'How are British youths represented in Quadrophenia and Harry Brown’

‘How are British youths represented in Quadrophenia and Harry Brown’:

Answer:

The main themes in Harry Brown is that of Cohens theory of moral panic, in Harry Brown it is the youth who are disrupting the 'normal balanced world' and the youths are therefore all represented in this way. When the youth start to expand they also become a threat to the rest of society which bring in Gramscis theory of Cultural hegemony as the youths start to out power the middle class citizens as they fear the youth.

When Harry Brown takes action this is when the order starts to be restored as thew youth keep gaining power until someone fights against them, in this case it was the police and Harry Brown who over-powered the main trouble makers and when the youths see that the 3 most powerful people are dead, they retreat back into being a normal lower class.

The main theme in Quadrophenia is a lot more centred around the theme of Gramscis Cultural hegemony, as they become more of a threat to the people around them as they slowly gain more and more power so they think that they start to do things more freely, this slowly comes back down as the British youth realise that they cannot take on the whole police force and eventually retreat, but its certain that this will keep happening, and they will keep building the power up until they have enough people to over-power the police.

The gang ideologies are similar in the theme that they both just want to rebel, which is also shown by Gerbner's Cultivation Theory where the media are always just showing the youth as being rebellious and not showing any promise/ praise at all, so the youths start to give up on doing well and fall into this rebellious lifestyle.

The gang ideologies shown in Harry Brown are mainly to do with rebelling against the government and middle class citizens, this links in with McRobbies theory of Symbolic Violence as once they attack the middle class they respond negatively, even though before attacking the middle class they have probably attack lots of youth before this but just because they are not the most dominant class, no-one has noticed. It shows how the middle class mainly think of themselves rather than other classes around them.

The gang ideologies shown in Quadrophenia are mainly linked to rebelling against each other, as different categories of youth and also to rebelling against the government but not knowing that they are doing it so dramatically. It links in with Gramscis Cultural Hegemony as there keeps being social groups which out power each other as new people join the groups and they become bigger and attack each other for the gain of power. After a while it takes the police to control all of the gangs because it gets out of hand when people start getting killed, although they can only take down a small group because of the pure amount of them.

The identity in both films is different because in Harry Brown the youth are coming together to rebel against everyone else, as they fear that if they do not go into this lifestyle then they will be attacked and will constantly be in danger. This can be shown by the fact that you do not see any of the youth who are no in this gang because they have all been forced into this lifestyle or have moved away because they decided to stand against this, and breakaway from it so that they do not fall into the same lifestyle as so many others have.

The identity in Quadrophenia is different as they have the option to go into these groups as these groups do not threaten the normal society, they just rebel against each other and this shows how the youth have an option in this, but the main character Jimmy decides that he wants to go into this lifestyle because he wants to fit in with everyone else. This shows how he wants to be included of having the identity of a 'Mod', rather than breaking away and having his own identity which seems to be a more popular trend in the modern world because everyone wants to be different.

The parents in Harry Brown seem to be the worst influence on the children as you see the mother of 'Noel' as being always completely destroyed by drugs, so she has no control at all on what Noel is doing, and he has obviously grown up with his mum always taking drugs and probably always bringing men back to the flat as her husband died which is shown through the fact that it is Noels uncle who looks after him, and he is also a major drug dealer and gang member, sop he has taken Noel into this life of crime& drugs.

The parents in Quadrophenia seemed to have lost control over what there kids are doing and this is shown through the fact that they don't know where he is going anymore, what he is doing, and what drugs he is taking. It seems as though it represents many of the parents just through what Jimmys do, as it seems that they just give up on him when they find out what he has been doing, they just kick him out of the house and lose all care of what he does. This is totally different in the modern world as parents have arguments with children but they will forgive them after a while, in the 1960's they would just kick them out. It shows how youth have the chance to out power their parents which relates to Cohens Moral panic as the youth just become a group which are a threat to the normal society so the parents just decide that it is not worth trying to change them.

The representation of the youth have changed in some aspects but not in others during the time period between these two films. the ones which have changed are the fact that parents are really trying to get their kids out of the lifestyle of gangs and drugs rather than just accepting it and then kicking them out. It shows Social development as parents realise that there kids can be very successful if they get out of this lifestyle. Another thing which has also changed is that of the fact that gangs seem to have a very structured code of entry as in Quadrophenia they just have to dress a bit like the other do, whereas in Harry Brown they have to go through a whole procedure to get into the gang, in the modern times it is like you are joining a religion and a way of like, rather than just a social group.

Some aspects which haven't changed are the fact that the youth still are represented as the people who are always to blame, even though in most cases they turn out this way because of the parents way of upbringing

Mark:
Explanation- 13
Use of Examples- 14
Use of terminology- 6
Mark: 33/50

Well done Will! :) Good range of theories used, however they don't go into much depth. limited but appropriate use of examples, which show good understand of the films mentioned. limited use of terminology, however some key theories and its terminology where mentioned and explained well. More of a debate and arguemnet is needed.