Describe the representation of of youth in the two posters. What are the connotations of the two texts?

Posters:

Connotations:

The Quadrophenia film poster has a youth representation that they all belong to one category and people assume that if they wear the same clothes as the people in the poster then they are automatically in this group. It shows a range of people and this could have the connotation that the group has a wide range of people and they don't have certain requirements for people to be part of the group, which then means that the group becomes more popular. They clothes that they are all wearing are 'stylish' as the 'Mods' spent most of their disposable income on their clothes, peds and drugs.

The This Is England poster is very different as it shows the youths being in a lower social class because of the background, the background of the first poster looks as though they are outside a pub/club whereas the This is England poster seems to be set outside of a council state which immediately creates the impression that the people are of the 'lower class'. The people that are shown on these posters are in cheaper clothes than the group before but still have a similar style as most of them have branded clothes which makes you think that they also spend the majority of their disposable money on clothes, rather than living standards.

How does contemporary representation compare to previous time periods?

What is a youth sub-culture?

• A group of individuals who are united through a common value system and tastes (clothes, music, politics
• A group who are positioned outside of the mainstream. and who unify as a response to the main stream

Youth Sub-Cultures:

• Emos
• Chavs
• Indie
• Scene Kids
• Hipster
• Punks
• Skin Heads
• Hoodies
• Pikey
• Skaters
• Greasers
• Plastics

Chavs

• They think that they are better than everyone else, they usually are in large groups of people from the range of 10-20 and this seems the most popular category to be a 'chav'. The idea that they are better than everyone else. 'Talk the Talk' usually want to rebel but wouldn't act on it.
• Brand Names: Adidas, Umbro, Nike, Lonsdale, Kappa.
• 'Pimped-Up sports car' usually still a crap car.

What are the values of a sub-culture

• Conformity and rebellion
• Attitude to capitalism and consumerism
• 'Tribal' rivalry
• Traditional or 'neophile' (a person who loves novelty, one who likes trends; person who accepts the future enthusiastically and enjoys changes and evolution)
• Ideology in 1950's and 60's - peace, rebellion against parents, Radicalism - reactions against the post war

Many groups are involved in protest and resistance against the mainstream.

Teens will often move between sub-cultures and older youths mix& match styles/ values from a mix of sub-cultures.

Subculture

• In the 21st century that 'dominant meaning systems' (what defines mainstream) are crumbling
• "There is no mainstream. There are many streams."
• Mainstream is in perpetual flux, rapaciously absorbing alternative culture at such a fast rate that the notion of a mainstream becomes obsolete.
• So if there is no mainstream then there is nothing for teens to react against

1950's Teddies

• An Anti-Establishment, some were 'Juvenile Delinquents'
• Uniform: drainpipe trousers, drape Edwardian jackets with velvet collars
• Minority in Britain but they had a huge effect
• Music - introduction of rock and roll. "Rock around the clock" "Elvis Presley"

1960's Mods

• Modernist to describe modern jazz musicians and fans
• Uniform varied and they had continuous revitalisation
• As psychedelic rock and the hippie subculture grew more popular in the UK, many people drifted away from the mod scene. Bands such as The Who and Small Faces had changed their musical styles and no longer considered themselves mods.

1960's Skinheads

• A group which was formed from working class youths
• Named for their close-cropped or shaven heads
• Originally based on music, fashion or lifestyle and not on politics or race

1970's Punks

• Emerged from USA, UK and Australia
• Sub-culture based around punk rock
• Centred around listening to recording or live concerts of a loud, aggressive genre of rock music called punk rock, usually shortened to punk
• Common punk viewpoints include anti-authoritarianism, a DIY ethic, non-conformity, direct action and not selling out

WW2 happened before 1950's

• Britain was entering a period of increased freedom and affluence
• Many of the old social cultural structures began to be challenged, especially by the young

What Changed? Cultural Revolution

• Rationing was ending
• American way became key to British society
• Increased availability of cheap colour magazines
• A world wide economic booms
• Labour was defeated by the conservatives. This caused increased individual freedom.
• Youth were given more freedom through commercialism of society

