To what extent are your chosen texts typical of their Genre?

My chosen text is Fish Tank, and the genre of the text is Social Realism. A way in which Fish Tank is typical to its chosen genre is the use of the technical conventions of a hand-held camera's. For example, in the scene where Mia chases after Connor when he is leaving, when Mia begins to run so does the camera. Its puts us as an audience in the perspective of Mia, as we see what she see's, i.e. blurred, jumpy vision, bouncing up and down. It puts us in the shoes of Mia and helps create empathy which is the main purpose of the film, allows us to understand her and her under-class. We begin to not think that under-class people are just lazy and bad people, but that the reason they are like this is because of the build up of events that have happened in their lives, i.e. in the film Mia's mum treats her horribly, and the result of this is that Mia turns into a nasty, vulnerable broken child herself.

Another technical convention that is used to show that the text is typical to its genre through its use of no 'non-diegetic sound'. Throughout the whole of the film their is constant diegetic sound, for example, you are always able to see the source of where the music is playing out of either a stereo, headphones etc. Constant background noise of either trains, cars, kids playing, shouting. This helps to show social realism, as it is a realistic view of everyday lives growing up in that neighbourhood.

- other point is that it represents the under-represented ... location etc.