Attack the block is a film about a group of teenagers and
adults defending their flat from an alien invasion. In this essay, I will be
exploring different stereotypes like black and white. There will be evidence
from the film included to support the stereotype. The film that I will be using is “attack of
the block” and music videos.
At the start of the film, black people stereotype of being a
criminal have been reinforce from this scene. The scene was a low angle shot of
a black teenager named Moses threatening a lady named Sam to give him her ring.
This create effects on the audience. The audience will be viewing them as a bad
guy. The low shot creates an image of Moses as powerful and strong. It also
creates an image on the lady as innocent and weak because she is looking up at
Moses. To support the stereotype, in the scene, Moses pushes the lady on to the
ground. This supports the stereotype as being a criminal because Moses attacked
an innocent person. Near the scene, there was a close up of Moses knife that he
pulled out to threat the lady. This also supports the stereotype. After seeing
this, the audience will view them as violent and a villain.
In the same scene where Moses attacked the lady, Moses gang
and himself is wearing rain coats and hoodies. This creates a senses of
criminal and hidden identity. This could influence the younger audience as
George Gerbner discusses in his cultivation theory. He says that if audiences
are over expose to certain stereotypes then they can suffer from mean world
syndrome because they end up believing that the negative stereotypes are true.
For example they may believe Moses and other black youth mug indecent people.
Also when they see how other teenagers are dressed, they want to become like
them to fit in which relates to Claude Steelcvklle’s theory which is a
stereotype threat.
Stereotype threat is where people try to live up with
different common stereotypes in society.
To support this, near the start of the movie, the scene where
they are riding out to kill the aliens, they were followed by 2 younger kids
age 9-10 because they want to join them in the alien hunt.
In the middle of the movie, black people stereotype starts to
be challenge. At the start of the film, audience viewed them as criminals,
violent and bad guys but in the middle of the film, black people stereotype has
been challenge and changed. In the scene, there was a medium shot of Moses
saving the lady’s life by killing the alien when she was about to get attacked
by the alien. After this scene, the audience starts to view them as heroes but
they still view them as violent.
