How is Britain represented in the media?

Mainly British people are presented to be very sophisticated and high class. This is evident in the film Kingsman: The Secret Service (2014) which takes place in England in modern times. This movie is very similar to your typical Bond movie but it has a comedic twist. In this movie there is a secret group of agents known as the Kingsman and you guessed it, they are British. These agents wear very high end suits which makes them look very sophisticated. On top of this, all of the Kinsgman agents operate at the highest level of discretion. This film reinforces that we are high class and sophisticated due to the fact that all of the main characters are quite posh and also they are very sophisticated. This movie is an extremely popular movie so this means that more people can accept the posh British stereotype. However this movie is kind of supporting the lower class stereotype in Britain. This is due to the fact that in the first half of the movie, the main character (Eggsy) is in a very poor district in London and lives in a well worn small flat. This kind of challenges the Posh british stereotype.

A media text which contradicts the posh British stereotype is the film This is England (2006). This is England takes place in 1980s Britain and this is a time when Britain really wasn't classed as "Posh". The 1980s in Britain was a punk era which means that the majority of the country were going through a skinhead phase. This portrays everybody to look rough and not at all posh. This film takes place in a pretty run down area compared to the high classed areas in Kingsman. This film portrays British people to look like they are pretty lower class due to the environment. Moving on, This is England also portrays British people to be very patriotic however this may not be in a good way. There are times in the film when they actually beat up or threaten people who aren't from England, yes this shows that we are patriotic and that we believe that our country should be 100% British but it shows that we can be very racist. 

Social Media seems to sit on the fence with the representations of Britain. People who aren't from England believe that we are all really smart and sophisticated and this is evident by many Facebook pages (For example Best Of Tumblr). Best of Tumblr is a page that is ran by American admins from time to time they post images of GIFs comparing Britain to America based on social classes. On the Britain image/ GIF there is mainly a Harry Potter image which shows all of the students in Hogwarts looking very sophisticated whereas on the American side of the image it shows a student who is wearing inappropriate clothing. 

People who are from England try to inform other countries that we aren't as posh as we are portrayed to be however. Some pages like The Lad Bible show this. The Lad Bible is a hugely popular Facebook page that is ran by British administrators and it basically shows the rest of the internet the "Banter" that goes on in England. Anyway, The Lad Bible regularly posts images of our representations in Britain. These images will have the captions "What other people think" (With a picture of a high class person of some sort) and then "What we are actually like" (With a picture of a British person who looks like a chav). For some reason this is basically saying that we don't want to be portrayed as a posh country, I don't know why this is because surely being classed as "Posh" is better than being classed as a "Chav".

In my opinion I believe that the main media texts that give people the representation of Britain are the Harry Potter and James Bond franchises. In these movies the main characters are dressed smartly and on top of that their voices are very posh as well. These films have the most impact on our representation due to the fact that they are simply the most popular or most favoured British movies meaning that people are going to pay more attention to the typical stereotypes that they have to offer.

In my opinion I believe that Britain is being represented more and more as a chavvy country due to these more modern representations. Modern movies and TV shows that take place in England tend to explore the less developed British locations meaning that other people are able to get an insight in how Britain is actually like, not how London or the posher parts of Britain are like. I believe that the posh representation stands as it is now due to the fact that in the past lots of media texts portrayed Britain to be posh whereas now as I said before, Britain is being portrayed as less posh.