Explain how Ethnicity is represented in the clip. Mention:
Mise en scene/Editing/sound
The clip starts with a man in a suit. He is filmed using a tracking shot from the other side of the pool and the lighting is low, almost mysterious in a sort of night club style. Stereotypically presenting black men in suits to reside in night clubs. Over this scene a soft hip hop sort of music is played. Benjamin meets an old friend who greets him, his friend is again presented as being a stereotypical young, black man who is covered in tattoos and has dreadlocks. He looks like the type of person who would enjoy partying. These two acquaintances are binary opposites of each other. One has found himself a strong, important job, the other seems to have partying on his mind and the idea of "Pootytang."
Benjamin and his friend exchange small talk whilst being filmed by a shot over shot. Firstly over his friends shoulder, then over Benjamen's. His friend brings up the idea of a party and he is shown as being a young man and therefore breaking rules and laws. "Ganja and pootytang." Benjamin seems a bit put out by the the idea of a party, again showing the clear binary opposite between them, he used to party but now he works hard and seems to be grown up. However the conversation puts the idea of them liking to party over there ethnicity and implies that this is what young black males like to do.
The scenes flow well into each other and the next one shows two European maids who are cleaning rooms. The two maids are tracked by the camera as they come round the corner. Each pushes or pulls a cleaning cart. These two maids seem to have a stereotypical job of people who would most likely be labelled in today's society as "immigrants." The first maid, who we deem French explains to the second that the man who's room they are going to clean "pays double for double" showing a stereotypical way of trying to earn more money. A close up of the cleaning card is shown to reiterate this fact. We have a shot over a lengthy period of time, showing the younger cleaner looking anxious and nervous suggesting she doesn't want to do this and is being forced into something she doesn't want to do. Like we picture in eastern Europe.
Once inside the room we have he a close up of the man, who turns out to be Japanese, a race of people who is often stereotyped as being "dirty" or "unclean", buying whatever they want. We then see the maids striping with a shot over the Japanese mans shoulder, frequently reverting back to close ups, showing him looking sweaty, wide eyed and excited. The sound track to the scene is a buoyant beat to which stripping is usually associated. This scene shows two different ethnicity's coming together and again the stereotypical faults of each are shown.
The next scene, which is again edited so it jumps straight into it, shows a woman racing into the room armed with toilet roll. Inside the toiled is an angry English man who has a stereotypical posh accent and is angry. She hands him the toilet roll and comment son how this keeps happening, linking the stripping for the Japanese man to the poor room service. Or even digging at how "immigrants" don't perform properly at their jobs. Not so much attacking the ethnicity of either of the characters in the scene but again presenting a poor side to another characters ethnicity.
The scene after this is of two, what seem to be hotel managers, walking down the corridor. They are filmed by a camera that paces away from them the whole time. This scene leads onto the next well containing both the man and the woman and two new characters. One being the head chef, an Italian named Gianni and the other a co-chef who is English. The scene containing only the man and the woman is important because the dialogue between them reveals that Gianni has been sleeping all over London, with married women. A stereotypically Italian thing to do. We progress to the scene containing all the characters. Giana is in Black and his English Co-chef is in white. Classing foreigners in an evil colour, suggesting it is in their nature to be underhand. Giana is everything that Italians are stereotypically classed as. He looks greasy and is shown to do stereotypical Italian hand gestures, like the kiss on the head. We have a mid shot of him kissing his co-chef on the head. At the end of the scene he is shown kissing his fingers in appreciation to what the business woman says. He is condescending and hurtful about English food. Most people are aware of how Italians are proud of their food and are often portrayed as being snobbish about "English slop." Lastly we have Gianni using underhand fighting techniques, such as the meat cleaver. A close up shot is used to enforce this idea.
I'm going to move onto the English co-chef. He is everything English people are stereotypically categorised as; angry, pathetic, fat and useless at insults. "piggy little eyes" as an example. The camera shows close ups of both their angry faces to enhance and heighten the mood of the scene. The English man is stereotypically shown as being aggressive and Gianni is shown as being sly, greasy and underhand.
Ethnicity in this clip is represented in a poor and disparaging manner, Hotel Babylon makes the ethnicity's of each character fill a common stereotype that is easily related to the culture and background of that person. This simply shows the worst in every ethnicity that is shown in the clip and creates a sinister aspect to everybody present.
Film Four themes:
