Humaira Chuhan Youths

Media Essay: Youths

1331 words

There are many stereotypes of society's groups which have been seen so often in the media, that it's moulded the way we see them ourselves. One of these stereotypes is the negatively unbalanced portrayal of young people. The idea of teenagers was introduced in 1950s due to the great amount of people in that age category, as a result of an increase in money, teenagers gained a lot of independence and were encouraged to find interests and build their identity. As a part of this, they became attracted to new medians such as the radio which played Rock and Roll- a popular genre of music at the time. Teenagers began to engage in rebellious behaviours and Rock and Roll was blamed for this change. From here onwards, the negative portrayal of teenagers has arguably escalated in the media as shown in contemporary films such as Harry Brown, Anuvahood, and TopBoy. The issues of this stereotype has been raised and explored in The Guardian and BBC News articles. Despite this overall view displayed in todays society, there is contemporary media that encourage a positive representation and highlight the fact that the negative depiction is a much generalised one. This is shown in the TV program, My Mad Fat Diary, the film Attack the Block and campaigns such as National Citizen Service and Metropolitan Police Volunteers. Harry Brown (2009) I believe is an extreme example of an adverse representation of teenagers; it is about a retired marine (Harry) who decides to finally fight against the disruptive teens on his estate when he is too scared to go down the teenager dominated underpass to visit his dying wife in hospital. This part in the movie is an example of Gramscis cultural hegemony which implies that one social class, being the working class teenagers, can dominate societies (the middle class estate). The fact these teenagers are feared of by the entire estate makes it the social norm to be afraid of them. Their domination of the environment manipulates the morals and perceptions of the residents and almost programs them to be forever intimidated by teenagers as a whole. Harry, being a former marine and protagonist uses guns to fight against them; this illustrates their estate to be a warzone. This idea suggests that the adolescents are an army of enemies which is displayed in the film as they always have weapons on them, never travel alone and are constantly killing people. The military metaphor signifies they will move as one and are fighting for their group in society. This is supported by the fact their speech is subtitled as YOUTHS: denoting they also speak as one and therefore have the same views and pursuits. This portrays teenagers negatively as it encourages the generalisation that all teenagers engage in crime and violence and are heartless individuals. Harry Brown creates a deeper fear of groups of young people, despite them being gangs or not. The clothing they are seen wearing the most are hoodies and tracksuits, which has become an ultimate symbol of misconduct and brutality. An example of this is if an innocent teenager was to wear a hoodie in public, hood up or down, they would be judged on their appearance and labelled as a troublesome person.

Humaira Chuhan

Media Essay: Youths

1331 words

In Harry Brown, all the adolescents carry a weapon (knives and guns) which is considered to be an accessory in some way, as they show it off, frighten people and use it on them. This stereotype is also reflected in Anuvahood and TopBoy, all of the teenagers wear hoodies throughout. Kay in Anuvahood is about to break into a house, he immediately pulls his hood over his head; similarly in TopBoy, Dushane pulls up his hood when dealing money with others. In both these texts, the hood is used as a form of disguise and possibly protection. A possible reason as to why gangs wear hoodies is because of de-individuation, where each person feels united with the group, so as an individual they don't have to accept their own responsibility. This links to The Guardians comparison with the Ku Klux Klan and referral to the London riots which infers teenagers have a mysterious, unknown and scary aspect to them which fears the public. Majority of these negative representations are of the male characters, mainly because males are associated with aggression and crime more than females. This view has consequences in reality, 4 in 5 teenagers felt unfairly represented in the media and believe it affects their job prospects (BBC News) which highlights the influential power of the media. Despite the many texts that continue to drive the negative representation of young people forward, there are others that challenge this. My Mad Fat Diary is a visual reconstruction of the diary of Rae Earl; it depicts the life of a sixteen year old, over weight and troubled girl who is trying to cope with her life consisting of college, love, home life and psychological therapy. The fact this program is based upon a real diary allows the audience to connect with a human being rather than an exaggerated, fictional and troublesome teenager. Rae engages in smoking, drugs, drunkenness and sexual stuff which would be typical for a teenager, however, the program also exposes the struggles in Raes life which provides reasoning to why she engages in such behaviours. This shows that behind what society sees, teenagers are not all heartless and can have bad experiences that affect them deeply. My Mad Fat Diary allows an insight into teenage life and challenges the idea that they are mysterious and unpredictable. This is a positive representation because it can cause the audience to rethink their opinions on teenagers and consider possible reasons. Raes crush, Finn, is presented as a venturesome and attractive teenager, who is also dressed in a hoodie. At first his character is ignorant and self-absorbed in which the audience develops a disliking for him, but later on, we see how protective and lovely he is. This representation, again, reminds viewers not to judge a book by its cover, but to understand the pages. Later on in the series, Finn punches a lead gang member for mocking Rae, this is an example of how teenagers can fight for a reason, unlike those in Harry Brown. Majority of the audience would be praising him for his physical confrontation which could reduce the amount of negative judgements associated with such young people.

Another example of a positive representation of young people is current campaigns such as the National Citizen Service (NCS) and Metropolitan Police Volunteers (MPV) who encourage

Humaira Chuhan

Media Essay: Youths

1331 words

teenagers to build new interests and skills for work. The MPV are significant when considering the stereotypical view of young people in terms of violence and crime. This program is advertised on the radio and on social networking whereby people between 1318 years old can register to help keep their environment safe. This challenges the stereotype as it illuminates the individual differences in the teenage group who are voluntarily willing to work against those that threaten the community. The police and bad teenagers are typically two opposites, the combination of the two convinces society that teenagers can be good and have a greater and more respective status like a member of the Met Police. In conclusion, it is fair to say that media representations of young people are unbalanced and mainly negative. Theories also outline the fact the middle class are envied and therefore fought against by the working class (Acland 1995) - teenagers. This has been proved to be a problem in society and now the over-use of this dominant representation is creating new media texts that dispute the stereotype. Although a lot of attention has been brought upon this unfair portrayal of teenagers, it is still a strong image that is evident in life as well as the media and therefore it can be argued whether it is a display of reality or an exaggeration complying with bad news sells.