Americas Influence

• London, Glasgow, Cardiff and Wolverhampton all had major America influence.
• Hollywood movies, commercial TV, glossy mags and consumer goods proved an instant hit with British consumers
• To the average Briton is offered a rich and desirable future

• Cultural Imperialism - it is the practise of promoting, distinguishing, separating or artificially injecting the culture of one society into another (America Influence on Britain Post War)

Cultural revolution

• Massive increase in the production and availability of consumer goods stimulated mass consumption
• Car ownership rose by 250% between 1951 and 1961, and between 1955 and 1960 average weekly earning rose by 34%, while the cost of technological consumer items fell in real terms.

Old Representations

Fonzie Scene, The Wild Ones

Section B Question 6 Media and Collective Identity
For A2 I have studies the representation of women in both contemporary and historical media. As David Buckingham noted in 2008, “identity is fluid and changeable” – and arguably the identity of women in recent times has changed, some may argue it has become more mediated.

Identity itself refers to who we actually are, the construction of ourselves – perhaps even the representation of ourselves and our social groups that we as media consumers wish to have. While many such as Buckingham and Gauntlett champion the fact the create and construct our own identities; others such as Theordore Adorno see identity as something pushed upon us by the mass media, that we have no alternative but to take the dominant identities we are exposed to “something is offered for all so that none may escape,” he writes in explanation of this fact. Adorno therefore argues that our identities are becoming increasingly mediated – that is, that they influenced by the mass media, inherent identifies are weak and influenced by the media around us.

‘Nuts’ magazine is a stereotypical ‘lad’s mag’, aimed at 18-24 year old males. In ana analysis of the 19-25th March 2010 issue I performed the content proves interesting with regards to representation of women. Images of semi-naked females in suggestive poses represent women as victims of symbiotic annihilation. They are portrayed as merely objects of sexual pleasure for men – the images have been constructed, Laure Mulvey would argue with her theory of the Male Gaze, solely with the male consumers in mind, who using the Uses and Gratifications Model are consuming the text for sexual pleasure. Most significant here, however, is the so-called Mirror Effect of Mulvey’s Male Gaze.

This states that women themselves consuming the images will apply the Male Gaze, and see the female in the image in a sense of what Baudrillard would call hyperreality, assuming the idea that this representation is ‘how women should be’ and in turn they should construct their identities similarly in order to appeal to males – aftr all women are the subdominant group in an apparent patriarchal society. Identity therefore has become mediated in this situation as Adorno says. The “culture industry” that is the mass media has imposed a dominant representation onto a collective group; who have felt pressured to adapt it as part of their collective identity.

In the 2001 film “Lara Croft: Tomb Raider”, Lara Croft, the main female character is represented as fairly masculine (stereotypically masculine) in terms of her choice of clothing, body language and manner. All of these micro-elements construct her identity. However, throughout the film, we also see Croft use what can be considered the concept of femininity to her advantage, flirting with male characters and wearing stereotypically feminine clothes towards the final scenes.

In terms of her character’s identity this supports Buckingham’s aforementioned assumption that “identity is fluid and changeable” but also conforms to Queer Theory. Queer Theory is widely recognized in Judith Butler’s 1990 book ‘Gender Trouble’ and states that the genders male and female are just as much the product of representation as the concepts of masculinity and femininity. She calls for a blurring of boundaries between genders and their stereotypical identities and calls for the media to celebrate such diversity. As a character, Croft arguably has blurred the boundaries displaying traits of both male and female behaviour.

If Adorno’s assertions are applied here it can be argued that again the dominant identity of women as sly, untrustworthy and in need of patriarchal dominance is being applied through Croft’s deviant use of fronting identity to her advantage.
However some could argue that the prominence of Queer Theory does not encourage the mediation of female identity instead it encourages dominant representations to be characterized and boundaries to be blurred – implying greater personal control over identity as advocated by John Fiske and David Buckingham rather than mediated identities.

