Representations of Nation: Britain

Hovis television advertisement

The city streets of past Britain are the setting for major events in British history in this advert, associating the country with history, nostalgia and patriotism. The baker’s shop from far in the past is used to represent Britain as a traditional and natural place.

One low-angle shot is used in the WW2-era Blitz section of the advert, as the boy looks up from the devastation at a spitfire plane. This shot suggests that Britain is optimistic and hopeful in the face of destruction, looking up to heroism at the time of need for security. Alongside this, the use of the street party emphasises that the country is a community and will join together in celebration, as in the Second World War and Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation.

The advertisement’s target audience is the mainstream, because it reinforces the ideologies of the British people about their own country; this provides the mainstream audience security and safety in their values, alongside the Traditionalist audience type’s view of Britain as being steeped in history and relevance through the years. The slogan “As good today as it’s always been” reinforces this view that Britain is still as relevant and traditional as ever in its history.

The dominant ideology in society is that history has relevance and should inform the future of such a society, this advert may suggest that Britain is always moving forward and improving – while maintaining its status as a traditional and historic country. The constant changes may represent a changing prominence in priorities depending on generation, such as the importance of wealth and of heroism/bravery. This text also represents Britain as chameleonic, moving forward and adapting yet remaining untouched in its values – such as family, represented in the advert through the boy retrieving a loaf of bread for his mother.

RESEARCH POINT

• Downton Abbey
• Songs of Praise
• Antiques Roadshow
• Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
• James Bond series

Stereotypes

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      Appearance – what they look like, wear, how they speak

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      Behaviour – the things they do and say

RESEARCH POINT

• Mr. Bean
• Miranda
• Fawlty Towers
• The Inbetweeners
• Bridget Jones' Diary

‘Parklife’ – Blur

Parklife stereotypes Britain as an urban country, consisting of rows of terraced houses, industrial fences and zany characters. It also features some stereotypical British iconography, like zebra-crossings, red busses, red letterboxes and ice-cream vans – all part of growing up in Britain and recognisable to those who have.

The two travelling salesmen wear cheap suits and one carries an example window fitting around with him, suggesting that they’re looking for someone to fit windows for. This usually means that they are ‘dodgy’ salesmen, looking to make quick and easy money, associated with door-to-door salesmen. The overweight character wearing suspenders and sporting an odd moustache is poking fun at the British patriarch stereotype, particularly of the 1970s and 80s, meaning that the character is strict and set in his ways. The youngest characters, perhaps late teens or early 20 years olds, are stereotypes of the British lad culture – one sporting a tracksuit and peculiar haircut, while his friends dress particularly quirky and different with one wearing a pair of orange-tinted glasses. This suggests about Britain and the youth of the country that they are individual and different, with their own style. Another character, the stereotypical jogger, wears a bright blue tracksuit and is humiliated by the two salesmen. From his appearance, it’s suggested that the jogger has overdone it in terms of his exercise-wear, looking garish and weird. These stereotypes are used for comic effect and are exaggerated, so to make them look strange but recognisable; fitting the consensus about certain types of people.

The behaviour of the two salesmen makes them seem unreliable and, one of the two, even bumbling. The blonde-haired salesman makes a funny face through the window fitting and is asked to stop by the other salesman, before he fixes his tie. The fixing of the tie suggests that he wants to make a good impression and is solely confident in his suit putting across a product to a customer, rather than his cockney accent ruining his sense of authority and truthfulness. This is what gives them away as ‘Only Fools and Horses’-style salesmen. Later in the video the blonde-haired salesman starts to eat sandwiches from a box and one is taken by the other salesman, but he doesn’t appear bothered and looks as if he’s thinking about something entirely different. This adds to the view that this character is quite stupid and bumbling, taking his work very casually. The younger teenage characters move with real energy and spray graffiti, adding to the stereotype that British teenagers are troublemaking. The supposed leader of the group appears rambunctious and loud, jumping and bounding in the street towards camera. This stereotype suggests that Britain’s youth are loud and noisy and can’t be controlled by authority.

A younger audience would see Blur’s video for Parklife as something to laugh at because of its exaggerated and weird characters that they themselves may recognise if British, however in other countries the humour may be lost because of the differences in behaviour and comedy. An older British audience may not laugh because of their indifference to the working-class characters featured, out of touch with such characters that they have nothing in common with.

Mediation

• Selection
• Organisation/Construction
• Focus

Selection

The selection for this advert would have been through the writing of the advert, its editing and what has been used from the footage shot and specific camera angles used. The Foreign & Commonwealth Office has chosen the familiar scenario of British people abroad to show how it cannot replace the insurance or safety of its own people, especially to those in trouble.

Construction/Organisation

The consistent use of the GB symbol is to address the view that being British can help when abroad, yet in this advert it’s shown to have no effect – alongside British passports – for Brits in jail (as shown in the advert). The arrogance of the characters in the advert is used to associate believing this idea with veiled nationalism and that the government will always bail you out, when it’s the opposite in this advert. The use of “Rule, Britannia!” at the very end of this advert reinforces the ideology that Britain is great and powerful, a quintessentially British piece of music.

