Connor Hilton's About A Girl Analysis

Introduction

In this blog post I am going to be discussing how the 4 technical codes create the image of the girl in the films social class and how the girl's age is represented. The short film 'About a Girl' is about a young low class girl living in Britain. The 4 technical codes represent this to make the girl's situation clear to the audience. The film also represents the girls age group in both positive and negative ways and highlights the reality of some peoples situations.

Representation of Class:

Through the use of the 4 technical codes we can clearly see that the girl in the film is of low class. One way that this is shown is her costume. Her costume consists of a white puffy jacket and some jeans that are rolled up at the bottom so they could have been passed down from a older sibling.

We can also tell she is low class because of the setting she appears to be living in is shown and it appears to be council housing which is cheap housing that is provided by the council in Britain.The houses are all very similar and are attached to each other to save space.

Throughout the sequence we can see the character walking in different areas, from what we can see in the background the areas are run-down
and old which further emphasises that the area she lives in reflects her class.

There is also a very short shot of the girl with her Mum and Sister in a car park after they have been shopping. The Mum is scratching at a scratch card which is an indicator that she is ambitious and could use the extra money. Buying scratch cards often is a sign that the person has a low-income and is of lower class.

The girl also has many pieces of dialogue that suggest she is from a low income family. For example, she is talking about her Dad and says "He's dead busy with work...Well, looking for work actually" which means that the Dad doesn't have a job so the income for the family is coming from the council.

There is also a scene where the girl's dad buys her a Coke and a bag of crisps after she watches him play football on Sunday. Which is treated as a big treat as the girl says "Bless" after explaining that he buys her a bag of crisps and a Coke. This further supports the fact that the family is of low class.

There is another scene where the girl is traveling on the bus with a few friends and they are singing Britney Spears songs loudly. Firstly, they are traveling on a bus which could be seen as a low class thing, however, a lot of people get the bus because it is convenient. Secondly, the girls are singing loudly on public transport which in some ways could be seen as a sort of anti-social behavior.

Also, there is a scene where the girl is in a perfume store and is spraying the tester spray on her wrists rather than using the white paper provided to test the perfume. This is essentially shoplifting which is an indicator of low class because she can't afford to buy the perfume. When the shopping assistant comes to confront/question her she lies about her Mum being blind and that she is taking the smell home for her. This also indicates low class because she is lying to get out of spending any money.

Representation of Age:

The representation of age in 'About a Girl' is mainly a negative representation because the girl is only 13 and has gotten pregnant and then throws the newborn baby in the river after hiding her pregnancy from her family.

The first representation of age in 'About a Girl' is the title screen. It looks like the title is being typed out on a mobile phone because that age group is seen to always be on their phone and talking to friends on their phone.

Another representation of age that we see is the scenes where the girl is singing Britney Spears songs alone and with her friends. When Britney Spears was popular, a lot of teenage girls looked up to her and were big fans of her music. This meant that the teenage girls saw what Britney Spears did and wanted to do it themselves.

The way that the girl speaks in the film also represents the slang filled language that teenagers use. She also seems to use filler words a lot and take a long time to find the words that she is thinking of such as 'thingy'. The girl also talks about a lot of different things that don't really seem important but they are really telling the audience about her background and class.

The girl also tells stories of her parents arguing and when the family got a puppy off of one of the neighbors. They hid the puppy from their Mum for 2 days until she found it and got someone to put it in the canal, they had named the dog 'Lucky' and when she told the story she said "It's not so fuckin' lucky now is it" which indicates she was angry at what her Mum did. This is also foreshadowing of the girl putting her baby in the river to hide/ get rid of it.

Lastly, the girls costume represents the way her age group dresses, like the old rolled up jeans and the puffy coat. However, it only depicts how the lower class of that age group dresses.

Conclusion:

Overall, the short film 'About a Girl' represents the lower classes of British people and teenagers growing up in a low class area of Britain. It shows mainly negative representations of teenagers as it highlights the issue of teenage pregnancy and the reality of some peoples trust situation with their parents as the girl didn't tell her Mum that she was pregnant and just attempted to deal with the situation herself.