Representation of Regional Identity

A person’s identity rooted in setting, speech, costume and region in which they live

Areas to think about in relation to  regional identity:

Accents

Location/ setting

Slang

Clothes

Pastimes

Attitudes/ behaviour

Stereotypes of the following regions:

Scottish

·         Strong and loud accent

·         Countryside like landscape

·         ‘We lass’ instead of ‘little girl’

·         Kilts and tartan clothes, red, checkered

·         Drinking beer, playing bagpipes, watching sports

·         Aggressive and sensitive

An example of a person from Television would be: Doctor Who – Peter Capaldi.

Liverpool

·         Annoying and whining accent, scouse

·         Village/town area with flowers and chavs

·         Y’lright there instead of ‘Are you alright’

·         Tracksuits and Shellsuits and football shirts

·         Theatre, partying, going to the beach

·         Welcoming but also stubborn and agitating.

An example of a person from Television would be: David Morrissey from The Field of Blood.

Newcastle

·        Quick and difficult to understand, Geordies

·        Town, lots of shops and clubs

·        ‘Petal’ as a name for a young girl. ‘Wheyy aye mann’ instead of hello

·        Plastic girls, and young boys head to toe in Newcastle football kit

·        Clubbing, football, having children at 16

·        Personal, confident, has attitude

Yorkshire

·        Farmers tone

·        Countryside, lots of hills, very small villages, pubs.

·        Generally cut off words, ‘‘goin’ up t’ pub’’

·        Scruffy, dirty, rude, obnoxious folk.

·        Going for walks, mountain climbing, drinks

·        Friendly, joking

Birmingham

·        Unintelligent, not liked, irritating, Brummie

·        City, lots of cars, highrise buildings

·        Unknown

·        Football kit, chavvy, hoodies

·        Concerts, shopping, clubbing, travelling by train

·        Aggressive, rough

An example of a person from Television would be: Sharon Osborne of the X Factor.

Welsh

·        Different, strong, extension of words

·        Countryside, cows and sheep, farms

·        ‘Jolch’ means thank-you. Jolch is slang for Diolch like we say ‘cheers’

·        Red, white and green, top hats

·        Fishing, walking, looking for fossils, caves

·        Powerful, drunk, friendly

An example of a person from Television would be: Stacy from Gavin and Stacy

Irish

·        Classic accent, lots of essence, strong

·        Busy cities, tall buildings, busy

·        ‘Turty sevin’ instead of ‘thirty seven’ etc

·        Green clothes, hats, leggings, chinos

·        Riverdance, counting money, boxing, drinking

·        Happy, loving

London

·        Polite, friendly or loud, aggressive, (markets)

·        Big city, big shops, busy place

·        General slang, ‘init’

·        Designer clothes, lots of makeup, suits, blazers

·        Shopping, spending money, going out for dinner, theatre

·        Rush around, apologetic

An example of a person from Television would be: All of the EastEnders cast e.g. Bianca.

Essex

·        Loud, stands out, can be annoying

·        Towns, large houses, small boutiques

·        ‘Like OMG’ ‘Total-e’ – abbreviations

·        Fake tan, short dress, low cut tops, skinny jeans (both genders)

·        Clubbing, running, shopping, hosting parties

·        Friendly or bitchy. Either.

An example of a person from Television would be: Everyone off The Only Way Is Essex (Towie).

Cornwall/South West

·        Pirate like, sing song tone.

·        Beach, countryside, busy in the summer

·        Coastal slang

·        Big coats, jumpers, snapbacks

·        Drinking, fishing, walking

·        Tourist welcoming, aware of other people, friendly

 

Gender Stereotypes

Gender stereotypes are almost a theoretical term for a specific sex’s social and behavioural actions. It could be within a specific culture, religion but as a stereotype there it is considered to be a socially appropriate thing to consider when talking to someone of again a specific sex. The idea of a stereotype depends on roles and how

a person’s attitude is, what actions they do, what their personality is like, and how they are associated with other people of that culture. Gender roles and stereotypes are often seen obviously in a home environment but you can also see them on the television and in television dramas of how particular characters are presented depending on their gender.

