Monday, 5 November 2012

The Street: Representation Of Social Class




   Difference in class can be seen in this clip from The Street mainly through the contrasting characters of the husband and the lover.
  The husband appears to be working class as he swears a lot  in an argument with his wife. He states that it it is himself that has to earn the 'bastard money' which suggests that money is tight and his family cannot afford many luxuries. The shot of the argument itself is filmed with the couple though a door in a different room, which would imply that they feel trapped or enclosed in their live and cant get out of the situation that they are in.
Mise-en-scene portrays the family  as working class. The house is quite dark and is made up of colours such as greens, blues and browns. The furniture is mismatched and looks to be rather cheap, suggesting again that they dont have much money. The next scene shows the husband working in construction doing manual labour - which is typically thought to be a lower class job. He is seen to be hammering something aggressively, which indicates frustration and lack of control.
  The lover appears to be middle class. He is first seen wearing a smart suit and tie, loading things in to his reasonably expensive silver car. This shows that he most likely has some sort of office job that involves no manual labour, unlike the husband, and he appears to also play a more important role - he rushed to get to work on time showing that he would be missed if he was late. This suggests he earns a lot more money than the other family.
Mise-en-scene portrays the lovers family as much more wealthy that the other family. The house contains colours such as creams, whites and golds, and it contains much more expensive matching furniture than the other family - showing that they are of a higher class.

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