21 Jump Street - Representation

1. The fact that we see the protagonist on his own in this immediate shot shows us
that this particular demographic of teenage boys is represented as independent.
Despite this immediate representation, the audience may start to feel that this
particular character is lonely with the consideration that everyone else departed
from the school bus in company compared to this character who is alone. As a
result, we start to see that there may be a sense of a hierarchical structure within
secondary school that we will see later on in the opening sequence.
The subtle use of an over the shoulder shot in this scene shows what the
character is heading towards. From this we can guess that ahead of him are going
to be some problems from the use of camera angle which makes him look a lot
smaller and inferior to the school. As a result, we feel sympathy towards the male
because from even in this early shot we understand that he will probably be
heading towards some social issues at school.

2. In this shot we see the character
attempting to interact with other people at
school. This represents him as a character
who is wanting to improve his life within
school and try to make friends. As a result,
we as an audience feel as if this is a social
group that can be quite brutal and
unforgiving. In addition, we feel a sense of
helplessness because we are unable to
help him.
Now we see that he is being ignored by
others at school, our sense of helplessness
is increased because we have clearly seen
that his school life is somewhat lonely. This
again represents this social group as very
brutal and perhaps unfair. However, this
shot may also show us that he is lacking in
self-confidence as a result of the brutal
reality of secondary school.

3. In this shot we see the reaction of the girl
who the protagonist is asking to prom.
Therefore we see a contrasting
representation in comparison to the
representation of the protagonist’s social
group. The fact that the girl has a fair
amount of make up on implies that she is
probably considered as a ‘popular’ at
school.
As a result, we see the
clashing of these two
social groups. The
representation of this
social group shows us that
she is extremely
judgmental of other social
groups. Again showing the
brutal reality of secondary
school life.

4. Similarly to the previous shot, here we see
more examples of judgmental life at
secondary school. However, in contrast,
these two shots specifically show the
amount of power this character has in
comparison to the other protagonist.
Perhaps one of the clear ways we can
identify that this character has power
because of his clothing. The fact that the
character is wearing a sports jacket
immediately tells us that he is a person
who will be well respected within school.
As a result, we know that his power is
much greater than the other protagonist. In addition, the social group is represented as
very judgmental and naïve in the fact that
they only see sporty people as attention
worthy figures. This gives the audience the
impression that this film could be very stereo-
typical and perhaps predictable. As a result,
we may feel as if the film could not be worth
watching thus making it an unsuccessful
opening sequence through the false
representations of social groups.

5. In this final shot we finally see the result of the brutal realities within social groups
at secondary school. The clear representations of these slightly different social
groups highlight the fact that clashes between these groups will result in extreme
emotions like in this shot. The camera angle in this shot shows the location of the
setting and the fact that there are students just carrying on with their lives. This
shows us that the protagonist is not cared about by any of the other people at
school and may signify to us that he is going to meet someone outside of school
who is going to be his helper.