I am going to use doctor who as my example as it is a very ‘manly’ program and I would say that the majority of their target audience are male. In doctor who, every single doctor that has been on the show has been male and all of the assistants have been female. When looking at this in terms of stereotypes you could say that the doctor is the predominant person in the program and the assistant is just there to look pretty. What I mean by this is that the man is in charge, and this is often the case when thinking about home environments and things like that. Stereotypically, the man does the watching of the television and the women is stuck in the kitchen or doing some kind of house work when the man or men of the house do nothing at all. In Doctor who currently the female assistant is a girl called Clara Oswold. She is a very clever brunette girl and is very pretty. As a stereotypical way of putting this, girls are seen as cleverer than boys and it is portrayed as this in this case. Sometimes girls are seen as the dumb ones but this programme is the opposite and have a got a teacher as the doctors assistant. In the programme she wears makeup and her hair is always done perfectly. She is skinny and wearing skirts and little blouses. Again stereotypically I would say that that is what ‘girls’ wear. However not all girls like wearing skirts, not all girls wear make-up and not all girls can be bothered to do their hair in the morning and can be stereotypically as lazy as boys but in Doctor Who this is not the case.

When looking at the camera angles in the show you can actually notice how most of the shots of the doctor are just of his head and shoulders, so a long shot and how most of the shots of Clara are of her full body. This could also be due to gender stereotypes because of the audience. With there being a predominant male audience they will want to see Clara more clearly, like her body and the way she dresses so that it draws the audience’s attention further. I’m not saying that this is a good way in which to show females in TV Dramas, but this could be the case in this programme. In terms of how the characters speak, Clara has quite a stereotypically sweet and girly voice. It is soft and can be quite relaxing to hear whereas previous voices that were heard in the show like Katherine Tate was quite strong. Stereotypically girls have soft voices so when Katherine was in is was a more opposing sound to hear. As a male stereotype in terms of The Doctors voice it would be seen as quite powerful. He has a very loud voice and this also links back to men being in charge over women.

Overall I feel that gender stereotypes are used in TV dramas and this is represented in Doctor Who in very non obvious ways. This through the mise en scene, lighting, sound and editing. Clara a typical girl and the doctor a typical strong man who like to be in charge. In the shows defence, I personally can not imagine a doctor being female and that is most probably the idea of the show therefore the stereotypes in this programme are probably suitable for what the drama actually is.

Common Stereotypes-Ethnicity

http://www.scribd.com/doc/240666622/Common-Stereotypes

 To begin with I probably need to explain what ethnicity is. Ethnicity is a belonging of a social group that has a common national or cultural tradition. This would be called an ethnic group. An ethnic group is stereotypically a socially-defined group of people who identify with each other based on common ancestral, social, cultural, or national experience. Being part of one of these ethnic groups tends to define you as a person by your cultural heritage, ancestry, and myth of origins, history, homeland, language (dialect), or even ideology. It can also have something to do with your cuisine, physical appearance and something fashion choices.

Since the 9/11 attack and all the political issues that sided with it, we commonly see that certain ethnic groups are represented in different ways. Religion I would say is significant here because people look at religious figures and how they are represented. Stereotypically people look towards non-religious leaders more positively than leaders that are religious. Issues can also be created by national and regional identity. Western and non-Western people (in terms of clothing, social attitudes – e.g. towards women and alcohol – religious practice, music etc.) can be a key binary opposition to look for. The most negative stereotype that we often see is of Muslim/Asian/Middle eastern characters. They are normally often similar to the old stereotype of the Northern Irish; Violent, fanatical and religious. More side taking representations of people being ethnically stereotyped may include issues of social class and status and how black youths are stereotyped as criminal. This is spreading to Asian youths being stereotyped like this also. With coloured youth people in particular, in TV dramas you often see a heavily Americanised character through the persons language, dress and occasionally there musical taste. You may also get in TV dramas racist white characters that are against the ‘black criminals’.  The question that is often asked though is; are the different ethnic groups shown in TV dramas, have more in common with each other than they actually have differences.

The TV drama that I will be focusing on is Doctor who and how ethnicity is stereotypically linked to it. At the end of May this year there was a discussion about the ethnicity of the programme and whether it was okay to show or not. In the new series of the show the new star is Peter Capaldi and he is a Scottish man so the show has started making references to stereotypically Scottish things. David Tennant, also Scottish, stared in the TV drama however he changed his accent for the show and was never known as Scottish in the programme. It is only the new series where they have kept the identity of the actor in the programme and added something ‘different’. Peter has also mixed up the show further as he disposes of the boyish attitude and gets older. Previous actors like David Tennant and Matt Smith played the character much younger of 34 and 27 when they landed the part. Peter however is an older man at 57 and is a throwback to the show’s roots when the character was once iconic. Another thing about ethnicity that I should mention about doctor who is that it is alien based, so that no matter what, they have included everyone in their show.