Cosmopolitan is a magazine aimed at females around 30+. In all ways it can be said that pragmatically the magazine pushes femininity as an identity for itself, with stereotypically female colours and text styles. In turn, the feminine identity of the magazine is applied as a representation of the readers, further suggesting a mediation of women’s identity. The magazine focuses heavily on beauty and fitness, reinforcing the dominant ideology of the “ideal” women that women should aspire to a fixed concept of beauty.

As an example in the April 2010 issue a large image of Holly Willoughby (celebrity) features on the cover. Although unlike Nuts magazine, she is wearing fairly covering clothing and lacks cosmetic make-up, it is interesting to note that her clothing is white in colour – Ferdinand de Saussure would note that this has semiotic significance using his semiotic theory and Roland Barthe’s levels of signification, we can identify that white has connotations of innocence and weakness. Therefore this represents her as innocent and weak – reinforcing dominant patriarchal representations of women. Due to her status as a celebrity, her level of influence is great. In herself she is a semiotic symbol of success and affluence, so those who take inspiration from her will take this constructed innocence and weakness and apply it to their own identities. This is a clear example of the mediation of identity. It suggests a passive audience, influenced by the mass media as Adorno and other quasi-Marxists would suggest.

It can be seen therefore, that as post modernists say, we live in a media saturated society. We are surrounded by signs which cannot be ignored. Women in the media are often represented as varying, whether it be as sexual objects for the pleasure of males; or as innocent, as ‘stay at home’ housewives as suggested in 2008’s film Hancock. Here, despite possessing stereotypically male strength and ‘superpowers’, the lead female aspires to be a housewife – reinforcing the sub-dominant representation of women. Either way however women are often the victims of mediation. The theories of consumption and construction of identity from theorists such as Adorno and Mulvey clearly show that despite the specific representations, one common identity is ‘forced’ upon women in the media – a subdominant social group living in a patriarchal society. Identity is constructed using this as a basis; and even media texts which challenge this representation and encourage Queer Theory diversity are still arguably mediating identity with their influence. Identity is fluid and changeable and can be individually constructed as Gauntlett and Buckingham state. But arguable, the mass media are, and have, mediated the identity of women in contemporary society.

EAA 20/20
EG 18/20
T 10/10
(48)

Harry Brown

Reviews
Guardian Review - Liberal - Highlights of Review

Michael Caine gets his tastiest, nastiest role since Get Carter in this vigilante-revenge thriller set in the badlands of south-east London. His Harry Brown is a widower in his 70s, living in a council flat on a rough estate, on medication for his emphysema.

Daniel Barber's film occupies an interesting position on a certain type of Britfilm continuum with Ken Loach at one end and Nick Love at the other; it starts quite near the former and ends very near the latter. Long, ­interestingly protracted scenes show Harry getting effortfully out of bed, ­eating a sad lonely breakfast, and dozing off in the sofa of an evening. But when he discovers the need for violence, things speed up.

For my money, Harry Brown is at its best at its midway point, the Loach/Love cusp – when Harry realises that he can and will do something about the yobs. What a tremendous role for Caine. I can't imagine anyone else carrying it off.

The Telegraph - Conservative - Highlights of Review

Michael Caine is the new, if pouchy, face of zero tolerance, as a pensioner on a housing estate riddled with drug-dealing, gun-toting feral youth. When they kill his friend (David Bradley) he steps up as a geriatric avenger. Daniel Barber’s luridly brutal debut goes quickly way over the top, dignifying Harry’s crowd-pleasing revenge spree largely by making the police (Emily Mortimer?!) look like total scaredy-cats.

Summary

It seems as though media newspapers have taken less on the focus of how teenagers are represented and focused on what Michael Caine is doing well, they seem to prefer to look at the acting rather than the representation of the youth.

Theories

Theorist: Giroux (1997) Youth as Empty Category

My Explanation:

The Youth is an 'Empty Category' where the adults create their own impressions of the youth, in relation to current social issues and that is why most impressions are not realistic.

