Textual Analysis of Five Social Realism Intros

By tom coome

Green Street Analysis Themes and Issues – There are a number of themes and issues throughout Green

Street, Gang violence, alcohol abuse and seeing women in a derogatory way a just a few examples. All are illustrated clearly throughout the film. In the introduction of the film the most evident issue is gang violence… It begins with two football firms meeting at a train station and they then verbally abuse one another and then it results in fighting…

Representation – In the opening sequence, there are multiple key areas of representation that the film covers. The age of all of the men are around the early to mid twenties, this is the type of age you would associate with the themes and issues covered. Furthermore, the gender represented is definitely male, no women are seen whatsoever in the opening of the film. This is a deliberate act by the film maker as you would typically match gang violence and alcohol abuse to males, rather than females. A further representation area was class and status. We can see that the characters are in the working class as their clothing isn’t the nicest, but on the other hand, also, isn’t horrible. From the North and East London accents, we can also identify regional identity.

Technical Elements – The location of the events that took place were inside and just outside of the train station, this backs up my point about them being in the working class. The reason for this is that as they have to take public transport could mean that they do not have enough money to buy or run a car, this is a problem that you would associate with the working class.

Kidulthood Analysis

Themes and Issues – In the opening couple of minutes of the film, we can guess that some of the themes and issues would be once again, gang violence, but also, drug abuse.

Representation – The most evident area of representation in Kidulthood is without a doubt the representation of ethnicity. We can interpret from the amount of screen time that black characters get that it is mostly going to be about black characters. Also, the filmmaker has showed one of the black characters in a negative light as he is making a gun for a family member. Stereo typically, this is something that you would expect a black person to do more than a white person.

Technical Elements – The location that it takes place in is a school… Every single person that is in uniform looks extremely scruffy, white, black, male and female characters. This possibly suggests to us as an audience what type of school it is.

Adulthood Analysis

Themes and Issues – There are a number of themes and issues that we can identify just from the opening 5 minutes of the film. A few examples are gun crime, drug abuse, alcohol abuse and definitely treating women in the wrong way. Just in the first 5 minutes, we see somebody get shot, people drinking at a party and a man treating a woman like a sex object.

Representation – The representation of men in the opening of the film is not a good representation at all. A man shoots somebody and the clothes they’re wearing are very scruffy and the same goes for the man having sex with the woman and when they’re having sex, he doesn’t even act interested at all, he’s on the phone and telling the girl he is a ‘businessman’. This shows how men want to grow up quicker than what they actually are growing up. The camera angle of when the man is having sex with the woman is showing the man from a low angle and the woman from a high angle, although men are not represented as being particularly nice in this opening, it shows they still have dominance.

Technical Elements – The location looks to be in the outskirts of the city as we see with an establishing shot at the beginning. The mise en scene of the mans bedroom is a total state, which may implicate he is not of a particularly high status.

Nil By Mouth Analysis

Themes and Issues – The themes and issues of Nil By Mouth are love, violence, domestic abuse, alcohol abuse and drug abuse. In the opening sequence, the main issue that is evident to us is that there is going to be a lot of drinking and drugs involved. When the main character asks the bartender for the drinks, he asks for a pretty extensive amount.

Representation – The representation that Gary Oldman is trying to get across, is the representation of middle class people that live in London. We can tell that the people being represented are middle class as they are in a fairly well done up establishment and that they are a sort of cockney group by their accents. The representation of men is once again, not a particularly good one, as all of them are drinking a lot of alcohol and are speaking about women, once again in sexual terms. Furthermore, one of the main characters gets knocked into accidentally and then proceeds to use foul language all because of a mistake, this represents men as having short tempers.

Technical Elements – The camerawork is all very close and gets personal with the characters to possibly make you feel a sense of being in the characters situation. At the beginning, there are quite long cuts, which is very normal for a social realism film.

Anuvahood Analysis

Themes and Issues – Violence and drug abuse seem very evident in the beginning of Anuvahood. This is shown by the man who picks up a kid and throws him down and also, a man who is clearly on drugs, having an encounter with the two main characters.

Representation – The representation of ethnicity is extremely evident within the opening sequence. There is evidence of this as blacks are represented as ‘chavy’, where as whites are although not quite sophisticated, they are painted in a much better light. Examples of this are the fact that the black characters at the start are doing drugs and getting into scraps, where as the white people in the start are sitting in the living room, reading a paper and painting a toy plane. Also, the mum of one of the black characters, bearing in mind, she is white, calls her son an idiot for the way he is dressed. Clearly, she does not agree with his style.

Technical Elements – The mise en scene is in London, this is shown through the accents and the shots of all of the council block flats shown. Also, there are a lot of cuts at the beginning of the sequence, which is different for the start of one of these films.