1. Representation of Ethnicity
Lesson objective
To define ethnicity and analyse its representation in TV
drama.
Starter
1. Define ‘ethnicity’.
2. What ethnicity would you class yourself as and why?
3. What are some broad ethnic stereotypes you have seen in
TV Dramas?

2. Ethnicity refers to…
…share cultural practices, perspectives and
distinctions that set apart one group of people from
another. It is a shared cultural heritage and are a
sense of ancestry, history, language, religion.

3. Alvarado (1987)
(Note taking time)
• Identified a number of stereotypes of black people in film.
• Typecasting - assigning actors limited roles due to their
appearance or accent;
• This typecasting was satirised in a scene from a film
called Hollywood Shuffle (1987) in a scene called ‘Black
Acting School’; warning - this scene has very strong
language but is illustrative of the the typecast roles
assigned to black people.
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HoqmCwp95Q8

4. Alvarado (1987) identified
four main types
1. The humorous, providing comic
relief.
2. The exotic; other cultures
presented as unusual and exotic
in their traditions and ways of
living.
3. The pitied; objects of pity and
vulnerability.
4. The dangerous; criminal,
gangster and usually coupled
with a binary opposition such as
the respectable white character.

5. Tokenism
• To combat the under-
representation of black
characters, producers
attempted to address the
balance leading to accusations
of tokenism.
• Tokenism - the placing of a
character (usually a minority) so
that a text appears multi-
cultural.
• South Park chose to highlight
this by naming their black child
character ‘Token’.

6. Common Stereotypes
• In your books, using the
following ethnicities as
headings, write down key
stereotypes according the
ethnicity;
• White
• Black
• Asian
• Eastern-European

7. Ethnicity – Exam Skills
Lesson objective
To write 2 x detailed paragraphs regarding representation of ethnicity
from the clip using the structure from previous lessons.
Starter
You have 10 minutes maximum to:
• Go to bitstrips.com
- Under create click comic and put ‘1’ in number of boxes.
- Use the pre-set characters, settings and props to represent
stereotypes of the ethnicity you have given.
Screenshot the final one and send to sderrick1@swakeleys.org.uk

8. Black
Villains
Side-kicks
Not trustworthy
Gangsters
Humorous
Good at singing, soulful, dancing – creative industries
Athleticism
Religious – gospel, loud church services
High unemployment
Ghettos
Housing estate
Die young, violent youth culture
Don’t value education – reputation, street-wise
Sexual
White
Heroic
Chavs – common
Rule the government
Leadership roles
Nuns
President, prime minister
Can be chavvy through to posh
Always win and succeed
Middle or upper class
Eastern-European
Sexual – prostitutes
Poverty
Gypsies – travellers, negative reputation
Desperate
Exploited – as people, gullible
Dodgy
Mysterious
Illegal – immigrants
Want to make money – ‘stealing jobs’
Polish shops – taking over the high street
Accents
Asian
Doctors
Intelligent
Take-away shops
Start as working class, want children to be a higher class
Value education
Religious – dominant in their lives
Often normal although sometimes appear different to
British culture
Stereotype of strong accents

10. Discuss the Representation of
Ethnicity in the following Extract
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VG5GJQjyGo
• Hotel Babylon

11. Step 1
• Note taking method;
1. Write down units of drama,
chronologically AFTER the
first viewing, in a list.
2. Leave one line gaps if you’ve
forgotten the details.
1. This happened at the start.
2. Secondly this
3.
4. This happened
5.
6. Ended like this.

12. Step 2
2. Add any other units of
drama during second
screening
At the end draw 4
columns landscape
on the page with
C(amera), E(diting),
S(ound) MES (mise-
en-scene) at the top.
Add the units of
Drama down the
side, with a few lines
distance.
1. This happened at the start.
2. Secondly this
3. This happened at this point
4. This happened
5. This happened just before the end
6. Ended like this.
During the second
screening
C E S MES
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
After second
screening

13. Step 3
• During third
screening, write
detailed notes for
sections 1, 3 and
5.
• You will fill in 1
whilst 2 is running,
3 whilst 4 is
running etc…
1. This happened at the start.
2. Secondly this
3. This happened at this point
4. This happened
5. This happened just before the end
6. Ended like this.
C E S MES
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
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14. Step 4
• Fill in the remaining
units of Drama during
the final screening.
1. This happened at the start.
2. Secondly this
3. This happened at this point
4. This happened
5. This happened just before the end
6. Ended like this.
C E S MES
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
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