This clip was taken from the BBC show ‘The Hustle’. It shows the group pulling of a con against a greedy store owner by using stereotypical gender roles to fool him. The female con-artist wears a blonde-wig, a tight-fitting business suit as a costume and later wears a revealing low backed dress. She is using her femininity and ‘vulnerable’ status to attract him to be protective of her and he is interested in helping her due to his greed because he sees her wearing an expensive ring. As she leaves to go to her hair appointment she displays how she is using the act of gender to swindle him, letting the audience know that this is a facade. There is a close-up on the key prop - the ring - as this is a point of view shot and it’s the first thing he notices before he looks across to her face. The ring represents ownership as it shows that she is ‘owned’ by her husband, when in reality she is in control of the situation. This reinforces the fact that the gender roles are reversed.
She is introduced as the sex object because her costume changes to a low backed cocktail dress which exposes her legs and back. The camera uses a tilt shot to gradually reveal her body as if looking her up and down. This can be perceived as the Male Gaze, representing femininity as something to be looked at. This is turned on its head as the female character is really a con-women and masculinity is in her crimes. Plus, she has control the whole time by playing with the act of gender which is the driving force of the narrative. Dialogue reveals that she is concerned about her male partner/ husband reaction when she looses the ring and high angle shots are used when she is on her knees to make her seem more vulnerable. And as she panics the edits are faster and the camera is more erratic to reinforce her emotional instability which is perceived to be a typical female trait. The sound is a non-diegetic soundtrack of a farcical performance from the store owner, who is rather lighthearted and camp which is immediately stopped with a recording of a more masculine reaction to the women’s emotional outburst.
The composition and angles in the sequence reveal a more equal relationship between the two characters and that he has more respect for her due to her wealth when compared to the height difference and the angles of the first female character in the scene who has everyday casual clothes, unkempt hair, and is less feminine and less focused on her appearance. Juxtaposed with the feminized environment of the Boutique is the Gentlemen club which again has a wipe edit pushing out the previous scene reinforcing the dominance of the masculine location. This is contrasted by the sound and behavior of the two now drunk men blowing raspberries and giggling. Reducing their masculinity to that of two small boys. The camera uses a wide shot to compare their silly boyish behavior to that of the serious masculine set where other actors in suits read serious newspapers. In this homosocial environment femininity is expected to be absent and masculinity is constructed through dialogue as they discuss criminal activity and props as they smoke, drink whiskey and demonstrate traditional male behavior. As the edit is a violent and dominant intrusion between scenes it shows male like behavior again and demonstrates the power to place us in scenes in a dynamic, definite and male way.
In similar contrast in masculinity the scene with the young, confident, empowered and cool working class man stands his ground and the store owner demonstrates the competition between the two. The young working class man puts on an act of gender to be competitive with the store owner and is aware that he is able to manipulate him by walking away by controlling the salesman. This relationship is reinforced through camera angles. The store owner who is a metrosexual and a rather feminised male is subordinate to women as his job role doesn’t demonstrate heterosexual masculinity and they use a high angle of the store owner looking up and down on his knees to show that the young worker has a higher amount of male dominance so it shows that the young worker is more powerful and masculine. The change of scenes moves from the male character with the alarm to the store owner trying to find the ring. this shows how it jumps from one failed attempt that a man has made to another. This also reinforces how the masculine traits are failing in this clip because the male characters are not capable of living up to stereotypical masculine traits. However, I think that with the male character and the alarm, this is made to look humorous because before he set of the alarm he acted in control to the recipient but didn’t have the ability to carry out his task.
No comments:
Post a Comment