Shameless - Series 1, Episode 1

In the opening scene, we see that some of the characters in Shameless have an anti-social nature, which is a steretype commonly asociated with northerners due to their higher crime rates. Stereotypes are used from the very beginning to give the audience a chance to recognise what sort of characters they are going to be watching and their backgrounds. Many shots are showed of stereotypical northerners, such as: the main character, Frank, introduces the audience to his family; a shot of his daughter Debbie is shown and intertextuality is used, she poses whilst holding a knife and rolling pin, this is created by Vinnie Jones from the 1998 film 'Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels'. This makes the montage more appealing to a wider audience as they are covering more people's interests. During the opening scene, it becomes more than obvious that the priorities of the family is partying - rather than working. This is another classic stereotype of northerners, to be 'uneducated'.

Sexuality is explored in this episode, as Ian, is found guilty of being gay, by his brother, Lip because he finds Ian's stash of gay pornography. Later on, Lip shows Ian his findings and Ian looks shocked as he does this, the camera backs away to reveal Ian and Lip's shared room. The mise-en-scene shows a poster Kylie Minogue which helps make the scene less sinister and more comical. When Ian is confronted Lip, he cries, which is playing up to the stereotype of gay men being very "easily affected" and femininity. Ian has an unstereotypical appearance of a gay person but not even this stops Lip to alienate Ian because of his sexuality; this hepls to show how being gay in a stereotypical northern location is not accepted. Lip completely contradicts Ian's character as he is a typical teenage boy with all the stereotypes you can ever imagine. However, there is one thing which is not very stereotypical of Lip, he is very good at physics, whih he uses to gain himself a sexual encounter with Karen. Later, Lip boasts about his sexual encounter, which is another great stereotype of teenage boys.

We then meet Steve and Fiona. They fit into another stereotype of northerners, by being drunk, disorderly and aggressive. Steve fights with another man, and then "decks" the doorman. When they get home, Steve boasts to the other characters about what has just happened, they all know who the bouncer was, which shows that they have all been in trouble with him before, again meeting another great stereotype of notherners. Steve and Fiona begin to get close and quite sexual with one another, romantic music is playing faintly in the background, giving off a quite magical atmosphere. The scene then cuts directly to them having a very graphic sexual encounter in a very non-dignified way. During the sexual encounter, Fiona shouts 'ni, ni, ni' which is another great use of intertextuality, as this featured in a Monty Python episode.