Thursday, March 5, 2009

Representations in Skins

R E P R E S E N T A T I O N S

'Skins' has a wide variety of characters and so there are lots of different representations put across.

COOK

- one of the lads, very confident - reflected in open body language

- impulsive

- thrill-seeking

- shows one half of a stereotypical male personality

- boyish

- spontaneous, irresponsible, up for a challenge

- reflected in music, camerawork, and actions

- also has nice moments - quite a complex character


EFFY

- seductive and sexy

- not girly

- daring

- individual, doesn't conform to society

- doesn't speak much - little dialogue is flirty, daring, enigmatic, and has lots of innuendo; she says more with her facial expressions and eyes

- never gives too much away

- when she enters for the first time, you can't see her in the car - she's unnoticable at first, as in her everyday life - she is quiet

- she enters with a big scene (car crash) that she is completely indifferent to

- Effy has superior knowledge and understands how things work


EMILY

- twin of Katie

- shy with her twin at school

- confident at home with brother - we see different sides to her

- she's always in the background, literally

- insecure


KATIE

- confident

- wants to appear seductive but just sounds slutty

e.g. Danny: Woah, where's your knickers girl??

Katie: That's for me to know, and you to find out!

- rumour-spreading

- smart but doesn't really show it; puts 'cool' reputation first


FREDDIE

- trendy, indie

- middle class background, perfect sister

- more independent than his two best friends Cook & JJ - shot at table, positionings in frame with him taking up left side on his own

- sensible

- no ambition

- skater



JJ

- background

- similar to Pandora

- very very good at maths (gives statistic)

- wears braces - stereotypical geek indicator

- JJ has closed body language - shy, not confident


PANDORA

- background

- ditzy, less intelligent

- speaks truth - role of 'fool', who is the entertainer in some way or another and no one takes seriously, and so is only one allowed to tell the truth

- naive

From episode 1, we can see there are going to be themes of sexuality, and there are certain representations here with Naomi and Emily, whose twin claims Naomi is a lesbian (calling her, amongst other things, a 'total lezzer bitch') and tried to kiss Emily. The audience may quickly think this is likely to be the case due to stereotypical views - Naomi's independence, fashion sense, and feminist views could be seen to connote that she is a lesbian - however, we find not too long after that Emily actually kissed Naomi, and there's a great big storyline to come out of that.

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