Mise-en-Scene

Mise-en-scene means 'everything in the scene'. Once you have watched the clip and identified the stereotypes being represented, your first task is to find examples from the mise-en-scene which prove it.

For our purposes, mise-en-scene includes the following:

1. Costume (and everything about a character's appearance including height, hair colour, makeup etc)
2. Body Language
3. Props
4. Location
5. Set Design
6. Lighting

Remember that everything you see has connotations - that is, messages or values which are communicated beyond the literal object being shown. For example, if a character wears glasses it carries connotations of intelligence, cleverness, or possible geekiness. Even colours have connotations - at its simplest level, black=evil and white=good.

You are looking for connotations which have something to do with gender, or age, or disability etc...
Exercise: Watch the clip below, from 'Life on Mars' (Episode 1:1) up to 4min 45sec, and write two paragraphs:

Paragraph 1: What representations of gender can you see in this clip?
Paragraph 2: What details of mise-en-scene can you find to support your ideas?