Use of themes in British Social Realism

What is the link between British Social Realism themes and the real world?

 The link between social realism themes and the real world is that firstly everything that we see as an aduience in British social realism films we see in real life. Everything that is being produced is not something made up and is taken from real life experieces. British social realism get their insipiration from real British news and take it and re-create it to make a film based version. The link is very strong and whatever we may see on the news there is a re-created movie form for social realism. For exmaple a recent drug story about "Police warning over 'contaminated' ecstasy batch" or unemployment "Unemployment in Wales has fallen 1,000 between September and November"

What is unique about how themes are explored in British social realism films?

Social realism themes include race, violence, domestic violence, gangs drug sue, mental illness, pregnancy, crime, abuse, feminism, unemplyoment, poverty, history etc. What is unique about these themes are that they all link together somehow and one can influence another for example race could inclufuence violence which can then again influence gangs. They all tie in together and in one film there are many different types of themes not just one that they stick to covering loads of different problems trying to get a messafe across. Theme are also explored by looking at in depth and a lot of detail is shown about them learning more than you already know. For example the movie "Fish Tank" links loads of themes together from poverty to drug and alcahol abuse and aspirations. A real life example with that would be someone like Stacy Solomon who was living in a life of poverty and didn't have much to start with, then she went on XFactor and became famous and used her singing talents to make a name for herself. 

 

 

Is there any themes which are essential to all British social realist films? What are they? Why are they essential?

Themes that I would say are essential to all British social realist films are poverty, disfunctional familys, violence and use and abuse of drugs.

Poverty- this is essential for British social realism films because the characters who we are usually shown always come from a less wealthy background and we always see scenes which relate to them being poor e.g. living in an estate area and have loads of cheap items that are low quality.

Disfunctional familys- this is a key theme because it helps to show peoples everyday life and problems and doesn't suger coat anything its used so people can relate and not feel alone because usually in holloywood we always see the perferct family with no real problems.

Violence- Viol,ence is something that happens a lot in everyday British life and this is a very commen thing so by having this as a key theme you are sticking to being as true to British social realism as possible.

Use and abuse of drugs-  this is also a key theme for the same reasons as violence.