The Change Up: Characters

In the opening scene of The Change Up we are introduced to 4 characters. The first character we are introduced to is a man, who happens to be the father and husband of a family of 4. Firstly we are introduced to him by a birds eye, long shot.  To the right is a close up shot of the male character. In this shot he is wearing blue pyjamas which is a very stereotypical blue colour showing that his character has a reliance on the male stereotype. On his left hand we can see a wedding ring providing the audience with the knowledge that this man is married. In the scene the character is told to take care of the baby/babies which are crying by his supposed wife, which presents a role-reversal where the man shares the archetypal female role to look after the children. This shows the modern context of the film because the social ideologies for roles is very different to a time when archaic values were more prevalent. Furthermore, the fact he is presented as being clean and well dressed suggests that he is moderately wealthy.

The second character we are introduced to is the wife. In this middle long shot of the woman we can see that alternatively to her husband, she is wearing a yellow vest top. This shows her character isn't reliant on the female stereotype and establishes that the film is set in a modern context because the archetypal perception of women hasn't influenced the woman in how she looks or dresses. Furthermore, rather than helping to care for her children, she has left the job to her husband, showing she isn't submissive or weak but just as dominant as her husband, reflecting that she doesn't subscribe to the feminine archetype. Like her husband, she is also dressed suitably and within a clean environment also giving the reading that the film is set within a moderately wealthy household.

This middle close up shot shows a baby girl of whom constitutes the third character we are introduced to. In the shot the baby is wearing pink baby clothing with pink flowers decorating the costume. This is a stereotypical female colour and like with all things associated with boys and girls, pink and blue are colours that have always stereotyped genders with which the children rely on.

Another middle close up shot is used to show the twin baby boy. In this shot the boy is wearing a black and white striped costume. While the costume isn't blue as with the stereotypical colour for baby boys, the fact the costume uses dark colours such as black, still conveys the sense that the baby is still being likened to the archetype of wearing darker colours to impose ideas of strength.


In this long shot i wanted to highlight how there is still a reliance on the male and female stereotype with the way you can see that each baby wears socks characteristic to their gender e.g. pink for the baby girl and blue for the baby boy. The same goes for the tops of the bottles that the babies are feeding from.