Creating Safe Spaces For Unsafe Cultural Practice: Analysis Of A Scene From 'Suits'

Background

Describe about the Creating Safe Spaces for Unsafe Cultural Practice.

Background

Cultural safety is an effective practice of a person depicted by him or herself.  The unsafe cultural practice occurs when one's identity is degraded (Gerlach A. 2012). It ensures that a person receives the best out of what is being offered. The culture may include the sexual orientation, occupation, age, religious beliefs, and professions among others. Whatever seems safe to one individual may be unsafe to another.

This report will focus on identifying safety space in the first episode of the first season of American comedy-drama Suits. The primary focus will be on the scenes that lead to the recruitment of the new junior partner in a law firm. The series of events creates unsafe space to the audience.

The aim of this report is to provide a summary, description, and analysis of a safe space and to recommend ways to improve the safety of the space.

Episode one of the first season of the American comedy-drama series ‘Suits’ revolves around the attempt to employ an associate assistant lawyer for the newly promoted senior lawyer, Harvey Spector. Meanwhile, Mike Ross, a college dropout is delivering a bag of marijuana for his best friend only to find out the destination is a trap to catch him and therefore has to escape the police. Mike finds himself in an interview setting. In his interview, Harvey is impressed by him and is hired.

The sequence of events in this clip is clear and easy to understand. The picture quality is superb, and one does not need to gaze to figure out what is happening. As an introduction, it gives the audience the morale to watch more. It is, therefore, a safe. The setting of this video is a hotel and was aired on June 23, 2011, in the USA.

Film analysis involves the synthesis of a film through, cinematography, sound and editing (Aumont & Michele, n.d). Safe space where individuals are secured and feel safe (Booker, 2007) while unsafe space is where people feel threatened and the place is prone to accidents (Langhout & Annear, 2011). There are several theories and methods that are used in film analysis as will be discussed in this section.

First is the shot-by-shot analysis which is written an account of a particular series in a film the arrangement of the shots. Ryan & Lenos (2012) suggest that this method is best when dealing with small clips and is done starting with the description of the techniques used in the images being analyzed. Once the description is done, their effects on the viewers are elaborated.  The techniques may include cinematography which may include the long and medium shot and the editing. The images should give the correct meaning intended to the users despite the changes that may be made.

Scope

Secondly is the iconic analysis which is concerned with images. To analyze the images, some elements like the camera movements and light must be considered (Sobchack & Sobchack, 2016). The light to and from the image should not affect its quality nor should the audience feel masked behind the story at the expense of the image. Both the image and the story line should speak the same language, that is, they should not be contradictive.

Films can also be analyzed using the contextualist approach where a film is viewed in a broad picture like a society (Jacobs, 2013). This may include issues too with the period and date when it was created, the particular beliefs behind the creation, the director’s other works, the author among others. In relation to this, for the film to be considered safe, it should not annoy the audience wherever they watch it. If the film does not meet the viewer expectations, then the clip will qualify to be in unsafe mode. This method can be linked with the psychoanalytical approach where a connection is created between various entities; in this case the video clips (Rubin, 2012).

The above approaches are necessary to analyze the selected video clip that is the episode one of the first seasons of the America drama-comedy Suits (https://www.watchseries.ac/episode/suits_s1_e1.html). Using these criteria, the quality of the video regarding the pictures will be determined together with the context to help in drawing conclusion why it is considered safe.

The entire episode runs for 73 minutes with the size of 565 megabytes while the series of events up to a point Mike is hired goes for 24 minutes. The characters in the video are well represented and are easily identified. The pictures are clear and easy to comprehend. Their body language is also a correspondent with what they are acting like when Mike is surprised when he realize he has been trapped, his face clearly shows that he is scared. The words are also clear, and the sound quality is commendable.

In their definition of safe space, Holley & Steiner (2005) says that it is where people can express themselves emotionally and air their views freely and still feel part of the group. This is to say that in ensuring inclusion of individuals. In the clip, this is evident when despite not going to Harvard school of law, Mike explains himself, and he is heard. He, therefore, feels part of the movie.

Aim

There is evidence of cultural intelligence in the movie clip. When Mike, a drug seller comes to an interview setting and specifically in a law setting, he immediately changes his mind to the new environment, and the viewer can easily tell the difference between the old and the new Mike. The director is, therefore, cultural sensitive even to the audience.

