Task 5 script

The film Four Lions does not help the Islamic communities representation by the media because it shows the main characters, who are Muslims, as being terrorists, this representation could have caused even more controversy for a film that had already seen its fair share. This is a very negative representation of the Islamic community. Many things are represented in the media these include: Gender, Age, Lifestyle, Ethnicity, Class, Communities etc.

There are two schools of thought regarding representation in the media, one school of thought is called the 'Hypodermic Syringe' (Theodore Adorno, 1930s) and it says that Mass audiences believe everything that they see or hear from the media. So if Four Lions shows the Muslim community as terrorists then this theory would say that the audience's opinion of Muslims would be warped or changed by what is shown in the film.

The second school of thought says that we have the ability to filter and adapt to content we see in the media (Gauntlett). So when we see a violent scene in a film or game we aren't compelled to replicate it because we can differentiate between reality and fiction.

The only stereotype present in Four Lions is that of the Islamic communities connection to terrorism, this is not a positive stereotype and caused  problems for the film, both before and after release.    

Now I will look at the film in terms of legal issues, this could be copyright infringement, however the main worry for a film is illegal downloading and it is worse for an indie film like Four Lions because the sources of illegal downloads are not regulated and taken down as effectively as they are for a Hollywood Blockbuster film.There are also ethical issues with the film Four Lions. I have already spoken about the representation of Muslims in the film however here are more ethical issues surrounding this film, such as the date it was to be first aired on T.V was the same day as the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. This caused lots of controversy and almost caused the air date to be cancelled completely. The representation the Islamic community in Four Lions offended many people with its very terrorist centered characters and dialogue.

There are two regulatory bodies in the film industry they are BBFC and ASA. The BBFC are the more widely heard of out of the two. They gave Four Lions an age rating of 15 because of the theme of terrorism throughout the film is not suitable for ages lower than 15. There is not really much physical violence in the film except for at the end when the characters blow themselves up. However there are lots of examples of strong language in the film which also contributes to the 15 age rating.

The ASA are the other regulatory body in the film industry, they use advertising codes in order to regulate what is advertised to the public and how it is advertised. in terms of four lions they could not include anything in the advertisements that could be perceived as offensive towards anyone. So the posters for Four Lions included the Crow from the film and that was it, there wasn't really anything else on the posters. I think that this is because the film is about such a controversial subject that they were scared anything else on the adverts would be deemed offensive, so they did adhere to the advertising codes.