Representations of terrorism and ethnicity in SPOOKS

Ahmed is represented in a negative way, Fiona and Danny positively. How are those binary opposites conveyed?
Ahmed is shown with all the power. He holds the two at gunpoint and asks the husband to make the choice of who to die. This shows him as a evil man as he is making Fiona's husband choose who dies but he can not make that decision. This shows him as evil as he is going to kill one of them and also has no pity or remorse so makes it even worse by making the husband choose who. This is when Danny is shown to be good as he sacrifices himself for Fiona. He knows her husband will not make the choice so he does himself and sacrifices his life for hers. This makes the audience feel positive about him as he is doing the best deed he possibly could. FIona also makes a sacrifice as she shouts at her husband to not make the decision to kill either one of them as she also is prepared to sacrifice herself.

What role do mise-en-scene, camerawork and editing play in underlining those representations?
Lots of low angle shots of Ahmed to make him seem very powerful and aggresive. Danny and Fiona normally shot in high angle to look vulnerable and weak. Ths creates the impact of Ahmed dominating over them and seeming quite scary to them. Lots of CUs of Danny and Fiona to show their terror for Ahmed. He is also edited in a lot less. There are a lot fewer shots of Ahmed and they also last for a lot shorter time. As if trying to avoid him or to show that he is not feeling that much emotion.

What techniques are used to involve the audiences emotionally? How does that position audiences?
The audience feels attached to Fiona and her husband as they were discussing normal issues and were acting like a normal couple. This makes them feel familiar to the couple and even relate so when these bad things happen to them it makes the audience pity them. Danny's speech is very emotional at the end as both the audience and Danny are aware that what his doing is going to get hium killed. We see this from the CUs of him which show him getting ready and shows him not being scared of the terrorist as if saying he wants him to kill him. The man crying while making the choice between who will die also makes the audience feel very sorry for him as they would also not know what to do in his position and oculd only imagine what it is like.

What view of terrorism emerges from these scenes?
It seems that terrorists are violent and proud. Proud of their heritage and seem to take offence when he said he was unlucky that he was born where he was. Its shows terrorists doing whatever they can to reach their goals. They are shown as immoral as they kill and do it with no mercy. It shows them as not feeling emotion to one another as he is willling to send the woman out and kill herself.

What do you understand by Arab, Islamic, Muslim, Middle-Eastern?
Islam is the religion of the middle-east or Arabia. People who follow this religion are Muslim.

What are the equivalent categories for describing British people?
Christian, Catholic, Protestants, Western-European

Since Britain is an ethnically diverse society, are there equivalents? What does this suggest about using these categories, which are widespread in the mainstream media?
Due to Britain having many different types of British person such as English-Muslim we should not generalise so much about categories such as this. It is stereotyping all Muslims to one area of the world and giving them certain negative stereotypes such as terrorism.

What do you know about Al Quaeda?
It is an extremist Muslim group who are seriously again western civilization. They are a small minority of Muslims however they are very well known due to heavy publicity in the media due to terrorism.

Try to find three contrasting representations of Iragi people from the internet, newspapers, magazines, films. What conclusions can you draw from these representations?
1.http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/06/shoe-protest-iran-ahmadinejad
They approve of shoe being thrown at Bush but not their own president.
2. 9/11
3. http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/20090316/BREAKING/90316043/-1/RSS01?source=rss_breaking Iraqi girl killed by American troops.
This concludes that they are much like everyone else as they are also being killed but however there are a minority who are terrorists. This however is the media representing Iraqui's as terrorists.

How far does the drama position audiences to equate 'Muslim' with terrorism?
When he says 'you death worshipping fashist' suggests he is of another religion. He says 'they destroyed our world, now we'll destroy theirs' This links to another country and due to current affairs suggest Iraq due to their ethnicity.

Think of other characters from British ethnic minorities in the drama. What is their significance?
The new asian male shows that it is not all Asians that are terrorists and covers the show from being accused of racism and stereotyping. Danny is a black male which shows it is not biased to white british characters.