Turning Green : Tracing the Thread of Clothing and Class in The House (2022)

Abstract: By use of qualitative, semiotic analysis of screenshots taken from Part I of the three-part anthologyfilm The House (2022), an adult stop-motion animation using puppets, the clothing of the charactersis analysed to examine how they convey class and power based on theory by Stuart Hall, PierreBourdieu, Beverly Skeggs and Marita Sturken & Lisa Cartwright. The text further uses fashionhistory to contextualise and interpret visual references to British monarchs Elizabeth I and Henry VIII. The study finds Part I of The House portrays the anxiety and exploitation of the working-classcharacters through the colour, number of layers, fabrics, references and changes in the characters’costumes in a way that lines up with the arguments presented by Bourdieu and Skeggs about culturalcapital and popular representation of the working class. Part I’s construction of class may not reflectthe diversity of class experiences found in the real world, but through further analysis including thetwo other parts of The House this reading may differ as those include other characters and settings.