Representation of Disabilty in a touch of frost

Representation of Disability in a touch of frost.

When we first see Billy in the episode he is running away from the police. The police officers take him down as if he is not disabled in any way this suggest to us as an audience that he may be treated in society as no different to anyone else. The camera shot is a very fast panning shot whilst he is running through the woods, this displays action and the fast pace which everything is happening at. The producers may have done this in order to create tension in the scene. Also to add to this affect the length of the clips are very short and fast moving. The mise en scene in this specific scene is very much made up of a setting of the woods and there seems to be a wall of police officers chasing Billy.

The next scene is one in which Detective Frost is having a talk with Billy’s dad. Frost refers to Billy who is a down syndrome as mentally subnormal. Billy’s dad seems to object to this quite strongly. We can see this through his body language towards frost. The camera angle in the scene is very much from a tilted angle, almost as if we are eves dropping into the conversation. This gives us a sense that the conversation is supposed to be relatively secret.  This method is very clever from the producer as it is very subtle and most of the audience are likely not to notice it, but will subconsciously.  We also get the impression that the talk is intended to be secret due to the fact that the sounds of the characters voices are very quiet and subdued. This suggests that they don’t want Billy to hear.

The content of the next scene is very much focused on Detective Frost interviewing Billy trying to receive information about the disappearance of a young woman.  At the start of this scene we feel sorrow for Billy due to the fact that he seems very innocent in terms of the way he looks and sounds. It makes the audience feel as if he is a vulnerable character and doesn’t deserve to be quizzed like this. We get a sense of vulnerability from Billy due to the camera angle, as it is very much looking down on Billy as if to suggest that he is innocent and needs protecting. The cuts on Billy’s face also contribute to our feeling toward him. The producer may have done this in order to provoke sorrow for Billy the Character. Earlier in the episode I mentioned that the police officers in the woods seem to treat Billy in a normal way as they just rugby tackled him to the ground like any other person would be dealt with by the police if they had reason to believe they had committed a serious crime. But in this scene our view on this changes as an audience due to the fact that Detective Frost speaks to Billy in a very simplistic way which suggests to us that he feels that Billy is very much childlike and wouldn’t understand what Frost said if he spoke in complex language and grammar. So this shows us two very different ways in which Billy is treated in society. The camera shots in this scene are very much alternating between both Frost and Billy who is seen to be guilty in terms of the young woman going missing. The alternate camera shot are to show the audience Frost’s body language and feeling towards Billy. At some points whilst Frost is interviewing  Billy we can see that frustration is creeping in as Billy is not really helping by giving very simplistic answers to Frost’s questions.