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comparitive essay Fish tank /Precious

In the fish tank, the character ‘Mia’ seems be the typical British teenager living in a counsel estate in England. However behind all of this façade, this teenager is seen to be physically abused in her home, searching for an escape that seems more desirable to her than anything. Similarly, Precious denotes the same matters when it is clear that precious gets physically abused by her mother as well. This is very interesting as both these characters seem to lack a responsible parent around and both seem to be deprived from standard living areas.

However, both these characters are very much different one way because of the way they choose to escape from reality, Mia for instance dances to free her herself from the pending problems of family life. Precious chooses to fantasize about romance and fame, being loved by everyone. This begs the question of whether these films are connoting that people who live in these cancel estate or welfare apartments have nothing but there dreams and hopes to live on.

In the Guardian newspaper online, one review of Fish Tank seems to have picked out a certain idealism that the film has. This could denote that the film seem to be idealising how people expect things to happen and how a turn of events could change everything. In the precious the turning point was freedom from her mother, and expressing her dark memories of what she had experienced as a child. This puts thing in to perspective for the audience because it creates a moment of reflection. Most of the people who had watched this film were White middle class people , and they had enjoyed it because it wasn’t something they were faced with. This was a film heavy set in a Black community, and the only white characters you would see were of higher authority. This film clearly outraged many of the Black community who didn’t want to be portrayed in the certain way.

In Fish Tank there were praises in the film critic circle for the film having a sense of realism .This could mean that people did agree with the fact that Britain and White British teenagers were simply this way, looking for freedom from a council estate flat and an abusive mother.

The one thing that was very much different from Precious was the inter- mixing of different cultures. This film seemed acknowledging of different styles of music and culture, most notably Afro-Caribbean culture   .

 

the last essay

How do the contemporary media represent nations, regions and ethnic/social/collectivegroups of people in different ways? (50marks)

In the media , there are many examples of represetation that in turn have the ability to either create a negative stereotype or a positive portrayl.When we're  discussing ethnic,social and collective groups, one very interesting topic is that of the gypsy and irish traveller background .The media in recent years has put these people in a negative way which has left certain people in this ethnic group 'fustrated'; te media in it's contemparary form has a way of presenting media through mediation, to try and twist the actions of a particular group of irish and gypsy travellers, and make it seem as though a whole ethnic group are all the same.This then creates the dominant ideology that consumes the pupilc and turns them against or for, a particular subject.

 In the early fifties to the late sixties, irish/romani and gypsies were not highly discussed within the media because of more concentration being towards racial discrimination.

In ‘my big fat gypsy wedding' there are many connotations that suggest a certain negative depiction of a specific group of people. In certain countries over the years there is homogeneity in the way that particular vulnerable groups are seen t be presented. In connection to the falsely heightened representation of Gypsies in Britain, America had once victimized Black people; they were once the subject of humour and pitiless entertainment for the whites in the 20s and early. However in today’s society and the media tends to discriminate towards the working class more generic lifestyles and ways of living.

Marxists believes that this is due to the bourgeoisie being in power and the media directly reflecting the views and opinions of the upper-class people. This could be another explanation why contemporary media tend to give very negative or positive portrayals of certain group’s .In one letter of complaint by an eighteen year old Romani Gypsy traveller, a number of issues were highlighted to inform channel four of their unfair and ignorant representation of this generic group of people .One the very interesting part of this young man’s letter was that he pointed out that people usually associate Irish Gypsy travellers with Romani, even though their cultures differ greatly. It is very common for television shows to ignore how different ethnicities are, including the fact that my big fat gypsy wedding is a comedy, it is far too typical to assume anything serious of it.

mediation essay

In the media there are many interpretations and opinions of topics that can either make the public more informative, or unknown to the way the media can be easily mediated, to fit its purpose.

One example of how the media mediates its material is the London riots. Images were published in the daily mail embodying how a Black man was repeatedly vandalising property. This very image could be viewed on other news coverage websites with a white male doing the very same as the Black mail.

This cause great outrage and indignation amidst the debates about whether the riots were racially motivated. However this is a great example of how the media can intervene in changing the perception of a certain ethnic group. This mediation is very typical in within this type of general news coverage. Marxist provides one theory as to why the media might manipulate certain events and they believe that the media conglomerates in capitalist societies need to make a profit and therefore present certain ethnicities in a negative light because it sells. This is a very warped way of thinking as it basically suggests that the media has now resulted in deliberately portraying news negatively to make a profit.