The opening scene of Shameless establishes several stereotypes about residents of Manchester. A police officer is looking for Frank, indicating they know each other well. When asked what Frank has done now, it reinforces the idea that he often gets into trouble. The messy home shows a multi-generational family of various backgrounds living together out of financial necessity. Two scantily dressed teenage girls imply a lack of self-respect. However, one character comments on the police officer's "bad manners," contrasting the expected stereotype. While the scene seems tense, the calm music suggests the family is accustomed to such situations and knows how to handle them. In the police car, Frank argues eloquently against his treatment, contrast

1. Shameless Clip
Jak Crittenden
The opening scene of Shameless is given to us by use of a close up of the police
man whilst he says "wheres Frank", and incline that the police man know Frank well
enough to call him by his first name and not refer to his second. Therefore straight
away, the regional identity of the first few seconds of this scene reinforce the
stereotypes of Manchester (always in trouble with the police). The wife of Frank then
follows up the police man by saying "Whats he done now", which then also backs up
the thought process that Frank is a familiar face with the force.
The miss en scene of the room in which it is set is that we can see dull blue walls, an
untidy kitchen, a school boy with scruffy uniform, a mum in a skimpy pyjama set and
another woman dressed rather manly in baggy clothes and tided back hair. It is
worth mentioning that this woman is black and clearly not a relative of the family but
makes it clear that she lives there. Which i believe also reinforces the stereotype of a
Manchester home, they have all sorts of different people living under the same roof
in order for the rent to get payed, as typically, a single family wouldn't be able to do
so. Also at this point the camera angle is at a high angle shot, looking down on the
three characters, showing their venerability and how the police man is above all of
them in class, because he is not from Manchester.
As the scene deepens, we get to see more characters, two teenage girls, one
dressed in a black, very short dress, the other dressed in a white, chest revealing
dress. Both outfits show how the girls have lack of respect for themselves, making
the viewer believe them as cheap and tarty. At this point the rapid editing is put in
place for effect, it fast changes to all the other characters but always returns to the
police man, maybe to show his sense of importance, and how he is above in class to
all of these other people simply because he is not from Manchester.
The diegetic sound within this scene are the rest of the family discussing how the
police man handles the situation and the way he treats Frank. We hear one of the
characters say "Whats with the bad manners", to me, this opposes the stereotype of
Manchester people, as they are known to have extreme bad manners and treat
people wrong, so for the character to mention bad manners shows that maybe
Manchester people do have respect and have been bought up to know their
manners. However the non diegetic sound of the soundtrack is actually quite
calming, which is a complete contrast to what we are seeing, maybe suggesting that
these people are actually quite calm, because they do handle the situation very well.
They do not try to attack the police man or cause any confrontation, which then could
also suggest that they are calm because they have had past experience and know
how to handle it.
The next setting we get is within the police car, the lighting involved shows up the
policemen more, and Frank is dimmed in the back, I don't believe that this is
necessarily to show that the policemen are more important in this situation, I actually
believe it is done to show that these policemen have the power over Frank, the take
the lead and control him.
The dialogue within the scene completely works against the stereotypes of a
Manchester, drunk, unemployed man. They are known to be uneducated, vunreble
and listen to others, instead Frank argues his case that they way the policeman
handled him was completely wrong and he also used very complex words like
'Brutality", "exempt" and "special dispensation". The use of his dialogue completely
opposes what we thought we would expect he would talk like, this suggest that not
all Manchester people are what we stereotype them as, even if they don't have a lot

2. of money and have many people living under one roof. Frank also motivates the
editing, wherever he goes, the camera follows, also suggesting that he is important
within the scene, he gets the most screen time meaning that even though he get
controlled like an animal when the policeman throws him off the couch, he is still
important just like any other human.