The hustle essay

This clip represents gender and the stereotypical roles society thinks they should play by various ways. Femininity and masculinity adapts within the characters for example props and costumes, stereotypes, location, editing and sound.

Significance of gender

The first character that appears in the clip is the male sales assistant strikes me as a post masculine male because he’s working in retail that is considered to be a job for a female. The way he talks and the vocabulary he uses indicates his archetype is camp, as well as his behaviour and the way he reacts ecstatically to a dress that has just been imported from Paris strongly suggested he’s a camp feminine male or in a stereotypical point of view, he’s gay. The second character to be portrayed is a poor elderly lady, visually she looks like she doesn’t keep up her appearance or possibly cant because of a lack of disposable income. This contrasts between the rich lady with the nicely maintained hair and expensively looking clothing to show the difference in lifestyle and how appearance is important and closely linked to hierarchy. It was noticeable to me that she is very self-reliant because she doesn’t expect her husband to pay for her dress even though it’s for her daughters wedding. Although her self reliance contradicts the stereotype of a woman she becomes submissive when she realises she cant afford the dress, implying she’s the subordinate to the male sales assistant. The camera angles that are used when she is talking are often looking down on from the male’s point of view to show how she is considered the inferior character. When the man is conversing with her they are partly in a close up but you can always see the middle class lady to show contrast of class and gender stereotypes. The middle class lady is well presented in the clip with one of the first close ups being of her diamond wedding ring, white gold watch, perfect hair and make up. This suggests she’s a sex object and stereotypically a housewife with no aspirations; she in actual fact is a scam artist and tricks the male sales assistant by pretending. This means she’s not a stereotypical typical woman.