Fishtank: Genre, Representation & Narrative

Genre
The genre of 'fish tank' is social realism which focuses and represents real life situations that people face everyday and focuses on all difficulties that working class life brings. Fish tank is typical to its genre as this shows the struggle to survive everyday life and the location in which its set is in an urban, gritty area and in a run down location. Typical conventions of the social realism genre include hand held camera movements which are featured a lot in this film as we see Mia being followed by the camera as she walks around the streets looking for something to do, this helps the audience to focus on the action within the characters. There are also many close up shots of Mia throughout this film to connotate her emotions which most people can sympathize with as they would of more than likely experienced them before making the film seem more realistic to the audience, therefore they can personally identify with it. There is repeated use of low key lighting throughout this film which symbolizes daily life and all its misery that working class people face in everyday life.

Representation
Mia's character is typical to the stereotype of working class people throughout this film. The mise en scene used in this such as the costumes (cheap hoodies and street wear) give connotations of the unemployed and underclass people. The way that Mia speaks also helps the audience identify what sort of background she comes from, as she uses frequent swearing and talks with a strong common accent. The actions that Mia carries out also match the stereotype of the unemployed and underclass as she gets into a lot of trouble and is always involved in fights and arguments. Mia's character is strong and aggressive which supports aspects of her stereotype, however this is challenged at the end of the film when she cries for the first time and shows her emotion towards the horse as she can almost identify with the way it was 'trapped'.

Narrative
Propp's theory can be applied in Fish tank as we can identify that the little girl that Mia kidnaps is the Princess, however Mia is trying to show her the reality of normal life and is trying to make her aware that happy endings do not exist and is trying to drag her away from the 'Fairtytale' she thinks she is living, we can identify the use of characters through the clothes that the young girl is wearing. It could be argued that Mia is at one stage the villain as she is always causing trouble and acting aggressively but towards the end of the film she could also be identified as the princess as she finds her escape from her old life and is no longer 'trapped' with the life she used to live as she leaves home. The title of this film could also help the audience to identify the narrative of the film as Mia symbolizes fish trapped in their tank as she feels imprisoned in her surroundings and is always looking for a way to escape.