Hotel Babylon - Homework.

Hotel Babylon - Homework

Discuss the ways in which the extract constructs the representation of ethnicity.

Throughout this clip, ethnicity is shown through camera angles, mise-en-scene and editing as well as sound.

The first camera angle which represented ethnicity was the long shot. To begin with, the producer of this film fights against stereotypes in society as he represents a black worker to be serving a costumer in a more formal suit but also with manners. The pan shot quickly follows with the smooth sounding non-diegetic sound of background music to show the steadiness and calmness of the worker alone. This actually leads up to the build up with what can happen next. 

Following on from this, the close up shot reverse shot is used to battle against the stereotype of society but also the reality of the ethnicity of these two dark colored men. This new character is to be seen wearing a less formal outfit with a 'less approachable' way of speaking with the shortened down words to 'blud'. This is used to show the contrast between what we actually think and what we actually see during society, whilst it also criticizes us for out judgement upon ethnicity.

Another interesting shot was also a long shot of the typical hotel cleaners in their uniform. Once a quick close up shot of the money is shown, the audience can still have an ambiguous meaning to what it's left there for. Most think for a tip. Once again the audience are pulled into shock as the two women are shown to strip in the long shot for the male customer. These two shots are only linked together to show that ethnicity can link in many ways, but especially money. Whilst this all started happening the left hand side women is shown to pause before deciding she would not proceed, this shows that even though money can be a huge ethnic problem, people in these groups have control over their own fate.

Moving onto mise-en-scene that really shone through the clip, would be the chefs uniform at the the end of the clip. This group is shown to be split between uniforms as the higher chefs are shown to wear white and the lower chefs are shown to wear black. This a very carefully thought about criticism from the producer. By showing the different levels in chefs, being shown to have split through different colours to make it understood, the clip is shown to criticize how ethnic groups are split in a very obvious way but which also stays in their own work places in society, as it has become more than just a stereotypical view the society had.