This document discusses how movies and TV shows depict social classes and roles. It provides examples from two works: Seven Samurai and Peaky Blinders. For Seven Samurai, it describes how the film challenged Japan's traditional view that social roles were tied to class, as samurai helped farmers. Peaky Blinders depicts the mistreatment of the poor after WWI and the battle between a poor gang leader and an upper-class police inspector who come to see their similarities beyond class divisions. Both works use their narratives and characters to comment on the inhumanity of rigid social classes and promote the idea that people can overcome the roles imposed on them.

1. Movies and TV depictions of social classes and the roles accompanying
them
Movies and television, both are visual mediums designed to depict ideas and concepts
to its, viewer usually through the guise of a narrative structure.
Many films and TV shows have dabbled with a myriad of ideas throughout cinematic
history but the one that perhaps causes some of the most taboo is the idea of social
classes and the roles that those social classes entail; perhaps the controversy of such
an idea has been greatly subdued other the years as the divide between the poor and
the rich has decreased a lot to allow a more egalitarian society but it would have been
mad to comment on such an issue in the 1954 in a country like japan where the idea
of roles and values being tied to class was so ingrained in the culture to two might as
well of been bedfellows but one movie did and it was called Seven Samurai.
Beyond the call of duty
Akira Kurosawa has influenced western cinema so much that it’s almost impossible to
say you haven’t seen one of his techniques in any film you’ve watched; whether it be
through drama or action the man has influenced in at least some but although Seven
Samurai is mainly acknowledged for it revolutionary depiction of action and
cinematography, its also important to see how the film uses the concept of social
status in a deeply divided area of Japans history.
The film is (funnily enough) about seven samurai who are “hired” (in the loosest sense
possible) to protect a farming town from the tyranny of 30 bandits.
As the film progress we see a conflict between humanity and class division which is
first depicted when the farmers decide to venture to a market and request the help
from a samurai who violently refuses, exclaiming that “he is a samurai” and that “he
does not serve peasants” which to the average viewer doesn’t have such a strong
affect, but with historical context has a greater meaning that Japanese audiences
would have reacted to more despairingly than regular audiences as the historically
samurai were only seen as glorified mercenaries who served the elitist of Japan as it
was their place in society as was the widely held belief of the time so when if a farmer
was to ask for the help of a samurai and thus act in a way which that was not part of
his status in society then he would have been met with disgust.
As we go further into the film, we are introduced to Kambei who is depicted as wise
an sagely throughout the film and he is asked if he is willing to help the farmers
which he turns down as would be the usual response but as time progresses he
begins to see the turmoil that the farmers have to deal with and decides to help them
because it’s the way of the samurai and thus depicts a rejection of the idea of social
division and instead a focus towards humanity and compassion, making the

2. implication that the restraint of social class is a inhumane or perhaps a less humane
idea that society shouldn’t have which at the time would have been dismissed as
ludicrous due to the countries deeply traditional background at the time.
If this wasn’t radical enough already then the character of Kikuchiyo definitely would
have been as he is at first depicted as the comic relief of the film (another cliché
developed by Kurosawa) but later becomes perhaps the most compelling character
due to his past, mannerisms and again social implications towards class division as we
learn of his past as a farmer himself and his anger towards the samurai for what they
did to them and his ascension from poor farmer to ambitious samurai through the
sacrifices he takes for the farmers through the movie which not only suggested the
idea that not only the rejection of these traditions if humane but also honorable and
the right thing to but furthermore that Kikuchiyo (originally a farmer) can ascend
through the social hierarchy and achieve a place in society that he was not considered
to be allowed to ascertain.
The Kurasawa carries these ideas through the film is not through forcing them in
your face through obvious means but by making the characters of the world that we
are told to respect and look up to have a ideology that a the Japanese audience
should’ve disagreed with and thus associating the idea of greatness and heroism that
the characters possess with that of the ideas that they spread.
In more recent years the idea of social division has declined due to the continuous
increase in equality between the classes and although there are still a number of films
and TV shows that look class disparity in the present its far easier to look back to the
past and thus see how its reflecting in todays society enter Peaky Blinders.
The darkest hour is just before the dawn
Peaky Blinders is a TV show that was created in 2013 and has had its third season in
2016 and is still going strong; the show was created by Stephen Knight from stories he
heard when he was a child about his family and the show is loosely based around this
as its set in Birmingham and is about a family called the Shelby’s who run a gang who
partake illegal gambling business and later an auto mobile company called the Peaky
Blinders.
The show taps into a heavily influenced genre of gangster epic and depicts it within
Britain rather than its big brother America (for a change) and because of this it can
really involve itself in the division of classes that are a trademark of industrial Britain
in many forms.
One of the many ways the show depicts the mistreatment of the poor is through war,
the First World War to be exact as the show is set in 1918 – 1922 meaning that many
of the men in Britain have recently comeback from war with little to no treatment of

3. thanks from the government meaning many of them had to try and reintroduce
themselves into society despite the terrors the wars has brought back with the them,
which is focused on very much with Tommy and Arthur (brothers who run the Peaky
blinders) and their friend Danny whizz-bang (whizz-bang being a term for landmine)
which is a way that the show would use the format to reflect the roles of the society
where it’s the poor’s duty to take the labour the upper class doesn’t deal with as its
their “patriotic duty” as well as other commonplace excuses.
The show has two characters in its first and second season that throughout the show
have a battle of wits and opposing views that culminated due to their social standing
in the world, for example Chief Inspector Chester Campbell is from the upper class as
thus has a life of privilege where everything he’s wanted has always been achievable
with little to no sacrifice or compromise while Tommy Shelby has spent his entire live
trapped within a working class environment as well as deriving from a background of
minorities and because of this he has had to resort to the illegal and inhumane to get
to where he now stands in the social hierarchy; for example off-track gambling and
violence.
Because of this they immediately despise one another because of the ignorance created
by Inspector Campbell due to his social standing where he can understand the limited
the poor must strive to ,to survive and instead sees their illegality as a sign of sin and
sodomy that the poor innately possess and because of this can never find peace with
Tommy and vice versa.
As the show goes on however the we see Tommy and Polly’s business mind-set that
results in them tricking the likes of the upper class and thus breaking the conventions
of what was expected for the average poor person which simultaneously allows
Inspector Campbell to see past the lies he’s so heavily believed in to see the potential
that the poor possess and at first he responds with denial until he comes to accept
the truth that they are very much “one in the same” and that its possible for people
to break from their defined social class which causes him to see Tommy as a threat
and naturally causes them the despise each other more.
This shows how the TV represents the ways how the different sides of the social
spectrum were bother very much the same, only divided by the monetary wealth that
gives one security and the other limits to overthrow.