Harry Brown - The youths only have the one impression and i think that one social group fills this impression so the whole youth are judged on this.
Eden Lake - The youths are imagined as people who at first are just there to annoy, but then they become evil
Attack the Block - The youths are given the immediate impression that they are all dangerous.

Theorist: Acland (1995) Ideology of Protection; Deviant Youth and Reproduction of Social Order

My Explanation:

The 'Deviant Youth' are vital to help protect the boundaries of the 'Normal Adult' and the 'Normal Youth' relationship

Harry Brown - The 'Deviant Youth' seems to have taken over the Normal Youth stereotype so that the Deviant Youth now becomes The Normal Youth, the police try to restore this by taking out the most Deviant.
Eden Lake - relates to this as at first the youth look like the 'Normal Youth' but they are really the 'Deviant Youth' it shows how the 'Deviant Youth' can really hide themselves well.
Attack The Block - relates to this as the 'Deviant Youth' group start to develop attributes of the 'Normal Youth' as the film continues which shows how people can change from one group to another.

Theorist: Gramsci (1971) Cultural hegemony

My Explanation:

Where it is normal for one social class to out-power the others.

Harry Brown - The Youth have out-powered the other classes including the police, it takes more than one class of people to combine to take them down
Eden Lake - shows how the youth out-power the middle-class adults and will use it to their advantage
Attack the Block - The Youth run the 'Block' and the only class of people that can out-power them is the police

Theorist: Cohen (1972) Moral Panic

My Explanation:

When one select group of people becomes a threat to the 'Normal Society', and then the media represents a whole category of people in that one way, just because what a select group of people did

Harry Brown - The youth become the threat to the rest of the society, everyone then becomes afraid of every youth they see because of the actions of a group of people.
Eden Lake - The youth become the threat to 'normal Society' as the threaten peoples holidays as after this people would fear about having a holiday in a deserted area.
Attack the Block - The youth threaten the rest of the people on the block, as soon as the police turn up they instantly arrest every youth they see because of the stereotype from the media.

Theorist: McRobbie (2004) Symbolic Violence

My Explanation:

Where violence against the middle class changes characteristics of a certain social class.

Harry Brown - The youth are violent against the middle class and then all youth are instantly thought of as dangerous.
Eden Lake - The youth are violent against the middle class and then anyone who See's a youth from that point on is instantly thought of as dangerous.
Attack The Block - The youth rob the middle class woman and from then on they are seen as people who are just there to ruin the life of anyone not in their social class

Theorist: Gerbner (1986) Cultivation Theory

My Explanation:

Where the media can influence peoples understanding of the world

Harry Brown - where the media have shown that the youth around this area are dangerous and from then anyone who sees youth from this area will be weary of them.
Eden Lake - where the media would show that it is now not safe to go to somewhere where the area is deserted.
Attack The Block - the media would show that the Youth are always the people who are committing the crimes and they are to be avoided

How do the Contemporary Media represent British Youth and Youth culture in different ways?

Opening Sequence of Harry Brown (2009)
Director: Daniel Barber:

How does it represent young people?
Young people are being represented as drug smoking, violent, gun carrying gang members. This is shown right from the beginning where there is a close up with three people taking drugs and then the camera zooms out and shows the whole gang down the alley. These representations create an image that all youths are like this and the fact that it is filmed using a handy-cam can also create the idea that this is what British youth are doing in real-life. The costumes which they are in are what most people expect teenagers to be wearing, baggy tracksuits with hoods up. When you create an image of the British youth i can imagine that over 80% will think of a young person with this exact outfit on, when only around 10% actually wear this. The editing in this trailer is very fast paced as it create tension as it builds up to the climax where they are hit by the lorry off of the moped, the camera then completely stops as the person is motionless.