Focus

The focus of this advert is on the increasing number of cases pertaining to British people, especially teenagers, being violent/aggressive or unsafe abroad. It’s interested in curbing this activity. The advert represents Britain as a place full of the people featured, hardly careful and violent or aggressive towards others, reinforcing this stereotype of ‘lad culture’ in foreign countries. 

RESEARCH POINT

      

1. 

Represented as rural, largely made up of countryside and dependent on farming.

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      Selection

A boy-band made out of young British farmers singing a pop song. The selection process would’ve been choosing the song and the process behind it, assembling the band and arranging the shots to show off Britain’s countryside. This represents Britain as a picturesque place, largely dependent on its rural countryside and farmers, but with a spin via a pop song performed by unusually-attractive farmers in a band. The juxtaposition creates humour and exaggerates the masculinity of the band to levels of parody.

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      Organisation

The advert follows the well-worn conventions of a pop band music video, with sweeping shots of the countryside and the band getting stuck into hard work on the farm stressing their masculine qualities of strength and perseverance. The whole video lampoons the overly-sexualised and campy nature of band videos like Boyzone and Westlife by adding in the farming element and making its audience believe that they are actually farmers, which they are in fact. The very British self-deprecating humour is present here, with the boys taking off their shirts in slow motion and stylishly feeding calves.

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      Focus

The clear focus of this advert is on selling Yeo Valley yoghurts, but also on attracting people towards the product because of such a catchy song and memorable advertisement.

2.

·         Selection

The selection process would have been the decision on which story is put on the front page, representing Britain and its interests at all times. The image of Gaddafi’s bloodied face represents Britain as triumphant in its war on terror, connoting pride and victory in the country. ‘He begged for life’ as one of the headings suggests that his death wasn’t pleasant and that is how it should have been according to the next heading ‘Rot in hell’, reinforcing the opinion that Gaddafi deserved death.

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      Organisation

The headline ‘That’s for Lockerbie’ has been used to suggest that the paper itself and the country’s views it is reinforcing are to blame for his death, as if the killing blow was struck by Britain as one entity. It also brings to mind the Lockerbie bombings in the heads of the readers, reinforcing the ideology that Gaddafi deserved death after such a horrific attack previously. This anchorage is supposed to represent Britain as victorious over those who’ve wronged the country, in a consensus about who should live and who should die.

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      Focus

The focus of the front cover is an interest in current world affairs and politics, but also in celebrity as with the small heading at the top of the page concerning Lewis Hamilton and Nicole Scherzinger’s relationship status. It represents Britain as a country concerned with foreign affairs and vengeful against those who have harmed their own.

3.

·        Selection

The selection process of this magazine cover would have been the decision behind the wording and images used on the front cover. OK! have chosen the 2012 London Olympics, filling the entirety of the cover with sub-stories about the games as part of a commemorative issue. The image of the stadium lit up and everyone standing side by side around the display reinforces OK’s ideology of Olympic and British pride.

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      Organisation

Using the words ‘The country unites’ in the headline promotes the dominant ideology of pride in Britain after the Olympic opening ceremony, suggesting that there is a consensus in opinion that the ceremony was a unanimous success and pleased everyone.

 Focus

This cover is much more focused on the media and celebrity aspect of the opening ceremony as opposed to the sports side of the games, being an entertainment magazine. It focuses on a recap of the events of the ceremony and gives detail into the atmosphere, instead of going into detail on each event.

 Archetypes

      

      1.    Working-class, ‘chav’, teenage archetype

      

      2.    Upper-class, well-educated, eloquent, wealthy archetype

Using the words ‘isn’t it’ at the end of each sentence and repeating them as an older version of ‘innit’ is typical of the ‘chav’ archetype dialect such as from Little Britain’s Vicki Pollard. The use of the word ‘blood’ and ‘geezers’ when referring to someone else are more of these words.

The RAF pilots’ accents are typical of wealthy, old-fashioned British aristocrats and their haircuts and one pilot’s moustache suggests they’re archetypes of upper-class Brits.   

RESEARCH POINT

British soap opera

      1.    Becky McDonald – ‘chav’ archetype – dresses casually in tracksuits and hoodies, has hair done up, wearing long ear-rings, youth dialect

      2.    Tracy Barlow – man-eater – a manipulative, often violent, scheming character always in trouble with men and fighting with other women

      3.    Phil Mitchell – hard man – headstrong, often criminals, violent, scheming and often promiscuous

Disney Film

      

      1.    Basil the Great Mouse Detective – detective/sleuth – intelligent, witty, often unaware of their own coldness, fondness for tea

      2.    Bert (Mary Poppins) – old-fashioned cockney – working-class, witty, charming, near poverty  

      3.    Mad Hatter – eccentric – obsessive, brilliant, mad, open to new experiences

TV sit-com

      

      1.    Homer Simpson – slob – unintelligent, fat, dim-witted, drunk

      2.    Steve Urkel – the nerd/dork – smart, nervous, geeky, wears glasses

      3.    George Feeney – mentor – offers advice to characters, often older man, wise

Anchorage & Ideology

Harry Brown

The ideology of ‘Broken Britain’ is represented in the Harry Brown trailer through one of the first shots of Brown looking through his window and curtains, barely lit, down at youths in hoods on the street. Brown looks down without emotion because he is mindful but powerless against the youths below who are younger and stronger than him, reflecting the views of many people his age in real life. The trailer promises Harry will take revenge for the death of his friend at their hands, offering the audience the chance to live vicariously through his actions – making Harry a character that embodies the views of the public in the film.  

