Coming Down The Mountain Textual Analysis

Season 1 Epsiode 1

The first shot is a bird's-eye view shot of a bedroom. We see that on the side of the abled brother, the walls are white and the bed is tidy. On the other side, where the disbaled brother sleeps, the place is bright orange and messy. This suggests that the disabled brother is child-like, unlike the abled brother, which could mean that the abled brother has to take care of the other one. Next, there is an establishing shot of the house, and a sound bridge as the camera cuts to the kitchen scene. In the kitchen David has a conflict with his parents because Ben has eaten all the weetabix. There is a lot of focus on Ben here, as the camea continuously cuts between him and the other characters. This shows that in the house Ben is the centre of attention. We see the mother place an affectionate kiss on Ben's forehead, and the camera cuts to a reaction shot of David. This shows that Ben receives more affection than David, which David may resent. The father also instructs David to take Ben to the toilet, rather than the father doing it himself. This shows that most of the responsibility is put on David's shoulders rather than the parents, which places a lot of restrictions on David's life. Next there is a montage of David and Ben's daily life together  with a voiceover from David explaining his feelings about this. The use of the voiceover suggests that David does not have anyone to talk to about his feelings, and that he normally represses or compartilises these emotions because everyone is normally concerned with Ben. At the school, David and a friend have a conversation together. Ben is in the background, yet out of focus. This shows that although at home Ben is the centre of attention, once David goes to school he tries to normalise his life by not paying him a lot of attention. However, Ben's presence in the background shows that he will always be there, and that David will always have to take care of him.

Overall, the clip represents disabled people as being child-like and having to be taken care of by abled people. Abled people are either shown to be treating the disabled person like a child (the mother), or resenting them for impacting their life so much (David).