Guardian Article: Hoods Strike Fear in British Cinema (November 2009)
http://henleycollegemediablog.blogspot.com/2012/01/how-do-contemporary-media-represent.html

• It suggests that young people can be represented in two totally different ways, one of these being that the youth are evil, and the film makers are just exploiting this fear for them. One of these examples is Harry Brown which shows the youth as being part of 'Broken Britain'. The other way is that they are trying to engage with the youth, where they show that they are real-people inside, they're not just all people who want to go around shooting and stabbing everyone

Representations of Youth in Harry Brown

• Miss-understood


• Breaking through the mediated representations


• Compared to monsters


• Comparison to vampires


• Me, me, me society - self motivated


• Lower-class (underclass)


• Primitive view


• Referred to lack of parenting, and physicality's of where they are living and how it affects their lives


• Fear-moral panic

Opening Trailer of Eden Lake (2008)

Director: James Watkins

How are Jenny and Steve represented

Innocent couple who are just wanting to go away for the weekend so that they can leave the city and just relax. When they arrive they are faced with a gang of youths who just want to ruin it for them , they then proceed to try and escape but can't when the youths take everything that they need to leave. The whole way through the trailer they are portrayed as the innocent people and the youth are always represented as being the trouble starters.

How is this contrasted with the representation of the other characters?

All of the youths are being represented as being trouble makers, who can't just leave two people to have a nice weekend away, they are also portrayed as pure evil as they stab the man when all he wanted was his possessions back so that he could leave. There is also the obvious gang-leader who stands out from the rest of them and he is being shown as being the 'ring leader' because he will always be the one to reply to the man, stab the man, steal his car, chase his wife, and just generally will not leave them alone.

How important is the issue of social class?

Social class is being shown through where the people are and what they are wearing as the man and woman obviously have quite a bit of money as they have a big car, a place to go away for the weekend and smart clothes, this shows how they are probably in the middle class. The youth are totally different which shows Binary Oppositions between them as the youths are represented wearing hoods, riding BMX's and smoking

Horror and the Representation of Youth

Film theorist Robin Wood argues that the basic formula of the horror film is 'normality is threatened by the monster. I use "normality" here to mean simply "conformity to the dominant social norms"

What is the significance of the emergence of a cycle of British films in which the 'monster' is young people?

People see British youth everyday and so they can relate what they see in the film to what they see everyday in the 'real world'. People are more likely to be scared of British youth when they are in gangs with weapons, compared to being scared of vampires/ zombies. The reason people find the youth more scary is because you can actually image what is happening in the film, happening in real life whereas vampires& zombies are a lot less likely to happen, compared to youth.

How do they threaten 'normality'?

One act of crime from a youth can totally disturb someones life whether that be from stealing to murder. It also affects everyone around them so 'normality' is totally destroyed, people can't do everything that they used to because of the fear of the youth. The 'normality' lifestyle cannot be lived.

What term could we use instead of normality?

'Common Life'

Attack The Block

How are the main characters introduced?

• Intimidating


• Fearless


• Dark/ Low Key Lighting


• Colloquial Language


• Nightime is when out


• Hoodies, Trackies


• Baseball Bats - no longer sports, now a weapon


• Villains

Representing young people initially as 'monsters' and then actually replace them with real monsters.

10/01/12 Exam Information

Section A: Theoretical Evaluation of Production (50 marks)

• 1a) Theoretical evaluation of skill development over the course of the two years (both AS and A2 c/w) (30 MINUTES)
  


• 1b) Theoretical evaluation of one production and evaluate it in relation to a media concept (30 MINUTES)

Section B: Contemporary Media Issues (50 marks)

• 2) Media and collective identity - the representation of British youth and youth culture (1 HOUR)

Section A: 1a)

Describe and evaluate your skills thorough any of these questions:

• Digital Technology


• Creativity


• Research and planning


• Post-production


• Using conventions from real media texts

Section A: 1b)

Select one production and evaluate it in relation to a media concept, the list of contexts which could appear are:

• Genre


• Narrative


• Representation


• Audience


• Media Language

Section B:

Identity Guided Questions:

1. How do the contemporary media represent British youth and youth culture in different ways?


2. How does contemporary representation compare to previous time periods?


3. What are the social implications of different media representations on British youth and youth culture?


4. To what extent is human identity increasingly 'mediated'?

Material studied must cover these areas:

• Historical


• Contemporary


• Future