Class and status essay

                                

The clip from the street represents class and status. We see two families. Living on the same street, there’s some kind of affair going on between the adults. The first family we see, arguing, 3 children, a mother rushing and a father obviously angry about something they can’t afford to replace. We then see him go to work, and he obviously works at a building site. Then we see the mother has a bit of an accident in the kitchen, where a pipe bursts and she’s run to get her neighbour, who she’s actually having an affair with. Next we then see him go to work, in a suit, more upper-class job than the building site man. In the office man’s house, we see his family with children, a little hectic but not as hectic as the family from the start. He then rushes out because he’s probably late for work, and in the rush he runs down the child of the woman he’s having the affair with. The mother of the child accuses her husband of being selfish because he was watching football, and not watching his children.

Through this, I’m going to analyse firstly the two men who contrast with each other a lot. They both have different jobs, one man in an office, and one man a builder. Just through how they dress we can already see that one is more upper-class than the other. The office man, for example, wear a grey suit, he’s quite slim also, for work. The builder wears a vest, he’s a little chubby, and he doesn’t look like he can be bothered to take pride in his appearance. Just through these two men, we see a huge contrast in not only gender factors, but also their class and status.

When we look at the two mothers, there are not many differences. Both are or could be housewives, do the cleaning, go shopping, take children to school and look after them whilst their husbands go to work. The mothers both seem to be run off their feet. The fact that we can see this shows us that both families are not extremely rich. Although, then we can say that one family is probably a little more wealthy than the other.

The first scene of the family arguing and the little girl looking through the gap in the door, could suggest she’s scared, she doesn’t want to see it and the music we hear is quite jolly, and obviously to a TV or a radio. This could more effect to the fact of the hectic morning before work and school.