Representations don't just 'happen' They are constructed by producers for ideological purposes. From a Marxist perspective, this can be a tool of influencing the ideology of the audience and constructing hegemonic belief systems. In short, representation is serious business.
R Block A2 Media analysed the scenes in The Selfish Giant where Arbor consoles his mum after her house is bricked by a drug dealer, followed by a scene with Arbor and Swifty playing on a Trampoline, and finally a scene where Arbor confronts two police officers who call round suspecting him of a crime. They looked specifically at the representation of the working class. They were exploring the question How constructed are the representations with your chosen texts? They concluded that this representation was constructed in the following ways:
- Diegetic sound of mobile phone connotes Arbor's rebellious attitude to the police. A mid shot shows him sitting slumped in his arm chair, again reinforcing the ideology that the police are not important in this setting
- Colour scheme/colour palette is desaturated and dull, connoting depression, lack of joy and hopelessness. This is emphasised throughout the film
- Handheld camera positions audience directly into an uncomfortable and distressing situation.
- Voyeuristic positioning. The audience are positioned as an outsider, as above the characters, as a middle class audience who have little experience of absolute poverty
- Overgrown grass, connotation of poverty. Symbolic of the greater issues that the citizens of the town have to deal with
- Broken trampoline, mise-en-scene here suggests deprivation and neglect
- Editing - mother warns Arbor not to return to the scrapyard, and a match on action cut shows Arbor in the scrapyard, confirming his disobedience
- Police through gesture demonstrate their lack of compassion for the vulnerable working class family by leaving their door open when leaving the family house
- Lack of artificial lighting in living room creates a cold, dark atmosphere. This emphasises the depressing lives of the working class, and has connotations of authenticity and verisimilitude
Arbor and Swifty go scrapping (cheers to Q block A2 Media for the following analysis)
- Colour pallette is desaturated, grey, and connotes misery and depression
- Lack of variety of shot types. Mainly mid shots and close ups, and tracking shots, following the bleak, empty lives of the two protagonists
- Establishing shot, barbed wire in shallow depth of field, iconographic of a prison setting, symbolising that the characters are trapped in their estate
- Language/lexis - frequent casual use of the word 'fuck' has connotations of lack of education and lack of respect for authority. Limited vocabulary
- Sound - muted and bleak. Lack of any diegetic sound jumping out. Single use of exaggerated, pleonastic sound of construction has connotations of destruction and negativity
- Handheld cinematography a convention of the documentary film giving the film verisimilitude. Connotations of imperfection, of an unstable lifestyle
It's really important to discuss why Clio Barnard, the director has constructed the representation of the working class in this way. Students concluded that this is because The Selfish Giant has a clear ideological message to the middle class audience that there is massive inequality in the UK. Therefore it can be argued that The Selfish Giant adopts a broadly left wing ideology. Here are some aspects that broadly paint The Selfish Giant as left wing in its ideology:
- By focusing on working class people and working class issues
- Promotes the idea that poverty is a society issue, as opposed to laziness or too many generous benefits
- School is represented as being needlessly authoritarian
To conclude, despite how noble it may be, the representation of the working class in The Selfish Giant are heavily constructed, in order to influence the ideology of the target middle class audience. How successful it is in doing so is completely up to you. Do you think it is acceptable to represent working class existence in such broad strokes in order to present a powerful message? And given how difficult the film can be to watch, does it succeed in presenting this representation to as broad an audience as possible?
Some possible arguments include that the audience may sympathise with the events on screen, yet there is very little they can actually do to address poverty in the UK. The audience may therefore take away a subconscious satisfaction that it is not them suffering the hardship of this film. Additionally, the film provides the audience with an insight into how different people live, providing them with the gratification of information.