ethnicity essay

Representation of ethnicity in the Eastenders clip?

Stereotypically ethnic characters are expected to be less represented and in the minority. In this clip from Eastenders the 5 ethnic characters Patrick, Denise, Lucas, Chelsea and friend are represented as an everyday British family living in east London.

The scene opens with Patrick and Denise, having a typically scripted conversation the dialogue doesn’t contain anything specialised using conversations such as marriage and a letter received from an ex wife, towards there ethnicity the only recognisable feature in the dialogue would be Patricks distinctive Jamaican accent.                                                                                       

The mise en scene in the scene shows Patrick’s house decorated with fairly bright colours (yellow and red) and containing tropical plants placed around the room; the colours in the shot may represent the characters of ethnicity and perhaps reinforce colours from the Jamaican flag.                                                                                                                                                   In the shot Denise and Patrick are mainly shown by the camera in a two shot and over the shoulder shots so the audience can view the conversation and are close enough to see the expressions of the characters. The shots also cut from one character to another to show how they are reacting.

The scene then cuts to the café, in these shots there are mainly black and ethnic characters shown in the foreground and background this is showing and equal and multi cultural society. In the new location the scene focuses on two character Chelsea (Denise’s daughter) and her friend, Chelsea is represented as a normal and typical teenage character to be living in the area, she shows di interest of what her friend is talking about you can see this in her body language and in the dialogue shown.  Her friend seems very educated and interested in the heritage of her family- wanting to talk to Patrick. Advertisements on posters on the wall help to portray a realistic setting.                                                                                                       

The music playing the background of the scene is ‘we are young we are free’ this has been placed in the scene to represent the idea of what they are discussing being about Chelsea not being interested in the history and being young and getting on with life. The camera angles in the scene are mainly close up two shots to show the reactions of the characters.

Ethnic characters in this clip are seen as normal and part of their society, however the onlooker in the family being Chelsea’s friend is the only one who makes a point of separating them because of skin colour by generalising them as ‘us’ to which Chelsea questions.