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cinema : features In Praise of Stereotypes When it comes to cinema, is London just one big stereotype? If you’d never been to our city, you’d think it was full of jolly Bobbies on the beat, walking past red telephone boxes, waving a cheery hello to the Queen as they walked past Buckingham Palace. Oh, and we all speak in clipped RP too of course. Unless you’re Dick Van Dyke. Even recent films, such as Woody Allen’s Match Point and preposterous nonsense The Da Vinci Code, reinforce an image of London that we know doesn’t exist. It’s not just American filmmakers who are to blame though. Not only is film a cultural product of national identity, it is also a consumer product and this is reflected in the image a nation reflects to an international audience. The image it wishes to project may be different to its own sense of identity within society, just look at Wimbledon or any film by Richard Curtis. They too project a stylised image, not easily identifiable to a domestic audience, which sells London to an international audience. These films are expertly packaged to offer a vision of a perfect London which exists in the mind of the viewer. It’s London as product. Take the Routemaster bus for example. Many films use a red London bus or shots of Big Ben as these are traditionally associated with London in the mind of the viewer. Such an iconic image can sum up London in one go. Put a red bus in the frame and instantly the audience know where they are. Of course this is lazy filmmaking, playing on the limitations of an audience that has no interest in having to think for itself. This isn’t the city we know and love, but should we feel offended by the sweeping generalisations made by filmmakers? Or perhaps we should take pride in the fact that London is one of the world’s most recognisable cities, made that way by the iconic images presented on film? Some of our own iconic celluloid memories embrace the stereotype. The swinging London of the 1960s, from Alfie to Georgy Girl and Darling, and the crazy bus related antics of Cliff Richard and Summer Holiday, bring a warm and fuzzy feeling. They are part of our film heritage, and a part of our culture. The recent announcement that the new instalment of that intrinsic part of our cinema heritage, the Carry On films, will be set in the capital means our screens will soon be full of black cabs and cheeky Cockneys, dancing along the Old Kent Road to stereotype-ville. We just can’t escape it. So I’ve decided to embrace those stereotypes. Never mind all these depictions of gritty London as it really is, or the harsh steel and glass infested opening titles of The Apprentice, I want a return to the good old days. I want young, naïve girls skipping down London thoroughfares without a care in the world, ready to be used by some cad and bounder. I want Michael Caine in a sharp suit. I want to see my bumbling English protagonist take a stroll past the Houses of Parliament before jumping on a Routemaster straight to the King’s Road. It warms the cockles and jellied eels of your heart. AD |
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