Exam Practice 1: Representation of sexuality and race

When analysing the representations of a film, there is a lot of key terminology that should be used to show your understanding but also to support the examples you give.

The term normative is when something is referred or related to the standard stereotype and norm. It is something that the society considers as normal. Let me give you an example. Nearly every Working Title film uses stereotypes what is considered to be the normative. If you pay attention to it, you will notice that Working Title never uses any black actors or protagonists. They also don't have homosexual couples in their movie, because it is still considered to be abnormal in society.

Another term, that is often used is hegemony or hegemonic. This term is quite similar to normative and means that the dominant society maintains it's dominant position through the usual stereotypes.
However, if you challenge the normative representation, it is called counter hegemonic. A very good example of a show that applied counter hegemonic is this clip of the soap opera "Eastenders" from 1986, where you can clearly see how the society, in this case Dot, reacts to the fact that she knows someone who is homosexual.



Another example of a company that challenges the normative representation is Warp. Again, we can use the example of "This is England", where one of the main protagonists is Milky, who is portrayed as a very clever guy.

In society, black people are often portrayed as being stupid. With this social realist genre movie, Shane Meadows wanted to go against society and show that black people are not the way society considers them to be. Due to this, I especially enjoy Warp's movies and their concepts.

Moving to another term that is essential when analysing a movie is the word verisimilitude. This is when you making something look and seem realistic and believable. An example for this would be, if you pass someone a cup of tea and there is nothing in it, verisimilitude will not have been achieved.