Ethnicity Textual Analysis: Hotel Babylon

Hotel Babylon

Hotel Babylon is a British TV drama series on BBC from 2006-2009 set in a five-star hotel that has many mysteries about it.

in the TV series Hotel Babylon, there are many examples of ethnicity and stereotypes. For example, in this scene of the blonde women at the front desk, it shows a young white British women working at a desk. This is a stereotype because normally young people can't get the big jobs.

In this scene it shows a young Asian women working behind a computer on her own, this may show that she is a strong independent woman as she is working behind a computer. Also when the immigration officers come in, she is the one that people alert to go round up all the immigrants and hides them, this shows she is intelligent just like a stereotype of a young Asian women.

In this next scene of three immigrants in the store room, we see three different ethnicities, the older looking man to the left looks like a traditional Italian, as he has a long moustache, fat and a chef. Also there is a woman in the middle who looks to be from Hungary as she is short, speaks with a different accent. As well as that we see a younger black man stood to the right of the women, this man looks to be from Africa as he has a strong accent and is very dark skinned. However, he brakes the stereotype of an African immigrant because he is the one to save the women who falls to the floor because she faints due to her diabetes.

Sound

whilst Jacky is rounding up the civilians, there is intense music and people shouting in the back ground, this creates tension and keeps the viewer on the edge of their seat while they wait to see what happens. The soundtrack could also suggest that the scene is dramatic and that something is about to happen to one of the immigrants as it shows him cleaning with head phones in.

camera work  

Firstly, we see a wide shot of the lobby just to set scene and let the viewers know where they are. We then see the migrant officers walking towards the front desk, there are a lot of close up shots, this is to show his emotions. Also when all the migrants are into the store room the camera zooms into all their faces. This shows their emotion and makes the audience know how they are feeling and could also make them feel the same.

Editing
The editing starts of slow when the officers walk in, but when the man runs of to make warn Jacki to round up the migrants the editing becomes more fast pace and continues to stay like this as he is running and it also makes the viewers feel tense because they don’t know if they are going to hide them all.