Representation of youth in British TV and FilmBy Noor Sharif

I will be discussing in detail the stereotypes surrounding the young people of today’s society. And what a sub-culture is and I will be research the sub-cultures in the 20th century. I will be looking into the filmic, TV, comedic and music videos representations of young people.

Stereotypes

What stereotypes of young people exist in today’s society?

How might young people be described?

Do you think there are a range of stereotypes that exist to define young people today? Or do you think many young people are seen from a narrow point of view? Explain your ideas.

British youth’s have been represented in a really negative light, this is presented using Television programs and films. For example: Fish Tank. They are stereotyped to be involved in crime, come from a broken home and rowdy.

The media (film and TV) operate within a structure that produces and reinforces negative stereotypes. This will affect how young people are seen. For example: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-26230410 - this website states that many teenagers are afraid that the media stereotypes may cloud a persons judgment of them and lead to them not getting the jobs they want.

I believe that there are a range of stereotypes that exist in today’s society which define how we are perceived. They are like sticky labels and can be difficult to remove. This is because many people watch television and films and they witness a few of the same behaviors in some teenagers, they use this on labeling the majority of teenagers as troublemakers or uneducated.

Sub-cultures Sub-culture is a cultural group within a larger culture, who

often have beliefs or interests at variance with those of the larger cultures

Examples of subcultures are: greasers, mods/rockers, hippies, ravers, grunge and gangsters.

What is meant by the term sub-culture?

Research some of the following sub-cultures from the 20th century and share your findings: greasers, mods/rockers, hippies, ravers, grunge and gangsters.

Greaser

A greaser is a youth sub-culture that originated in the 1950s among teens in northeastern and southern US. The features of this sub-culture was rock and roll music and they were usually working class neighborhoods that greaser subculture was popular in. This subculture has been enhanced by using the media to represent it, for example: Elvis Presley, Ritchie Valens who were singers were used to influence teens.

Rockers Rockers are part of a biker

subculture that originated during the 1950s in the United Kingdom. Rockers had many different characteristics, for example: they only bought factory made motorcycles, they stripped them down and made them to appear like racing bikes. They used the skull and crossbones as a type of symbolism too. They also had heavily decorated motorcycle jackets with metal studs, patches, pin badges.

Mods Mod is a British youth subculture of

the early to mid 1960s. It focused on modernist men who listened to modern jazz music. They wore significant fashion items like tailor made suits and listened to music such as ska and soul. They usually rode motor scooters. The mods have had a conflict with the rockers because in the 1950s to 1960s they were the main subcultures. The mods were seen as stuck up, middle classed, snobbish and phony whereas the rockers were seen as loutish, scruffy and naïve.

Hippie

Hippie subculture was originated in the United States during the mid 1960s and slowly spread around all the other countries. Hippies created their own communities, listen to psychedelic music, embraced sexual revolution and used drugs such as cannabis to explore altered states of consciousness.

Hippies are different because they wanted to free themselves from societal restrictions, they wanted to choose there own way and make their own rules and have a new meaning to life.

Ravers

Raves is a large party or festival featuring music from DJs this will include house, trance, techno, drum and bass, hardcore, hard style music. They originated in the mid-to-late 1980s in Chicago in United States of America. There characteristics differ, for example: ravers subcultures have been branded as purely drug-centric cultures. Their attire usually consists of Vick VapoRub – which ravers find pleasant under the influence of ecstasy. And they carry pacifiers – which satiates the need to grind one’s teeth and they carry glow sticks which adjunct the mild psychedelic of ecstasy effect.

Grunge

Grunge is a subgenre of alternative rock that originated during the mid 1980s in Seattle Washington. It is generally characterized by a sludgy guitar sound that uses a high level of distortion, fuzz and feedback effects. Clothing worn by grunge musicians consisted of thrift store items, flannel shirts.

Gangster

Gangster is a criminal who is part of a gang. They are also known as mobsters. They have been active for many years in countries around the world. Gangsters are the subject of many movies. Gangs have a sense of common identity and belonging, this is reinforced by activities and visual identifications such as tattoos, rings and hoodies.

Filmic representation of young people

Young people have been represented in a negative stereotype in majority of the British films. For example: in films they are usually dressed in dark clothing, caps and scarves that cover their identities. Through the use of Mise-en-scene, weapons are usually illustrated on the youth. British youth are stereotyped as being rowdy, hood rats and chavy that have had a bad childhood or background. For example: in the film Fish Tank, they are stereotyped negatively but the film focuses on the reason as to why they are like this. It looks deeply into the factors affecting the teenagers behavior like her upbringing. The main character is called Mia and she has been represented as an under aged drinker, smoker, she has had sex with her mothers boyfriend. She is boisterous and loud which goes against how a female teenager should be.

TV representation of young people

The TV represents people in a different way than a film, this maybe because a film can only summarize everything that affects a teenager. However, TV programs such as My Mad Fat Diary or Waterloo Road look very closely at the teenagers life and the factors affecting their behavior. Youth culture is usually represented in TV drama as disrespectful, rebellious, menace to society, dangerous, lazy and violent. The media uses language to aid to the negative representations by having swearing, slang, mocking, argumentative and flirtatious languages. They tend to look accurately into everyday youth life by having storylines that include relationships, affairs, drugs, law breaking, suicide, pregnancy, broken homes and depression.

Comedic representations of young people

Comedic representations are used in Diary of a Bad Man, where he informs people of his life or a stereotypical life of a person of that culture. This looks at a culture as a whole and has a narrow point of view on them. This is only done for comedic purposes on YouTube and it does not intend to create a negative stereotype on people.

Thank you – Noor Sharif