Jay Franks

Empire

Areas of representation – How are these created by camera shots, camera angles, movements, editing, sounds and Mise en scene

Characters - Lucious Lyon, Hakeem Lyon, Jamal Lyon, Andre Lyon, Cookie Lyon

Gender – Lucious Lyon: Male, dominant and powerful over others in the business, has the ability to manipulate others to do things for him because of authority and power with his money. Hakeem Lyon: Male, shown to be powerful thought the use of clothing (Mise en scene), as he wears expensive/fashionable clothes suggesting that he has a lot of money and therefore has dominance through this which is stereotypical for a male. Jamal Lyon: because of his sexuality, and stereotypical connotations with that, people dominate him because of this characteristic. Andre Lyon: male, powerful because his is physically strong which is shows through his physical stature and that the lighting enhances how big his muscles are portraying to the audience that he is strong, even though he is marginalised because his the only person in the family that can’t sing, making him feel left out and not as important as others. Cookie Lyon: Female, powerful, this is unstereotypical for a woman in a male orientated business, because of the reason of her dialect intelligence in words with having the ability to dominant people in situations.

Age – Lucious Lyon and Cookie Lyon’s are the parents of the family, making them the older characters in the show. However they are the countertype to an older adult as they both create good music, wear fashionable clothes and both still look good for their age. This is enhanced through the use of Mise en scene. For example one of the episodes, Cookie wears a slim fit dress to show off her figure, to look good for Lucious. This isn’t always the case for someone of her age to still look attractive. As stereotypically people become less tractive when they get older because of wrinkles and exercise issues, whereas Cookie still looks attractive for her age. For Hakeem, he is the youngest out of the brothers; his is portrayed as being a bad kid through his actions and being a stereotypical bad teenager off getting with a lot of girls, smoking weed and drinking a lot. For Jamal he is a young adult. More mature than Hakeem, but still participates in stereotypical young adult activities in going to parties, drinking and relationship issues. Whereas for Andre, he is more of a mature adult, he also follows the stereotypical connotations for someone being an adult. He is having his first baby, doesn’t participate in stupid actions like his younger brothers do because he realises the important things in life and focuses on them more. He is also an all-round much nicer person; he goes to church and loves all members of the family, which is the case for his other brothers. Therefore this suggest that he follows the stereotype for an adult who is more mature and takes more important things seriously.

Ethnicity – The whole family is African American. This comes with a stereotype of being rude, poor, lower-class, not educated and involved in crime. This family follows the stereotypes of being poor (at one stage in their life), rude and being involved in crime. With them being poor, it is portrayed through the Mise en scene, on how their housing before and how plain and basic and very small and crammed for all their kids they have. This is stereotypical for people of that ethnicity who have a lot of children and don’t have the capabilities to bring them up well because they are careless about their actions and don’t care about the childhood of their children as much as they should. Showing that they were poor before they became rich. They are shown as being rude as they aren’t polite to

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everyone in the business, and feel they are more important than everyone else and therefore shouldn’t respect them as well as they should. A specific example of this would be Cookie having an assistant called Porsha, she is very demanding over her an orders her to do what she wants her to do, like a slave, for her own personal benefit. Which is a coincidence as her ethnic origin was involved in them activities many years ago.

Sexuality – Everyone follows the sexual stereotypes of a man being with a woman in this show except from Jamal. He is bisexual and is in a relationship with Rafael in the show. The show shows this quite a lot in the show, making it seem normal for the audience, but is also frowned upon form his Dad as he doesn’t want his son being bisexual as he feels that shows you as being weak and powerless in society. This is stereotypically true, but Jamal as a character can stand up for his own and is quite strong in situations and isn’t scared of having a fight if needs be. This is unstereotypical for someone that is bisexual as usually they are feminine and that is a characteristic that is associated usually with someone like that.

Class and status – All of the characters in this show originated as lower class, but through the success of Lucious and Cookie in the music industry, they created a music industry of their own which made them a lot of money making them very rich, which is passed onto to their kids in the family. Money has have transferred this family form being on the streets and being lower class to upper class and very rich. This is shown through an establishing shot before an episode, as it reveals to the audience how big their building is for their business and how pristine and modern it is. Indicating to the audience that they are extremely wealthy. Which is unusual for these characters that have a less intelligent dialect between them, they use slang which is stereotypical for an upper class family.

Physical ability/disability – No one in the show is shown to have a physical disability, but Lucious and Andre both have suffered with mental problems. Which can be seen as stereotypical as usual African Americans have health problems as it originates with being poor and not having enough money for food, water and good health care.

Regional Identity – Dialect is used here to show they are American and use slang. Clothing indicates that they are rich people in America, which identifies them s higher class because of the big success people have in America. A good example of this would be Hakeem, he uses slang ears expensive clothes and accessories and you can clearly tell he is from America through the use of the Mise en scene with this character, and is clearly identified by the audience because of this.

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Images to support reasoning

This camera shot indicates that Lucious is the most dominant figure in the family, as he is the only character staring straight into the camera. Suggesting that he has no fear, and is powerful within his business. As well as the use of Mise en scene; he is wearing a suit and a gold watch which portrays him to be a successful figure in the show. This image also shows Hakeem’s stereotypical youth, and there the clothes someone of his age would normally wear.

This image shows the use of the Mise en scene, focusing on the clothing aspect, as the clothes she is wearing hear reveals her assets to the audience. Making her look sexually persuasive to Lucious on getting her way once again in the show.

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This image shows Hakeem’s sense of fashion. He wears expensive clothes and accessories which make him seem powerful over others in the business because he has the money to afford these.

This image shows Jamal’s relationship in the show with another man, this is unstereotypical for someone of his culture.

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This image shows Cookie and Lucious before they became rich, and this is how most people of their ethnicity and class would be like before they got rich in the music industry.

This is an establishing shot, which shows the environment the Lyon’s live in, showing to the audience they live in a rich wealthy country. Which is good for their business if they want to be successful as the people around them will have the money to invest in their singers.

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This shot uses a mid-shot, high angle shot and side angle shot to reveal Lucious’s emotions when being told he has a medical illness. Through the use of camera work it shows to the audience his fear in what he has been just told.