Identify the potentional impact of Dunkirk

Point Data Question 


Dunkirk is an historical drama film brought out in 2017, The target audience for this film is a mass audience of 16-80 years old, The film would attract all ages and would be attracting an older generation 60-80 due to the relatability they can have to the film due to their experience in time periods close to the movie settings, The younger audiences, 16-25 would've been aimed at during the casting off the film as the popular artist Harry Styles who is seen as an ideal self/partner is a main protagonist due to his debut acting this would create a large mass audience for the film. In this essay I will be demonstrating the debate over the positive and negative aspects of the film. 

(Earp & Katz 1999) created an idea about over controlling men and men having violent tendencies,
in the 2017 box hit we do see negative stereotypes and ideologies encoded into the period drama, one of the clearest and most obvious negative ideology the audience are shown is the negative portrayal of men, in the film we solely see male soldiers which demonstrates the idea that women are inferior and men are the only sex capable of fighting, this reinforcing men being thought as overly violent. In a segment of the film we see the British soldiers discover that a French soldier is trying to board a British boat to get safe passage, on discovering this the British soldiers start to open fire trying to kill the French soldier. In this scene we see men showing unnecessary violence and demonstrate their obsession for control, we see similar occurrences throughout the film as see unnecessary violence used to deal with situations that would never require violence and the repetition of this act demonstrate to the audience the idea that men are dangerous and power-hungry, this being a negative stereotype for the audience to see repeated. 

(Laura Mulvey 1975) created an ideology about how women are shown purely for either sex appeal or shown as less equal to men. In the film we see only see a woman acting as a nurse and their purpose to serve the men, this ideology is dangerous as viewers can become passive viewers of the film and could agree with the way women are treated due to the scenes they see in media products such as Dunkirk, (Adorno and Horkheimer). Another very negative aspect shown in the film is the racism, throughout the film we constantly see the French soldiers being treated as if they were second class citizens e.g not being able to share British boats and get safe passage, being hated by the British soldiers and seen as an annoyance however the French soldiers fought beside the British therefore this logic is strongly racist. In one scene the British uncover a French soldier trying to board a British boat this leads to the British soldiers opening fire on him, this immediate violent reaction demonstrates racist views against the French even after they fought the opposition as equals, this once again is dangerous due to the audience becoming passive and thinking this is acceptable behaviour.

Whilst looking at Dunkirk I have also looked at another media product, Jeremy Kyle is a programme that has been aired since 2005, the TV programme is hosted by a presenter called Jeremy Kyle, Jeremy hosts guests who are white E social class, in the show Jeremy solves scandals that the guests are facing these scenarios are usually adultery, theft or lying.
The target audience of the programme is working class upwards and this demonstrating that the idea of the show is for higher classed audience members to make fun and marvel at the E social class category.
In this example we see the media make the white E class appear folk devils as normally in the programme we see the guests talk about benefits, drug use and adultery, all of these themes are seen as very negative and makes the guests appear draining on British society, the programme exploits the guests to create moral panics for the viewers as the show makes the guests appear threatening to British values and society.
However the show Jeremy Kyle is known to be very media bias and show the guests only in one negative perspective when they could demonstrate the hardships that the guest have gone through as many of them have overcome drug addictions and have grown up in distressing circumstances. 
The programme uses sensationalism in the show often to exaggerate circumstances that the guests are in to attract audience members to watch the programme. 

(Dennis Mcquail, 1972) speaks about escapism and surveillance being a type of pleasure aimed from media products this is shown in the film. 

For example even though the film does have many negative ideas it also supports many positive themes also, in the film we see a very historically accurate account of the event and the informative aspect is very strong, this is a positive attribute that the film has as it means that as well as offering escapism to the audience due to the thriller/drama aspect they can also gain surveillance on historic events that have being detrimental to WWII

Another positive aspect that the film has is that it demonstrates many positive role models who the audience could base ideal selfs off, one of the main plot lines is a father and son who sail a boat to France to pick up soldiers, the selfless actions of this father and son demonstrate a very positive role model that the audience can look up to and take qualities from.§§

Overall I think that film does have negative aspects to the film however many of the negative representations and stereotypes are down to historical accuracy and are used to show the circumstances that happened this making the negative aspects more excusable however they would still impact a passive audience so its still dangerous to have them included in the film. 
Looking at the TV programme Jeremy Kyle I do think its harmful for the representation of lower classes as they appear very negative on the famous show and this can create tension in everyday life.