Representation in The Inbetweeners

The Inbetweeners (Ben Palmer, 2011)
Representation of:

• Age


• Ethnicity


• Gender

Age

• Youth Disrespectful towards parents, other adults


• Youth In-Experienced in what the modern world is like, un-prepared for what they are going to face after school


• Adults are shown through the extremes of caring a lot (Will's Mum) and not caring at all (Head of Sixth Form) & (Will's Dad)


• Centres around 17-18 old

Ethnicity

• Dominantly White British, this gives the stereotype that the inbetweeners are representing this whole class of people


• Relates to the audience as the boys (17-18, White, Middle Class) are the same type of people as the audience

Gender

• Young Women seemed to have matured quicker


• Young Men are at different stages of maturity, some have advanced ahead, while some are still lacking


• Young Men seem to be the dominant gender, even though they mature slower


• Women are just objects

Social Class& Status

• Middle class students who are shown as what most adults expect of the middle class youth


• Parents are shown as extremes as well

Reinforcing Cultural Hegemony/ Dominant Ideologies

- Working class British youths are generally represented as being violent, brutal, un apologetic, criminals, addictive personalities - Harry Brown, Kidulthood, Quadrophenia

vs

- Middle class British youths are generally represented as being more law abiding, conscience citizens - The Inbetweeners

On Top of this, the antagonists are always the working class youths and middle class adults are positioned to be the protagonists

Fish Tank (Andrea Arnold, 2009)

Tries to break through the stereotype of youth

Ideas to introduce the main character:

• Deep and Emotional


• Hand held camera technique, give it a more 'Gritty' view


• Seems much more realistic


• Abusive Parents

Similarities and Differences: Opening Sequence:

Similar: Represents young people in Broken Britain

Difference: Behaviour of characters is less extreme

Difference: More of a social drama

Similar: She is the result of the environment around her

Almost all teenage characters are working class

Main adult characters are middle class

Representations may be said to reflect middle class anxiety at threat of working class to their hegemonic dominance

One of the functions may be to maintain hegemony

Media Effect - What are the social implications of different media representations of British youth and youth culture

What Effects to these Media Representations have?

41% of teenage boys sometimes feel wary when seeing other teenage boys

51% of these feel it is because of media stories they have heard about teenagers

If these questions were asked 10 years ago, results would be very different.

Hyperdermic Model - The media inject us with their ideas about British Youth, we have no power over the media. Whatever the media say, we agree with.

Cultivation Theory - The more violent behaviour you see on TV, the more likely you are to notice it in real life, the audiences ideas are 'Cultivated'

Copy Cat Theory - You copy what you see on TV

Moral Panic - Creating panic in Society. Therefore the more the media show the negative violence, it creates more and more panic.

Contemporary British Social Realism

- Social realist films attempt to portray issues facing ordinary people in their social situations

- Try to show that society and the capitalist system leads to the exploitation of the poor

- These groups are shown as victims of the system rather than being responsible for their own bad behaviour

Analysing Representation of Collective Identity

• When comparing how Britishness and our collective identity is represented in films, consider the following questions:


• Who is being represented?


• Who is representing them?


• How are the represented?


• What seems to be the intentions of the representations?


• What is the dominant discourse? (world view)


• What range of readings are there?

Collective Identity

1. The media contributes to our collective identity, but there any many different versions that change over time

• Representations can cause problems for the groups being represented as marginalized groups have little control over their representation/ stereotype


• The social context in which film/ TV programme is made influences the messages/ values/ dominant discourse

Theorist: Stuart Hall and Reading the Media

Encoding - Decoding: Active Audience Theory

Encoding: Where producers enter text to create certain codes

Decoding: Where the audience de-contrust the codes to understand the representations

Polysemic: The codes may be read differently by different people, depending on their identity, cultural knowledge and opinions

Preferred Reading

This is when the audience agrees with the owner/ institution of the representation (working together)

Negotiated Reading

When an audience comes to a conclusion which is simular to the one portrayed from the institution, they agree with some sections and disagree with some, so they only keep the sections which they agree with

Oppositional Reading

Understand the context of which the film is put in, although they will by no means agree with it

Any Representation is:

1. The thing itself


2. The opinions of the people doing the representation


3. The reaction of the individual to the representation


4. The context of the society in which the representation is taking place

Stereotyping

Implicit Personality Theory