Attack the block

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.