Homework
In the opening clip of season 5 episode 1 The wire, there is a black police investigator who conforms to the conventions of the genre as he is a black man who swears frequently however it also does not conform as black people are usually represented in the media as not having much power or authority - but you can clearly see that he is in charge and makes a man seem vulnerable.
The investigator then goes on to interrogate and manipulate this alleged criminal which makes him very clever. This does not conform to the genres conventions as black people are stereotyped to not be very successful or clever. This man is a countertype.
It is revealed that the form of manipulation they carry, they have used many times before leading us to believe that it has been a successful deception. This shows that the Americans are good at their jobs and quite clever - not conforming. However one of the investigators say "Americans are stupid people by large. We pretty much believe whatever we're told". This stereotypes and generalises Americans which conforms to the genre. This shows a red herring because it is false information that misleads the audience.
Towards the end of the clip, after successfully getting a confession out of the criminal he walks off like a hero and puts a cigar in his mouth symbolising masculinity. This shows the audience that (for example in Propp's theory) the police is the hero and the criminal is the villain. This also shows teamwork between the investigators which is conforming to conventions.
This is a well written piece of work, but it deals with representation not genre as requested.
ReplyDeletePlease rewrite and for each point use one of the conventions of a TV crime drama in your earlier post, rather than representations of social groups.
Mr P
done
ReplyDelete