'Welcome to the Jungle' Representation Essay

The media has the ability to shape an audience's knowledge of a topic, generally through stereotypes;  hence why this media text continuously uses stereotypes. Stereotypes allow for the text to achieve a certain response from the audience and ensures the audience adopts a certain perception typically about generalised groups of people and important events.

Straight away audiences are presented with the title card captioned 'Welcome to the Jungle'. The title contrasts with the fact there is no sound, other than the background music, since people expect jungles to be filled with sound. The whole video continues without any sound which correlates with the end tagline 'bring the quite'- this could represent how the characters that depict the stereotypes are muted by the media which ensures that the truth will not come out, and media outlets stay in business and earn a profit.

For instance, in this wide shot, black people are portrayed very stereotypically as shown by their costumes and props. The video portrays this group as gangsters whom use known violent dog and wear chains that are typically associated with black youth culture to symbolise their status and make themselves look better to others in the same stereotype culture. Their posture and body language in this shot also informs the stereotype being depicted as they're standing relatively close to each other in a way that may seem threatening to outsiders.

This shot shows an old-fashioned TV being thrown out of a window, this could symbolise old-fashioned views and stereotypes being altered and disregarded in favour of more modern views of society and it's inhabitants- although the text continues to display more stereotypes. Alternatively it could connote that audiences shouldn't blindly follow and believe what the media portrays, since representation in media isn't honest and can lead audiences to have adjusted view of groups within society and events

The manor in which the video is constructed is story like in which the narrative almost goes through a progression from a poverty like state to wealth- climbing the stereotypical social status. For instance, at the start of the video, the audience is introduced to a group of men whom are dressed in costumes that are associated with lower classes, and the audience decode this group with having associations with gang culture. Whereas as the video progressed, more characters that seem to have better, more expensive costumes are established. This progressive change in costume is representative of how individuals have to travel through a journey of hardship in order to suceed.

Furthermore, the women in the video are sexualised which increases the appeal to audiences- especially males. In the media women are generally dressed in a provocative way or  to attract more attention. This representation informs the idea of women's purpose to attract and please men. However the men in the video are surrounded by props such as money, and dogs. By placing men around money and  its implied that men are the ones who are meant to be successful and make the money- which is also backed up by women waiting for a male character in the car. The image of men being associated with dogs informs the idea that men are supposed to be tough and fearless. Additionally, stereotypes are used for different ethnicities; the representation of black females are considerably different to that of white female. In the media text, the women of ethnic minorities are dressed in minimal clothing and seem to be dancing in a suggestive manor. While white women are dressed in nice, fashionable costumes and overall look more presentable and instead of dancing provocatively, they have desirable jobs like modelling. This difference in race and stereotypes in men can bee seen as well; for instance, the only black men featured are dressed up as gangsters and connote a low level of respect towards other people, and also just people who terrorise others and create trouble. Whereas there are a variety of white men, who all seem to be represented better than those of ethnic minority- for example, in one scene, two white males who are dressed in business attire can be seen throwing money out of their windows, like it means nothing to them connoting that they're successful and have money they can pointlessly waste. The fact that races are portrayed differently contributes major issues in society in 2017 such as ethnic minority oppression and even sexism. The differences in representation of not only gender, but also race, creates a false truth to audiences that these groups of people behave in certain ways.

Towards the end of the video, light is shown against the setting of the dark night when these two characters meet. The lightening change suggests that their relationship is angelic compared to the chaos that was shown before. This image is representative of the idea that to find truth in one’s life, one must journey through lie.