Analysis of Eastenders Jackson 5 trailer

As a good video that uses most of these conventions I will be analysing an EastEnders musical trailer.




The iconography of the set is in a street which applies to the conventions of a small geographical area allowing all the focal characters to be close and in view of each other. The representations of the characters are seen as working class as they are wearing cheap, flashy clothes, large and cheap jewellery, the children are wearing items such as caps and they are walking through a market block show that they are working class. Near the beginning of the trailer a woman called Bianca starts singing and is in the middle focal point of all the other characters. This makes her the dominant signifier of the group and also coincides with Geraghtys genre of having a dominant, central woman in soap operas. Another notable fact is that most of the main characters of the trailer are female. Three out the five Jacksons are women and two of the women are adults where as the rest are not, also when walking through the street women are mostly seen looking at them. This supports Browns’ conventions as he said that soaps are made for women so it is natural that the main percentage of characters are women because that will allow their target audience to relate to the characters better. Also there is an example of the female gaze in this trailer as a muscular man stops to check them out. This man also gives off an effeminate look using Browns conventions showing that men are more sensitive.

The Jacksons are singing, walking and dancing down the street. This opposes the dominant stereotypes of a woman being at home while the man goes to work, as the women are strutting down the street flirting with passersby and winking at others. There is also ethnic diversity among the characters shown in this trailer as there are black and white people shown. This stops other viewers from being alienated. Also there is age diversity as you can see women who are clearly old in one shot and others who are young and then there are infants in Jacksons. This also expands their viewers as it does not alienate viewers of a different age. The accents of the characters allow you to have a general idea of where they are located in the UK. The editing is quick paced to create a happy, exciting feel that the producers want their target audience to associate the Jacksons with.

In the end the well known EastEnders’ usual establishing shot is used as well as their iconic introduction music which is a convention of soap operas. This allows those that do not usually watch EatEnders to know that this is an EastEnders trailer.

SCOTT