斯蒂芬·弗雷斯是英国资历较老、作品繁多、风格灵活多变的电影导演，他善于从现实生活汲取选材融入其商业化创作，体现作为知识分子的抱负。他很早开始关注少数族裔群体，《我美丽的洗衣店》、《美丽坏东西》是其著名的关注移民群体的影片。在种族成为电影创作热门题材的当下，本文以弗雷斯这位多次探讨种族话题的导演为切入点，选取其五部电影——《我美丽的洗衣店》、《睡遍伦敦》、《童言有忌》、《亨德逊夫人敬献》、《美丽坏东西》作为研究对象，同时比照其他英国导演相似题材影片。本文采用以文本研究为主的研究方法，结合电影人物形象塑造、社会学、文化批评、后殖民主义、性别研究等相关理论，对其电影中的少数族裔人物形象进行梳理、考察。

        在上文所提及的影片中，弗雷斯塑造了一批社会、经济、文化背景差异巨大的少数族裔形象，围绕他们的社会处境和生活际遇展开表达。第一章对五部影片的选材以及主题进行分析，弗雷斯取材于英国本土的历史和当代事件，以少数族裔群体的生存难题和阶级差异冲突作为影片主题。第二章对影片中少数族裔形象的时代意义进行解读，弗雷斯以犹太裔商人形象对英国的反犹主义进行反思，通过中产阶级商人形象和知识分子形象对撒切尔主义展开批判，聚焦新世纪的非法移民和难民问题并反映他们的困境。第三章从性别角度分析少数族裔人物形象，男性角色处于强势地位，多数男性角色的父权观念浓厚，将女性视为男性的附属甚至玩物；但少数富有男性气概的男性角色发挥重要作用，他们的品格值得推崇。而少数族裔女性形象可分为三类：处于父权阴影之下的家庭主妇形象、抛弃旧观念的年轻女性形象以及挑战父权的越轨女性形象。第四章考察了弗雷斯塑造少数族裔形象的电影手法。他通过描绘少数族裔人物所在的居住空间、工作空间及城市空间凸显人物性格特点；他擅长在现实风格中加入悬疑惊悚、喜剧等类型元素增强少数族裔人物形象的感染力，使观众与人物感同身受。

Stephen Frears is a veteran British director with many film works and various visual styles. He is excel in grounding realist theme in commercial films, embodying his aspiration as an intellectual. He showed his concern about ethnic minorities people in films early. His films, My Beautiful Laundrette and Dirty Pretty Things, which are famous for their themes about migrants. Nowadays race has become a hot topic in the films. So this thesis focus on Frears who has discussed race problem for many times in his films. Frears’s five films, My Beautiful Laundrette, Sammy and Rosie Get Laid, Liam, Mrs Henderson Presents, and Dirty Pretty Things, will be examined, taking reference with other British directors’ films which have similar theme as well. This thesis mainly bases on the methods of text research, and uses theories such as sociology, cultural criticism, postcolonialism, gender research, etc.

        Frears characterized a group of ethnic minorities’ images with great diversity in social, economic and cultural backgrounds in those films mentioned above. And those films tell the stories about ethnic minorities’ social situation and life experience. Chapter one analyses themes of five films. Based on the historical and contemporary events in Britain mostly, Frears took the survival problems and class differences as the themes of his five films. Chapter two discusses the significance of the ethnic minorities’ images in their period. Frears reflects on the anti-semitism in Britain with the images of Jewish businessmen, criticizing Thatcherism by the images of middle-class businessmen and intellectuals, focusing on the problem of illegal immigrants and refugees and representing their problems. Chapter three looks at the ethnic minorities’ images from a perspective of gender. Male characters play a dominant role in the ethnic minorities’ characters. Most of male characters hold strong patriarchal ideas and regard females as males’ belongings or even playthings, while other male characters with great manliness play a leading role in the films, their virtues should be praised. On the other hand, female ethnic minorities’ images include the housewives which under the shadow of patriarchy, the young female abandoning old-fashioned ideas and the transgressive female challenging patriarchy. Chapter four examines how Frears created ethnic minorities’ images. He brought ethnic minorities’ characters to life by depicting their living space, working space and urban space. He did well in combining realist style with elements of suspense, thriller and comedy, as to make ethnic minorities’ images impressive and arouse audience’s sympathy for those characters.