Description of Media Product
The ‘Tea and Consent’ youtube video, uploaded by the Thames Valley Police youtube channel is an informative 2D animated video to help better the understanding of individuals regarding consensual sexual intercourse by using an analogy involving a cup of tea or the act of drinking tea. The video is aimed at no specific age, no specific people group or gender, it is simply a general understanding of consensual sexual intercourse and how to avoid sexually assaulting someone.
Media Representation
The video represents two individuals, two people. One of whom represents you, the viewer. The viewer is the person who is proposing a cup of tea to the other person, whom represents a person in your life that you may or may not be sexually active with.
The person that represents you asks the other person a number of times, “Would you like a cup of tea?” Implying a proposition of sexual intercourse with the other person by using the tea analogy. The person being asked by “you” in this situation gives varying responses, relying on you to understand when it is okay to have sexual intercourse with someone and when it is not. Other times, the person representing “you” presents the other person with multiple different types of propositions about sexual intercourse such as (for example) “You had a cup of tea yesterday, so I assume you would like one today as well?”
The video helps the viewer to differentiate between times when it is okay and not okay to propose another individual with the act of sexual intercourse. Being non-specific, the video is indiscriminate, unbiased and totally not obscure in the slightest and is thus something that all should be able to relate to.
Media Language and Forms
There is no real scenery with the video being extremely simple and minimalistic using only the colours black and white with no backdrops, no evident scenery and the only involved prop being a cup of tea, with the tea representing the main focus of the video. There is narration with only one person performing the voice-over, playing all roles in the video whilst also narrating the video throughout. The video is not accompanied by any music, this has the effect of focusing all of the viewers attention on the video, the message and the tea scenario. A good technique used to get the important message across to the presumably (although not definitely) young and impressionable viewer.
Nothing is imposed upon you, the viewer throughout the video, it is free of denotation and full of connotation by using analogies and metaphors themed around the tea scenario. The narration simply interprets these analogies and metaphors with a narration using connotations that help the viewer understand what the narrator is saying with clever and well-delivered connotations.
The Narrative
The narrative is hidden and yet the message is able to get across to the viewer without any convoluted solutions being used to make drive home the message bluntly, as if what was trying to be explained and conveyed was not already obvious to those aware of what the video is about. One must credit the excellent fashion in which this video portrays the importance of consensual sex and how to avert doing anything that would violate someone.
The narrator manages to get the point of the video across to the viewer(s) without being preachy, provocative or aggressive in delivery. The narrator seems to be a male of approximately 30-40 years, being an age that is young enough to get through to a young audience (most likely the target audience for the video) and yet old enough for older men to relate to and understand the narrator and thus the video. A video like this shows how far some parts of the world have come in treating others with care and respect with regards to consensual sex and being inoffensive to sexual partners, whatever sort of relationship you have with them. An important and well-explained message.
Romano G Media 