·      How to analyze a documentary 

 

The narrator is a voiceover and is used in transitions, when we need to get introduced to the new settings. This narrator is objective and neutral, which makes us create our own opinion. 

There’s also an interviewer, who sometimes asks the characters questions in order to keep the plot going. The interviewer talks to the general speakers, who are the characters of the documentary. The main speakers are Farhana and Siobhan. Farhana provides the audience with the Muslim perspective, whereas Siobhan gives the British perspective. 

 

The filmmaker is not a part of the film. The documentary shows how the Muslim and British community interacts and how they are different. For anybody who doesn’t live in Britain or is a Muslim in Britain, cannot know how the two groups interact, but we can now through this movie. 

 

There has been a script for the voiceover and a guidance for what the characters are supposed to do and talk about, but not specifically, what they have to say. 

 

There are close-ups when a lot of emotion is used, but also wide shots when we need to see a setting. The camera is a fly on the wall and gives an insight into their lives. There has been added clown music when Farhana and Siobhan meet for the first time, which is a fiction code and makes it more appealing to watch. No sound effects. 

 

·      Select a scene in the film which underlines the themes in the overall Multicultural Britain topic and argue for your choice, what does the scene show and insinuate? 

 

The scene where the girls are shopping and Farhana’s parents (mom especially) are getting worried, because Farhana has been out for longer than she is supposed to. 

The scene insinuates that if you are Muslim you are much more under control and more restricted. On the opposite side is Siobhan, who’s allowed to go where she wants for as long as she wants. It shows the different opinions on the same matter and also how the Muslim community has a lot more rules. 

 

·      You are Farhana and Siobhan: Write a letter to the British prime minister Theresa May, in which you give solutions to the challenges of immigration in England (200-300 words) 

 

Dear Theresa May, 

 

In relation to the challenges of immigration in England, we have a few solutions for you. First of all, we need to stop the segregation and make the neighborhoods more multicultural. This will force the different cultures to interact and discover all the things they have in common. Second of all, we must make the schools more multicultural as well, by teaching about several religions and serving alternatives to pork in the cafeteria. A prayer room would also help the Muslims a lot, by making it much more available for them to pray and keep up with their religion. 

 

Bye :)

Immigration is important, and you need to help us.

This problem is bigger than you would think. Maybe it doesn't seem that way, looking your seat at the palace, but in the streets, it obvious.we need help from authority, someone greater than us. we can only do so much. The problems start at home, where the elders don't allow their kids to experience the world of foreign cultures. England has everything to offer to the youth. Right now, you can become anything you want, if you set your mind to it, but for the british-immigrants, it ain't like that. But, as said, the parents and the pakistani community does not allow the youth to break free from the cultural chains at our feet. We need the Great land of Britain to speak up, so the parents see the problem. Speak up, and the change will be seen, as one child cannot argue alone, against their strict Pakistani roots. Please tell them, that it is okay for us to explore, we can become anything we want.

Compare your notes (homework) on "How to analyse a documentary" and sum them up in approximately 200 words 

-       The Documentary It’s about two girls, from two completely different cultures. They have to, or have to try to, get to know each other. The goal is, for these two girls to become friends. It’s a long process, that doesn’t fully successfully complete, but it doesn’t fail. They become friends, but there’s a lot of restrictions. 

There is a narrator, who’s clarifying what happening I the documentary, he’s neutral and he just contributes to the overall understanding, of what happening. He doesn’t not influence the handling, he acts like the fly on the wall, that just tells us what happening. 

The film wants to show how the segregation and difference is between Muslims, and ethnic people in England, interact with each other. It also shows how this segregation can be neglected, and how ethnic and immigrants can work united. 

There’s a lot of close-up shots, which shows the feelings, it shows how the reactions really are. There’s a lot of background-music and real-sound and voiceover, to set the mood in the documentary. The documentary is very effective and really show how the different parts of England is, and how they are evolving. 

 

B. Select a scene in the film which underlines the themes in the overall Multicultural Britain topic and argue for your choice, what does the scene show and insinuate? 

-       When she gets to go to the mall. Show how different the two groups of people really are. They have different privileges and are allowed to do different thing. It really shows how restricted, the young immigrants (muslims) are. They think a lot about their reputation, and how the Muslims around the community think about them.  

