Additional questions
Group 1: To what extent do the representations in Capital reflect the concerns of modern 21st century London life? [25 marks]
The representations in capital clearly attempt to reflect some of the concerns of modern 21st century London life, as they do not portray all the Londoners in a positive light and may show some of the characters to be much more sympathetic then others and I think that a key part of the show is that some of the white British people who's parents and family have been born and brought up here, such as the family of Roger are not always perfect and face issues too. They are also not shown to be the most sympathetic bbbbbnnnnn family, which begins to show that the show is trying to show London for how it is, a multicultural city, however still shows the issues which we are facing. In the case of Zimbabwean asylum seeker, Quentina we are positioned to feel very sympathetically for her and feel sorry for her. We are placed on her side as we see the struggles which she faces, we can see the severity of her situation immediately as she is introduced as she gets ready and is seen to have to live with some random men, which she appears to have no connection to as they do not even exchange greetings with one another, although they are in the same household, we then see her in her traffic warden uniform and can already tell that this is not the most glamorous job in the world as she probably receives a lot of abuse from people, in fact we see an example of this when she puts a ticket onto Rogers car and he says "Go on, put another on the Range Rover, it’s so big" as he shouts at her in an angry manor. We then see her go to visit this man who we as the audience a re already sceptical about and the show may be suggesting that there are a lot of people who very dodgy and are exploiting people and the government, when Quentina hands her the cheque of £300 and the man says, "you work too hard" in a condescending manor and doesn't seem as if he is actually concerned for her well being and when she responds that she has been working overtime he takes a larger cut and takes a third of her paycheck. When she is disappointing with this he says, "well if you don't like it you can have it paid into your own bank account" as he knows she can not. Anyone else who was working on this wage of £200 a week which is extremely low would have received money from the government to help her and wouldn't even have to pay any tax as the amount is under £12000. The reason we can feel very bad for the character is because she is seeking asylum and the reason that most illegal workers work is so that they can earn a higher wage without paying tax, however this character wouldn't even earn enough to pay tax and would in fact be entitled to benefits from the government, however as she does not want to be kicked out of the country and be sent home where she will be "killed" or "raped". Then there is the second generation Pakistani family who are portrayed very sympathetically as they treat the old woman very nicely when she comes to the store and take care of her when she comes to their store, even though she mistakes them and calls them Indians, but she seems very sorry about it, which may be showing that there is such a wide variety of people from other countries and shows that there may be an issue with immigration. We also see the younger members of the family who are attending university so they are clearly trying study and earn a living as they are in university. I think that the show is trying to show that immigration is not a big issue as they are clearly showing that the Pakistani family are clearly showing British banter when they speak that I think their British audiences would understand.
In conclusion I think that each character shows some of the 21st century issues and that each character shows one of the issues or has a story related to them which illustrates one of the issues.
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