Hotel Babylon

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During the clip on Hotel Babylon you can see many different ethnic stereotypes. Starting with looking at the ethnicity of Afro-Caribbean people. The setting is the hotel's swimming pool; it begins with a pan of the pool, and then moves into a close up. The lights are dim and the music is calm, this creates a relaxed feel to the scene. Soon two characters are introduced and straight away we are able to see that they are in fact complete opposites. Both are men and one is presented as a casual laid back character, we can gather this because of his use of slang and colloquial language. This character has just emerged from the pool in trunks; this shows us that he cares more about his recreational time then work. He also refers to parties, girls, drugs and alcohol. The other character is smart and is acting anxious and nervous. The more casual character seems happy to meet up again while the other character looks unsure of himself and is worrying with the conversation topic. This looks at the two different sides that blacks are tend to be stereotyped as.

Next is a scene containing two French maids who are about to clean a Japanese man room. The camera closes up onto the room service card which reveals two stars which is a code for him 'paying double for double'. The maids have heavy French accents and seem to only be able to use French-Latinate vocabulary.  The maids enter the room we begin to understand of what the term 'he pays double for double means' the maids begin to dance for extra money. This is very stereotypical as it seems a foreign worker will do anything to make any extra cash. The music at this point is a very cheesy pop song that also appears to have French lyrics which are in relation to the maids themselves. Whilst they are dancing the camera enters a mid shot and switches from this to a close up of the Japanese characters eyes which are watching them.

The Japanese character is portrayed as a very typical ethnic stereotype. First is a mid shot of the Japanese man sitting on his bed in a dressing gown. This automatically assumes he may be slightly 'pervy'. The camera then moves into a close up on to the two piles of money for each maid on the table. The stereotype that the Japanese are extremely wealthy met quickly and made very clear by this shot. He is paying workers extra cash for them to strip and dance, which follows a clear stereotype of him being dirty and perverted his room also, appears to be extremely tidy and clean, either the maids do a very good job or he lives up to. The Japanese are renowned for keeping their belongings very tidy and clean so we are shown another stereotypical view of this particular ethnicity. The camera focuses on the characters eyes which are in turn focused on the maids body’s whilst they undress, this uses a close up. This represents perfectly that he is a character fascinated and thoroughly enjoying something that he should not be looking at.

In the next part of the scene the setting is the hotel kitchen, which focuses on two main characters which appear to be the head chefs, they are surrounded by many other chefs, and they are of no importance to the scene though. The ethnic of one head chef is Italian. The stereotype of this ethnicity is a strong accent, overly friendly and well dressed. Next we get a mid shot with the two chefs standing next to each other being friendly which an act is clearly. The British chef is overweight, tall, has much paler skin and dressed in white in comparison to this the Italian chef is skinny,  small, has a dark complexion, and dressed in black. The two characters dressed in black and white may be signifying good and bad between the two ethnics. Later on, after we have been introduced to the characters an argument breaks out, during this the background music gets faster which builds even more tension between the two characters. The English chef seems rather pathetic and hopeless at this point in time which represents what a typical overweight British would be stereotyped as. On the other hand the Italian has picked up a knife, and at this point we see a close up from the camera which puts emphasis on the fact that the character is dangerous. This is following the stereotype which plays on men from foreign countries being very sneaky and unreliable.

Overall, ethnicity is clearly represented in the clip by using stereotypes which are usually associated with a certain type of ethnic. The clip does not explore any contrasts which may go against a typical stereotype and instead sticks to making each characters role very predictable due to their ethnic.