Essay

Isabel Duce  Media Studies.  Tv Drama. 1st + 5^th December. Page one
Essay: Discuss the ways in which the extract constructs representations of ethnicity

This clip shows many different representations of ethnicity such as Jamaican in the first scene of the two black men, The second scene shows Japanese and eastern European.

The first scene consists of a reaction shot which happens when a black hotel waiter reacts to seeing an ex friend of his nicknamed ‘tel’ in the hotel he is working at. It is clear that he is shocked and embarrassed to see this old friend as he looks embarrassed and scratches his head and even looks around him to see if anyone is looking. He is very eager to ‘get back to the desk’

The angles from the over the shoulder shots are key when the black men first meeting in the first scene. The angle is looking up to the hotel worker whereas the angle (from over the hotel workers shoulder) to the resident of the hotel is looking down the effect of this is to show the representation of the different classes the men both have even though we know that they both are from the same ethnicity however they are now in different classes as the scene uses mise en scene as we have the brightly coloured swimming shorts of the hotel guest to represent the Jamaican colours and all the ‘bling’ worn on the men. However the black hotel workers suit uniform is a signifier because the signified message is his costume of being smartly dressed and is working at the hotel, working hard to earn his money as the other one (the guest) has hardly any clothes on and speaks about the ‘ganga’ , ‘top top ladies’ and partying. The black hotel worker is coming away from the ‘typical’ stereotype of young black men.

This scene uses mise en scene as we have the brightly coloured swimming shorts to represent the Jamaican colours and all the ‘bling’ worn on the men. However the hotel workers uniform is a signifier because the uniform is signified message is that

We have a zoomed shot of the hotel worker when the customer says  ‘that’s the old benjamin’

In the very first scene we see a guest of the hotel, Dressed in white who is placed in the corner in the light who is being served by the black man  dressed in a black suit who is in the dark  this could represent whose higher up in status.

We know the maids are foreign due to their accents, maybe eatern european.  The more confident maid stands there waiting for the music to be played with her hand on her hip whereas the less confident maid stands there with her arms together very nervously. The representation of the maids is contrasting because the more confident maid who has obviously done this before  as she knows the man ‘pays double for double’ is wearing black underwear compared the other maid who clearly has never done this before is wearing white and a cross. White signifies purity and cleanleness. This is again the different representations of  people in the same ethnicity.

The representation of the japanese man also known as a ‘regular’ is shown as a very rich. He is paying for the maids to dance for him.

There are many digetic and non digetic noises throughout the extract. The first noise we hear is the digetic (natural) sound of the splashing of the pool which is then interrupted by the man coming out of the pool and calling upon the hotel worker. In the maid part we have a ‘mission-themed’ tune played throughout the maids speaking about whats going to happen.