 

C. You are Fahana and Siobhan: Write a letter to the British prime minister Teresa May, in which you give solutions to the challenges of immigration in England (200-300 words) 

Dear Teresa May 

We are two young girls, from two totally different parts of England. We have been participating in a TV-documentary, called “White kid, brown kid”. This documentary is about the segregation between immigrants and ethnic people in England. 
 We suggest that we split up the Muslim society and incorporate them into the English society. We have to do this, because the segregation is growing. If we grow too far from each other, we will not be able to adjust and adapt to each other. 
 We also want to suggest that young Muslims and ethnic people, starts interacting more with each other. This can be done in the school and at spare time sports. In this way their different cultures are more interwoven. This makes ethnics and Muslims get more used to each other, and the “us and them” discourse will no longer be as big as it is. 

 

The documentary has focus on two different cultures. The documentary has a narrator - a voice over. He tells facts about the girls and their families. The film has a lot of interviews with the girls and their families separately. It gives us an insight in especially the girls own opinions. When they are together with their parents they are more silent and reluctant → especially Fahana. It has a good effect to hear them speak without their parents, because in some way they are more honest, when they are alone. 

 

The film told us that there must be room for all cultures, and that it is okay to step out from fixed boundaries. Fahana goes against their religion traditions, because she meets with Siobhan. Siobhan is a white girl, and from another culture than Fahana. Siobhan and her family is more open to Fahana’s family and traditions, than the other way around. Fahana’s parents are against her meeting with Siobhan because they have a lot of prejudices about “the whites”. 

 

15:00-19.30

Fia, Oda, Mathias og Sarah B

 

The documentary present two different cultures, Muslims and Catholics. Therefore, the audience sees the differences between the cultures. 

There is voiceover, and some awkward music.

 There is close up when the interviewer is talking with the girls. The interviewer is not afraid of asking questions to the parents, and the girls. The questions that the interviewer is asking, makes the girls, and us reflect over them. 

It is the fly on wall – because the camera is inside their home, and we see the different point of views. 

It has a big influence that the parents are involved in the documentary, because it shows family values and tradition and how to break it. It is especially Fahanas parents who is kind of deciding her destiny. Both parents have not been in the different arias in the city.

We have chosen the scene where Siobhan visits Fahana, and Siobhan tries Fahans scarves. This scene is a good example of the different religions. It´s an emotional scene because of the background music, and the way the camera switches angle, therefore it appeals to patos. The girls also have a lot in common in this scene, in the way that they´re talking about Fahannas hair. 

 

 C) Dear Theresa May. We have been making a documentary about these two very different worlds. We were supposed to be friends even though we were from two very different worlds. It was very hard because of our very different family’s and cultures. We´ve been starting to think what we can do to make us intergrade more with each other, as the British prime minister, we think that you could help us do something about this integration problem. We think that Britain should be a lot better at helping all these immigrants integrating in the British society. We think that immigrants should be able to be a part of both the British society but also be a part of their own community. It should be possible to fit in, even though that you have a different religion or a different culture. Maybe these two cultures should live more among each other and be more together with the opposite part. That makes us more used to see each other and to be together. It also makes us understand the opposite world. Maybe it makes us understand why the other one is how she is or acts like she acts. It could help the integration and we think that you should consider it. Because if these different cultures live in the same neighborhood or went to the same school, it wouldn’t make this problem so big. That would make our cultures more integrated with each other and we would understand each other actions a lot more. Best regards Siobhan and Farhanna

 

The scene in the mall: Fahana and Siobhan went to the mall. Siobhans mom is okay with that, she just need to know were she is. But Fahanas father and mom are more strict. For example she can only be there for 2 hours, and friends of the family are also calling Fahanas dad because she is together with a white girl. That show Fahana lives a life there is very controlled by her parents, which we also she when she tell that she never have bought anything that her parents didn't liked or accepted 

Dear Prime Minister Teresa May.

We are writing to you to come up with solutions to the challenges of immigration in England and Great Britain. We are 2 young girls, 16 and 17 years respectively, and we are still friends even though we come from two different cultures. Over the past 10 years, the immigration in England got worse and worse. The neighborhoods have been subdivided People are afraid of those with darker skin and are therefore divided into white and black.

At first, our parents were doubtful that we were going to be friends, and we were too, but after seeing each other a few times, we started to really like each other. Maybe this could work for other people, maybe the Catholic and the Muslim schools could work together and set people from the different cultures up with each other.