Additional Research

The Britz - A British TV series about a young Muslim girl who turns to terrorism as her life does not go the way she planned. I looked into great detail into this to help structure the narrative for our production. The two part series was spilt into two perspectives. The first was of sohail a British muslim born in England and supports British views and I think they are using him to go against the normal views that everyone has of a British muslim. the second we see of his sisters perspective and what drives her to terrorism. The whole two part series was a flashback and a build up to the point where sohail finds his sister with a bomb ready to blow up in public. this is not a structure we see everyday and is something that we considered when planning how to structure our opening 5 mins of our film. We found some camera shotss we cna use aswell when creating tense moods for the audiences.


The Kingdom - From watching the extract, the props and setting used all help to connote a very western and eastern presence in the text. all the westerners were dressed in what we see in the western world as casual clothes when going into an Islamic country, on the flip side the easterners were dressed in Saudi clothing and so were the terrorists.as for props the Saudi's military are always armed with weapons and very strict and firm with there movements on screen, where as the Americans tend to be more casual and have no weapons. When considering the mise en scene the Saudi's are more dominant on screen in the extract than the Americans.

At the start of the extract we see the protagonist and his men being lead by the Saudi captain to the crime scene to investigate. at this point the camera shots all all varying from the helicopter patrolling the scene in the sky to over the shoulder shots of the protagonist and captain talking.These shots are used in the scene to create more tension and place the audience right behind what is happening on screen. at this point the audience still do not trust the captain due to the shots and the representations of the captain to be stereotypically strict and firm to be against the Americans.

The genre of this film is hybrid, as it contains elements of a thriller, as well as a action genre. The Saudi army shown in the extract, help connote the film is of a action genre, due to their appearance. For example, they are seen to be holding guns and moving with heavy artillery connoting there could be violence to come. The fact that characters all seem to be tense, demonstrates elements of the thriller genre, the scenes really focus on the dialogue between the characters to focus on the story.


The representation of the Saudi's is built around the way they talk and the acents and the firm way they talk to the Americans. they are also shown praying showing them to be very religious even when in the army, the terrorist are also shown to be doing this prayer before blowing themselves up earlier in the text. In addition, Muslims today are the group of people who are seen to be terrorists, which is sensationalised through the media and often is mediated to create meanings. Because of this, moral panics are created and often led to stereotyping certain groups in society.
The leader of the terrorist is shown to be powerful and cold-blooded, the extract shocks the audience when he allows his 10 year old son to watch the terrorism in act. However, the audience perception may not change as he comes across as a masculine and dangerous man.


The text is targeted at both male and female audiences of a white working class. This is evident through the main characters shown within the film, they are shown to be white powerful people in the American army. However, it can be argued that the main protagonist is black and the film aims to target America as a whole with the issues touched in the film.


The ideologies behind this text are fairly different to most terrorist related films. For example “The Kingdom” offers an alternative representation of a easterner. The film breaks the stereotypical view on the eastern world, as a soldier from Saudi Arabia is not someone who loves his family, cares for his friends and has a soft side for life. Instead, we have a male with a family and kids, who is then only interested in keeping his friends and American new made friends alive.


The narrative follows a linier sequence, as we are shown the history between America and Saudi Arabia before introduced to the character and throughout the film the audience follows his and his Saudi counterparts involvement with the story.


Socially the text can be used for people to refer to and discuss, as the extract shows exactly why these representations of Muslims in the media get the western world to blame any Muslim they see, for example in the film the Saudi captain is blamed by a victim of the terrorist bombing for the murder of his wife and child. the audience know the Saudi captain had no involvement with the attacks and it is just showing the affects media has on society with the representations of terrorists.


link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x566ovlskDg