The police don’t act fast enough and Harry’s friend dies, so he takes the law into his own hands as a vigilante-style character. This film represents the police as ineffective, often mirroring the real-life views of many people when faced with youth gang-culture. The police and authority adopt the ideology of ‘Broken Britain’ because they reflect these opinions in the film, even if not entirely true. The shot of the riot police fighting against the gangs reflects the supposed divide between those in authority and the criminals living on the streets.

Harry’s friend Leonard represents the people who have nothing to do with gangs or youth culture, yet enter the firing line as they are humiliated or even attacked, the average OAP who cowers to go outside out of fear for their lives.  Broken Britain is represented through the characters in the film, each representing one group or another.

RESEARCH POINT

1. 

The Sun

Story: 13-year old fathers child

Describe Picture: The young dad looks up at the camera, placed at a high angle, while holding his baby’s hand on a bed.

Anchorage: DAD AT 13

Meaning: It looks as if the boy is distressed and saddened by his new-found fatherhood. It suggests he’s afraid of what’s to come and is ill-prepared to deal with later problems at such a young age.

Ideology: The ideology is that having children at such a young age isn’t a good thing and is something to be ashamed of, leading towards a broken Britain. The number 13 is the largest on the page, promoting shock at the age of the boy.

2. 

Daily Mirror

Story: Depression rising in under-10 year olds

Describe picture: A young girl has her head in her lap and her arms crossed, sat down.

Anchorage: SCANDAL OF DEPRESSED UNDER 10s

Meaning: The article says that children are becoming stressed earlier in life due to bullying and fear of failure, suggesting that kids are a priority in broken Britain. It’s implied that this is far-reaching, as thousands are being treated.  

Ideology: The ideology is that children should be more closely looked after in Britain, as they will be affected most in the coming years due to ‘Broken Britain’. There should also be a change in policy as a result, it is implied.

The Big Question

Britain, in the trailer for the film ‘Harry Brown’, is represented as lawless and its policing inefficient to deal with the fallout from ‘broken Britain’ such as youth gang-culture. The trailer features one shot of Brown, an old-aged pensioner, looking out from his dimly-lit flat onto the street where a group of youths are kicking a man on the floor. He appears restrained by his window, powerless to what’s happening outside. As a character, Harry represents the ideologies of the oppressed in Britain who are ineffectual against rising gang crime and afraid to leave their own homes. From this shot, we can see Harry as someone just like this. Britain itself is also represented as industrial, urban and dark. The character Leonard is killed in a dark tunnel by a gang and much of the trailer is set in darkness, effectively creating the impression that there are many places to hide if you are a criminal and that there are people waiting out there to prey on the innocent like Leonard and Harry. A shot of riot police mid-riot also conjures up images of Britain as an anarchic place to live in, full of violence and injury – a clear divide between the out of touch police and youth in gangs. The Britain represented in Harry Brown is a horribly dark place to live and ignores the many picturesque images associated with the country in other media.

Another representation of Britain is presented in a Hovis advert, featuring the country in many different time periods. The young boy in the advert travels through hundreds of years of historic events to reach home with a loaf of bread, representing Britain as a country steeped in history and tradition yet a forward-thinking place as shown in the changes since the beginning of the advertisement. It also represents Britain as a place of community, banding together even in times where hope seems lost such as WW2 and in times of celebration such as during Queen Elizabeth II’s royal coronation.  The slogan “As good today as it’s always been” helps to reinforce the view that Britain is still relevant yet traditional, as associated with the product itself. Britain in this advert has seen many different events happen over its long history, suggesting that the country has variety not only in its history but also in the people who it has produced over that time.

The video game Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception also features at least one representation of Britain in the beginning of its story. The two characters Nate and Sully visit a London pub in the hopes of selling an expensive artefact, encountering dozens of bald-headed thugs inside. The bald-headed thugs give the two characters sinister looks, suggesting that the general population of people in Britain and especially cockneys are violent and rough. This opening also suggests that the stereotypical British pub exists to house criminals and shady characters, solely to defeat or stunt the progress of the protagonist. Britain, in this video games, is dark and dangerous – especially towards Americans, which Nate and Sully are. It suggests that the British view Americans as lesser people and with disdain, reinforcing the ideology that Britain comes first over other countries in terms of its values and beliefs. The villain of the game is British herself and solely interested in money and power, suggesting that the encoders of the game hold the British up as a powerful and greedy nation.