'The concept of representation embodies the theme that the media construct meanings about the world - they represent it and in doing so, help audiences to make sense of it.' (PAGE 113 Timo'sulivan Brian Dutton Philip Rayner). Media products often show us one side of reality and not reality itself, media products often play on existing stereotypes to get the audience to assume things in term helping the audience understand certain characters more.British males are often represented as football hooligans in a number of films or represented as upper-class snobs. These seem to be the only representations we see in the media and these are simply not true we never see 'normal people' everyday working class people it's either one way or the other there is no middle ground.
In the film Grimsby the main character is a football hooligans along with the main character the rest of the town is also found to be football hooligans. The main character ‘nobby’ has the word England tattooed on his back showing the extremes he is willing to go to for the England team, he also has the England crest tattooed on his arms. During a scene in the pub an England game is playing and the town decides to celebrate the goal by acting like hooligans drinking letting off fireworks inside the club and throwing things around this is an example of English football hooliganism. Nobby also has England flags across his house along with football shirts. Another example of football hooliganism is the scene where the town Grimsby are watching a live England game and start making a commotion taking their shirts off and pitch invading whereas the other team is completely calm and normal making it the English fans look much worse. Nobby chants ‘come and have a go if you think your hard enough!’ during a fight showing that football has taken over his life and it’s in everything he does. His brother Sebastian is represented as a stuck up spy that looks down upon the people of Grimsby because of the way he was brought up and often finds the people of Grimsby disgusting and foolish however even Sebastian becomes this football hooligan towards the end of the film with the England flag painted on his face and charging the pitch. These characters reinforce common stereotypes that exist about British males, as we can see by analysing this film there is no such thing as a 'normal everyday citizen; we are led to believe all people from Grimsby are football fans this sterotype continues to exist in film even after Green street Hooligans which was released over a decade ago, not much has changed for British Males.
Another way British males are represented in film is the upper class, well brought up type of British male, these types of British males are often portrayed as stuck up, usually think they are better than everyone else almost as if they have a disgust for anyone in a lower class than them. This is demonstrated in the film Kingsman: The Secret Service where the main character ‘Egsy’ is being trialled along with other contesters to see who will become the next agent. Egsy is the odd one out as everyone else there are from an upper class with rich families where as Egsy has been brought up in a normal household in a poorer area. The upper-class contenders approach him and try to attack him sating remark like ‘where did they dig you up’ because of the way he is dressed compared to them. They ask him if he’s ‘Oxford or Cambridge’ then proceed to mock him by implying he doesn’t have an education therefore he must have served them in McDonalds once. The scene where Egsy’s first trial occurs the team is saved by Egsy when egsy smashes a two-way mirror to save them a remark is made ‘must have seen a lot of them’. From these scenes, we clearly see that the upper-class snob type characters think they are better than everyone lower than them because they have money and fancy suits. When Egsy and his mentor are having a drink, things start to get heated and Egsy immediately says ‘snobs like you judging people like me from your Ivory towers with no thought about why we do what we do' showing he is also aware of the fact upper-class think they are stuck up and snobby. This reinforces the stereotypes of British Males. However the character Harry Hart although being from a rich background has sympathy towards Egsy and takes him under his wing, he offers him a job as a spy and puts all his faith into him challenging the stereotype of British Males being stuck-up
In the film Green Street Hooligans the character Matt Buckner flys in from America and is introduced to Pete Dunkham through the character Shannon Dunham, this film is a prime example of negative representation against British males as in the film the football rivalry is so severe its described as a 'gang'. Throughout the film their are alot of fights over football and people intimidating people on the pitch. Matt initially does not agree with the violence and is afraid but after a few fights it quickly becomes a custom to him. Pete and his friends are often found heavily drinking at a bar reinforcing the stereotype that all working class British males are drunken slobs. The character Steve Dunkham shines away from the gang mentally and although he promises not to go back to his life he is still dragged back into showing that the people of East London have no life apart from football hooliganism. This reinforces the stereotype of British males being football hooligans
