When Mia takes Connor's daughter away it represents her trying to prove that there can't be a fairy tale ending. In Propps theory, the princess often gets saved by the hero and they all have a happy ending, whereas in Fish Tank Connors daughter is the princess and Mia doesn't want to let her have a happy ending with her dad, instead Mia wants to be saved by Connor. The audience can tell that Connor's daughter is meant to represent the princess by the clothes that she is wearing. She is wearing an all pink dress which is stereotypically what a 'princess' wears. Mia, who is wearing all black, also represents the villain in a way, as the villain always tries to disrupt the happy ending and that is exactly what Mia is trying to do.
Representation
Mias family is made up of her, her mum and her sister. Her mum never treats her right in the movie and is always shouting and swearing at her and occasionally hitting her and pinching her. This shows us that she doesn't care about her family and instead pays more attention to her love interest, Connor. This goes against the stereotypical view of a women as being caring and loving towards her family. Connor begins the film being her mum's love interest and a father figure for the two girls. The first scene in the film that shows the family actually being happy and getting along is when all four of them are in the car together. They are singing and laughing and it shows Mia actually looking happy for the first time. Mia is also shown enjoying herself when they get to the location and is joking around with Connor. This shows that a family needs a father figure to hold them together and that the girls are reliant on having a man in the family.
Genre
When the family are in the car, hand held camera work makes it more realistic and as if you are actually in the car with them. This is a typical convention for the Social Realism genre to make the audience feel like they are there following the characters around to make it seem more real. In the car scene they also use point of view shots, where the camera is placed in the position of the character looking at another character in the car. This again makes it seem more real so that you can get a glimpse of what the character is seeing and therefore understanding how the characters are feeling towards the other characters in the film. These handheld and point of view shots are common in social realism films.
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