Riverdale Representation Essay

In this TV Teen drama there are two core elements of society that are being represented which are, Age and Class and Status. There is a representation of Age in Riverdale as you can see that there are a bunch of teenagers at a school sitting around at the lunch tables, eating their lunch and talking about how good Archie's song is. Age can be represented as many things like old, young, and middle ages. In the extract we are getting a sense of young, but very shortly becoming adults as there are a lot of bratty teens shown with a sassy attitude which almost contrast with teenagers hormones and how they act. There is also a representation of Class and Status as we can see in the beginning of the extract with veronica first being shown and how she is wearing a nice clean dress and a pearl necklace almost to build her status at the school for being the new girl, this would represent her wealth and how she may be part of the upper class. The status that the audience gets from Archie is the typical jockey type of guy that is all for football and is a player with all the girls, but Archie's status is not all that, yes he way be all for football but he writes and sings his own songs which displaces him from the typical jockey type of jerks.

These representations engage with the audience as they can pick out the key information that the producer intended them to pick out. This goes well with Stuart Halls theory of audiences who can be dominant, negotiated, and oppositional readers. Dominant readers can decode a message as the producer intended them to decode, this shows that the audience and the produce share the same cultural and ideological positions. If the audience are negotiated readers then they may understand the meaning and connotations of the message of the producer but they would have to adapt to fit with their own beliefs. But if the audience is a oppositional readers then they reject the producers message, despite them knowing the denotive and conative meanings. I believe that people who watch Riverdale are dominant readers as we can pick pick out the general and overall message that the producer is trying to get across of representations of Age, Class and Status, and maybe even Gender.

Camera:
In the beginning of the extract there is an Establishing shot, wide and pan shot of Veronica as she is walking down the stairs outside, this helps the audience to identify that she is new to the school as she stops and looks around, the camera changes into a handheld, POV shot to represent her looking at all the people sitting in groups of popular girls to jockey boys.

There is an Over the shoulder shot of Archie's shoulder to then show a laptop screen that is playing music, the camera quickly changes to a pan shot, close up to show Archie looking at Betty then the camera moves to Betty to show her emotions of happiness while listening to Archie's song.

The camera changes to shot reverse shot of everyone talking as a group when Veronica comes and sits down, and as Veronica compliments Archie's song there is a close up over the shoulder shot of Betty to show the emotion of jealousy she is expressing as Veronica compliments the song.

Then there is a wide shot of Cheryl as she comes to the table to introduce herself to Veronica and then sits down, and starts to have a conversation with Veronica, the shot does to a close up of Betty for a few seconds while Betty is shaking her head this implies that Betty doesn't want Veronica and Cheryl talking about Archie, then it changes back to a shot reverse shot of Veronica and Cheryl talking about cheerleading.

The camera helps the audience to identify that there is tension between Betty and Cheryl, but then it is later revealed that Betty does not like Cheryl after what she said last year at cheerleading try-outs.

Mise-En-Scene:
Everyone in the school is wearing mufti, this tells the audience that this is a school where they don't care if the students have a dress code and the school will let them wear whatever they want.

But one thing that sticks out to the audience the most is that Archie is wearing a football jacket of yellow and blue, this helps the audience to identity that Archie is a jokey and plays football for the school and he wear the jacket to represent the schools football team.

Veronica is wearing a clean well-fashioned dress that could be looked as something from the upper class, and she is also wearing a pearl necklace which also represents her wealth in a way and helps the audience identify that she may be part of the upper class even more, or at least her parents.

Cheryl is wearing a cherry on her shirt on the top left corner, this may represent her last time as Blossom and how cherries blossom, this also implies to the audience that cherries are sweet and Cheryl is trying to make an impression that he is sweet.

Editing:
There are a lot of shot, reverse shots in the extract especially when the group of friends are sitting at the lunch table and making a conversation that extends a long amount of time until Archie sees Cheryl then leaves. But then Cheryl joins them and starts another conversation involving shot, reverse shot again.

Throughout the conversations on the table there is also the 360 degree rule of Archie and Veronica talking about his song.

Sound:
At the start of the extract there is a Non-Diegetic sound of background music playing as Veronica walks down the stairs, then it changes to a smooth transition of when the camera changes to the laptop screen the sound changes into a diegetic sound that you can hear coming out of the laptop.

There is Dialogue in the next scene when Veronica sits down with then Kevin saying "I thought we'd actually have to pretend to like it, but its actually really good" this implies that the group is comedic

There is more Dialogue but it is not comedic but rather insulting as Kevin says to "Is cheerleading still a thing?" then Cheryl blossom comes back with a sassy attitude and says says back to him "Is being the gay bestfriend still a thing?" this shows the audience that no one in the group likes Cheryl as he has got a Regina George vibe to her.