Skins

How is sexuality presented in the clip?

The sound in the clip I watched was completely diegetic until the last few seconds. It starts with church bells tolling and this straight away links to Sunday, church services and the sabbath. We know Sunday to be a holy day. This is an important cultural code in the scene as people in England know that Sunday is a holy day. This is key in the presentation of sexuality, which I'll come to shortly.

The next sound we here is his alarm clock, which when starts to play is answered immediately, why is he awake? This is an action code, spurring some movement of the character. In this clip it is him jumping out of bed which is the action.

The clip opens with a close up of the character lying in bed. We can see the character is lying in bed, where most people sleep but we can see that he is awake. Immediately we pose the question why is he awake? It is not usual, in typical circumstances, for a teenager to be awake on a Sunday morning. In his face we can see he looks pale and his bed is completely straight, suggesting it hasn't been slept in or the character just hasn't moved because he is awake. The camera angle tracks out slowly from the characters face and this gives us chance to analyse the boys room. The first thing I notice is his duvet, which is very brash. On it is a picture of a naked man and a naked woman. However our character is centered in the middle of both. This suggest that he might be unsure, or that he likes both genders. Making him bisexual. The duvet is a useful prop in that it poses more than one question. Most boys wouldn't have a duvet like he has because it is to brash, or their parents wouldn't let them have it. This duvet is a component in the scene which creates something called an enigma code, basically something which poses a question. We wonder why his parents haven't made any intervention in to the duvet. is he rebelling or have they fallen out due to his sexuality?

Sound in the clip links well into the camera shots. When the camera tracks slowly away from the character the diegetic church bells are tolling away in the background. The camera moves slowly because of the symbolic nature of the bells and a Sunday morning. Sunday mornings are famed for being easy, so like this, the camera shot is slow and easy. This is proven to be when the character towards the last seconds of the scene plays his own non-deigetic music and the camera flashes quickly from moment to moment. Sexuality does link to this also in that Sunday mornings, in biblical terms are the sabbath. Like I mentioned they are holy and religion frowns upon any sexuality other than being heterosexual. this character would seem to be confirmed in his contemplation by the church bells and how neatly they tie in.

When the camera angle is through its track and we have a full view of the room we can see just how tidy it is. Stereotypically speaking, neatness is often associated with being camp and "gay." This would link well to the characters sexuality and presents it well in the scene.

However there are different ways in which sexuality is presented within this clip. If I use the duvet as a prop again I can show that someone who sleeps under something so brash as this must be fairly comfortable with themselves and their sexuality. He may not have had a row about his sexuality with his parents which has caused him to be rebellious and put this duvet on show, he may be simply just more independent than other typical teenagers and may have chosen his own duvet, and not have his mother choose it for him.

Either way you look at his sexuality it is still presented in many different ways throughout the clip.