Representation Of Ethnicity

During the clip of spooks Ethnicity was represented in various different ways. Ethnicity is represented using the 4 key area’s Mise En Scene, Sound, Editing and Camera shots/angles.

From the outset of the clip Ethnicity is represented, an example of the representation is the stereotypical view of the terrorist. The terrorist is perceived to be an Arabic character, this goes with the stereotype of terrorist, however the overall look of the character does not agree with society’s stereotypical view of terrorist. Society’s view of a terrorist is a turban a large beard and a piece of material to cover their face, this is not shown with the main terrorist in this scene, so the clip goes against the overall stereotype of a modern terrorist. This scene contains a lot of stereotypical material, during the clip there are no white people seen to be in danger, this is very typical of modern television, all the people seen to be in danger are of a non-white Ethnicity, this suggests danger with other races that are not white, this goes along with the stereotype of other races greatly, white people see people of other races as a threat and they sense danger when they are around, stereotypically.

In the clip we watched the music had a very tense feel to it, this could represent the significance of this scene and the overall tenseness of this part of the show. At the start of the scene there is drumming, the drumming sets the mood of the scene and foreshadows the ending drums usually end on a big finale, so the drums at the start suggest the death of the black character. The main music in the scene is very similar to the call to prayer song; this links the Arabic side of scene and emphasizes the cultural clash because while the call to prayer like song is getting louder, Danny says a prayer under his breath, this gives a stereotypical view of both of the two races, Black character related to Christianity and the Arabic character related to Muslim. During the scene during the song there is a whale song been imported into the song, this is done to be ironic. Whale songs are seen to be quite calming and relaxing but this is not the case with this scene, this is very ironic.

The way that the scene is edited is quite clever and suggestive. When the camera switches to another character the screen goes white for a brief amount of time, this could suggest flash bangs and could be used as a further suggestion for the theme of terrorism throughout the scene. Slow motion in the scene shows the overall realisation of what happened to Danny.

During this scene the camerawork is quite clever, they use a handheld camera and the camera is very shaky, this could suggest the overall nervousness of the scene. Also there are lots of close ups to Danny’s face, this is because the director wanted to fully capture the reaction of Danny to what is going on. Camera work is also used to show the power in the scene, they use low shots looking up at the ‘terrorist’ to show his power and dominance.

Overall the director has used various different ways to represent Ethnicity in this scene, some stereotypical viewpoints are agreed with by the director, others aren’t.