Monday, 7 May 2012

How is class and status represented in 'The Street'?

The clip starts with an opening showing the street which is all terraced houses and the title 'The street' it then zoomes into one of the houses to show a typical working class family. The husband is wearing a casual green t-shirt and is represented as a very aggressive man with foul language. The husband and wife are arguing while their children are in the next room. The man appears to not care that his children are there and acts like he doesn't have the time for them. During this scene there are several jump cuts to show the argument and then the childrens reactions, which are barely reactions atall, so they are used to this kind of arguing. The argument is seen from the daughters view in the next room as she looks from the dad to the mum, showing her point of view.
The next scene shows the work place of the man from the previous scene, the first shot is a long shot to show where the scene is placed. There's a lot of close up shots of tools being used and quick jump cuts to the man using the tools, showing that he's a builder. The scene then cuts back to the house, where it shows a long shot of the woman sat at the table eating a cream cake, this sudden change of scene shows the man working to get all the money and the woman sitting around spending the money. During this scene we see a man who lives across the street who in comparison to her husband, is wearing a suit and putting stuff in his car so is therefore  more likely to be in a higher classed job. Jump cuts show the burst pipe catastrophe, which again hints towards a working class house which keeps breaking.
The next scene shows the comparison between the families, the builder sat at home watching football in a white vest while the higher class man goes out to his car, dressed in another suit. Both families show the father who has a lack of concern over their children, the higher class man is more bothered about a lost email than his daughters trouble at school, and the builder who is too busy watching football to keep an eye on his children.
The scene involving the higher class mans family again is an argument scene but between the mother and children, it is more likely to see arguments in a working class family because of the more stressful lives.
When the child is run over, a lot of neighbors suddenly appear, showing a good community within the street, which is more likely in working class families where there are more houses and a lot more people living in the area. Even after the child is run over the mother and builder father are arguing about who's fault it is, putting their problems before helping their child.
This clip from 'the street' typically represents working class families, however shows different levels of working class, as someone could be in a higher office job but still classed as working class.

1 comment:

  1. Some good point but do remember that you need to include the shots, sound, mise-en-scene and then analyse them. PEE. You do this in the first paragraph, but not in the rest. Try timing yourself and writing about a clip from youtube as revision.

    Low D grade

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