In the video, Mike displayed a high level of cultural intelligence by adjusting his looks immediately he realizes he has been trapped and was face to face with the police. He has to look for a way to escape them and start walking in the opposite direction before starting to run. This is in line with Brislin, Worthley & McNab (2006) definition of cultural intelligence as he is ready to adapt the new culture. Mike showed that he had been reading the police body language and noticed the gun they were carrying and therefore has to act first.

In relation to Ryan & Lenos (2012) on shot-by-shot analysis, the director of the series brings out his ideas in a sequential easy to understand manner. Harvey is first promoted and instructed to recruit an assistant. Meanwhile, Mike is on a mission to deliver drugs for his friend Trevor, and it happens that the destination of delivery is the same place the interview is taking place. When he realizes the trap, he runs towards the direction of the interview, gets a chance and is accepted. These series of events are sequential and clear. The images together with the lighting are linear. This qualifies the clip to be safe.

Looking at this video from the contextualist point of view also qualifies as a safe video. Kevin Bray, the director of the series, is known for his other past good shows like the vampire diaries. With the high ratings of his previous works, viewers are interested in watching an almost similar series or even a better one. True to their prediction, Suits starts at a high rate that is appealing and exciting. Jacobs (2013) idea of viewing video from the broader society aspect is therefore manifested in this particular clip giving it the qualification.

Sobchack & Sobchack (2016) point of view of iconic analysis is also a qualifier depicted in the clip. In their view, the camera and light quality is a major factor when deciding the safety of a video. This is evident in the clip from the fact that the amount of light subjected to the images are suitable enough to the extent that it is easy to identify the color of the clothes the actors are wearing like to tell the black tie Mike is wearing from the brown one Harvey has during their interview. This avoids confusion of characters.

Summary of video clip

Booker (2007) advises that individuals should be provided with safe spaces to encourage them and to give them a sense of belonging. In this clip, Harvey first despises Mike with the fact that he has not gone to a law school despite the fact that he needs a job. This can demoralize and turn out to the end the road for some, however, good they may be.

According to Gayle, Cortez & Preiss (2013), individuals should be provided with adequate security in relation to their culture and/or religion. In this clip, the audience is at a risk of engaging in illegal activities like selling marijuana and still go unpunished or some may stop working hard with the hope that they will be employed anyway because of their smartness. These aspects may be safe to the actors, but unsafe for the viewer hence need for adjustment. It is important therefore that movie directors do not care only about driving the point home but also impacting positively on the audience.

Conclusion

From the discussion, the first episode of season one the American drama-comedy Suits has been analyzed and proved to offer a safe space. The clip cover the first part of the episode consisting of the series of events that lead to the hiring of Mike Ross as the new assistant to the newly promoted senior attorney, Harvey Spector. The analysis has however identified some aspects that need to be changed like the community view of the video. This is to ensure both the actors and audience gain positively.

References

Aumont J. and Michele M. (n.d). L’Analyse des Films/Analysis of Film. Nathan

Booker, K. C. (2007). Perceptions of Classroom Belongingness among African American College Students. College Student Journal, 41(1), 178.

Brislin R, Worthley R. & McNab B. (2006). Cultural Intelligence- Group and Organization Management. Vol. 31

Gayle, B.; Cortez, D.; and Preiss, R.W. (2013). Safe Spaces, Difficult Dialogues, and Critical Thinking. International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning: Vol. 7: No. 2, Article 5.

Gerlach A. (2012). A critical reflection on the concept of cultural safety. The Canadian journal of Occupational Therapy.

Holley, L. C., & Steiner, S. (2005). Safe space: Student perspectives on classroom environment. Journal of Social Work Education, 41(1), 49-64.

Jacobs C. (2013). Film Theory and Approaches to Criticis.

Langhout, R. D., & Annear, L. (2011). Safe and unsafe school spaces: Comparing elementary school student perceptions to common ecological interventions and operationalizations. Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology. 21(1), 71-86.

Rubin J (2012). The Real Oedipus Complex. Psychology Today

Ryan M. and Lenos M. ( 2012). An Introduction to Film Analysis: Technique and Meaning in Narrative Film. London: Continuum. Print

Sobchack T and  Sobchack V. (2016) An Introduction to Film. Longman. Retrieved on October 7, 2016

Suits season one episode one retrieved from https://www.watchseries.ac/episode/suits_s1_e1.html  on October 7, 2016