1. Themes, Messages and Values in
Love Actually and Four Lions
Group Work preparing a
presentation to inform the rest of
the class

2. What are Themes, Messages and
Values?
• Themes
• subject or topic
that is presented
or explored in a
text
• What are the key
issues explored in
this text?
• Message
• A way of
thinking or
instruction
about how to
behave that the
text
communicates
to the audience
• How are we told
to think about
the themes
• Values
• relative worth,
or importance
of something
• What thing are
seen as
important/
valuable
according to the
text, What is not
important

3. Task
• Themes
• Identify 3 -4 key
themes in your
film
• Try and pick at
least one theme
that is also
included in the
other film and at
least one the is
unique to your
film
• Message
• Explain what the
film is trying to
say to us about
the key themes
you have
identified
• Do you agree/
disagree with
the messages?
Why?
• Values
• What concepts
are seen a
valuable
according to
your film, What
is not valued?
• Do you agree/
disagree? Why?
What scenes could you talk about to illustrate your ideas and
what could you specifically say about those scenes

4. Essay Question
• How would you answer this question?
– What have you found interesting about some of the
messages and values contained in the genre films you
have studied for this topic?
(Try to think about how typical these themes are of the
genre, are they dealing with issues in a different way, do
they challenge some of the assumptions we have, what
impact does the time they were made have on the way
they deal with the themes etc)