Mise en scene- shameless

Class and status shamless representation

How is class and status represented in the shameless clip?

In the first part of the clip the main character, who is the father of the children, comes down the stairs into what looks like the kitchen of the house. We can tell straight away that these people are poor. This is because the kitchen is quite small for how many people are actually in the family, also there is a small baby in the daughter’s arms. Showing she is not looked after by her parents but looked after by a sibling. This may show a poor class representation because poor people are often stereotyped as lazy and unwilling to do things which take effort, like looking after a child.

On the table in the first part of the clip, there are lots of empty bottles of alcohol; this might show that the father in the family is an alcoholic and he acts quite drunk. This shows that he is of a poor class and status because he does not clean up his mess, even though he has a few children and it might set a bad example. Also the fact that he has a baby in the same room shows that he in irresponsible and can’t really look after his children probably. Poor people are often stereotyped to be messy and irresponsible; this is shown in this clip by the first scene when we see his house. Also he doesn’t dress very nicely and it looks like his clothes haven’t been washed in a few days, this represents poor people because they are stereotyped to be quite smelly and dirty.

During the last part of the scene a caravan gets put out in front of the house and you get a proper front of view of the house. It looks like a normal England terrace house. It doesn’t really show any class or status because anyone could live there but if you had to choose some type of person to live there it would probably be a person of less wealth. Caravans are often stereotyped to be used to people that are not very wealthy, this is because people that choose to live in them are often singled out and put on the end of hate because they do live in caravans when most of the time it is a life choice to live in them and not live in a house.