contention is that a feature of British realism is bound up with changing definitions of public and private space. Hill agrees with what he is saying and suggests reasons for this shift. He says that this shift is from political to private because their focus on cultural aspects tended to preclude work. 20. The point that Samantha Lay makes about ethnicity when drawing her initial conclusions about representation was that the representation of working class characters in British Social Realist Films are on the one hand being attended to within framework of social extension. Also that these texts are privilege white male working class characters. 21. This leads her to explore new ways and areas in which white male working class characters could be represented as. Also it would lead to the demographic seeing a different side of these characters being portrayed which may change the views. 22. Samantha Lays conclusion about representation was that the representation of working class characters in British Social Realist Films is on the one hand being attended to within framework of social extension. Also that these texts are privilege white male working class characters. Also in terms of issues and themes, they are in essence defined as, prone, to the social and psychological traumas of unemployment, violence, and addiction. The different move from private, political to personal, narrows the vision to such an extent that the wider structural inequalities not just regionally or nationally, but globally are lost from the frame. She concluded that the trend towards autobiography began with directors like Bill Douglas and Terence Davies and was evident in contemporary social realist texts such as Wish You Were Here, Stella Does Tricks, and The Girl with Brains in Her Feet etc.... These can be seen as a continuation of the decline of the public to the personal. Also its concluded that some of these texts explore the subjectivities of their central protagonists through a recreation of the past.