“Identity is complicated. Everyone thinks they’ve got one”. (Gauntlett)

‘Presentation of self’ (Goffman) combination of practises the amount to an idea we have of how others see us.

“Gender is a performance and gender and lifestyle magazines provide the script of this performance” (Butler)

“There has been a change in focus from the representation of the passive, dependent female to a more confident focus on self” (Angela Mc Robbie)

Nelson Mandela- freedom

Britney Spears- provocative, issues, child star

Madonna- sex, image changing, experimental, feminist, resistant

David Beckham- ideal male look, celeb male culture, football, dedicated

• Tyler represents ‘craziess’. A man going nowhere, who didn’t make anything happen in he’s life and is caught up in materialism thinking. For example ‘dining set that may define him’ and having no friends.
• Bob- immasculied started as a body builder, then feminised ‘crying’, church music and ‘letting it all out’
• Rejection of authority figures Marla feeding misery, this could be a reflection of himself, opposite characters, she’s lost her feminism and not the idealised woman. Also the boss could be the figure he begins anonymous.
• Rejection of ‘cleverness’- Tyler says ‘ hows clever working out for you?’ is it any better?
• Rejection of status and status symbols suitcase gets stolen with all material items and the flat burns. This represents loosing everything.

The second task was looking at the Father/son traits.

• Separating ‘son’ from feminine ‘nest- apartment trashed. ‘Another women isn’t what we need’, does this mean they want a male society? 

I picked out from the 5 page article, a few comments and information I thought were interesting and relevant.

• the original show, which ran for 94 half hour episodes between 1998 and 2004 is unusually a show about women, for women. It was adapted from a newspaper column and book of the same name by Candace Bushnell, but the producer and most writers and directors were men.
• film production year- 2008 in USA
• cert (UK) 15
• “it does seem that, in the end, it had to come back to a traditional view, that the future for most women means marriage and children”. 
• “you may not applaud the way that the show tackles more serious issues, sandwiched, as they are, between dates and dinners, sex and shopping, but SATC is never just froth and froth alone. Illness, infertility, bereavement, ageing, single motherhood, sexual discrimination and divorce all play their part in the shows storylines. Glossily packaged and swiftly dispatched they may be, but you can confidently say that there is more to the programme than footwear.
• “ultimately, you just feel that it started with the four of them and they will always be together.” Not only is it a programme about women, but one about women who like each other. They identify as each others soul mates and provide emotional, practical and moral support. They don’t compete with each other for male attention. They make each other laugh. It is probably the best depiction of the genuine nature and importance of female friendship ever to win an Emmy.
• programme is funny, clever and it thinks women are important.

Also in this lesson, we looked at ‘Women and film timeline’. It started in 1972 with film comment publishes a filmography of women directors, there was a special women’s event at the Edinburgh Film Festival and New York International Festival of Women’s Films.

In previous research of women, we looked at Laura Mulvey’s facial expressions, relating to the film timeline. Laura Mulvey had an essay published in Screen in 1975, a film Riddle of the Sphinx in 1997 and an article published in 1981. We discussed between us that we can use this theory and apply it to contemporary ideas but we wouldn’t use it and call it a main theorists to contemporary because of the early dates.

We also recognised in 2002 Halle Berry become the first black women to win an Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role for Monster’s Ball.

We thought that the first woman to win a Ocscar award as a director should be added to this timeline. This was in 2010, for the 2009 film.

- The Male Gaze

• Majorie Fergusion’s 4 types of facial expressions-

- looking at women on ‘women’s magazines covers- effect they create and how it could be expanded

• Facial expressions- Trevor Millum-

- mostly adverts

• Apparent Proximity-

- framing of the images

• Feminism

- movement (equality for women)

-60s- pill, abortion, Honey Ryder

-70s- laws changing and independence

-80s- bra burning, radical feminism, homosexuality, Madonna

-90s- reinvented as ‘girl power’ and independence, Spice Girls

• Audience Theroy: Hypodemic Mode

-how you view the audience, audience injected with ideas and go out and do what they see

-views media in a negative way

• Uses and Gratification Theory-

- attempts to explain uses and functions of media for individual groups, society in general, positive

• Emasculatination-

- male masculinity taken away

• Angela Mc Robbie- Popular Feminism

-women becoming ladettes

-shopping/ drinking

• Structuralism-Levi Strauss’ Binary Opposites

- opposites in a film

- we looked at Independence Day- main stream and other

• Narratology: Propp-

- things that should appear in stories

- struatural theories

- stereotypical characters

- superhereoes eg. Hancock and Spiderman

• Tessa Perkins ‘rethinking stereotypes’
• Richard Dyers views on stereotypes-

- disabled

• Social and Medical Models of disability
• Ideology- Hegemony

- ideas about society over arching things. eg Little Britain the ideologies within it

• Pluralism/ Marxism-

- pluralism model represents

- Marxism representing of worker eg Simpsons (class stereotypes)

• Cultural Imperialism-

- spreading ideology eg. Starbucks to Europe

• McDonaldisation/ Disneyfication-

- globalisation

- running the world

- American corporations

“The Inbetweeners” is a television programme about a group of teenagers in sixth form that struggle to find in which social group they belong. It is a comedy programme in which its narrative follows some of teenage real life experiences. This is a popular television programme with teenagers so I thought it was appropriate to study.

The film “Kidulthood”(2006) has a bleak outlook on teenage culture.  It is a very violent negative image including narratives of suicide, bullying and crime. It is a British drama film about the life of several teenagers in Inner West London.

To begin with I will analyses how youths are represented in the television programme “The Inbetweeners”. Firstly the introduction shows many elements that represent teenage culture. The title sequence is mainly black and white, with stars and stripes as a cartoon style theme. The small flashes of colour indicate the boys trying to find their identity through the black and white, which refers to them trying to find their place in sixth form.

Following on from this, the mise en scene is informal in the way that each character is shown in a cartoon hand-drawn style and it freezes  on such an image, this motion combined with the casual mise en scene immediately lets the audience know that the boys are relaxed.Relating to camera shots, there are close-ups on the characters faces and feet, which lets us as the viewer become involved with the characters personal space. Moreover, the editing technique makes the sequence have a fast tempo which could reflect the characters youth as bubbly, fun, vibrant and carefree, the sequence doesn’t present the teenagers as a threat and there is a fair representation of teenagers in real life, looking for some peers they have something in common with and belong, as well as trying to become popular within a social group.

Lastly, the costumes of the boys in “The Inbetweeners” have no real individual style and is a casual look. This makes sure it is hitting a wide target audience without discrimination from the opening titles. This idea of being ‘neutral’ also relates to the diegetic sound, it is soft rock that isn’t heavy or have a specific image which means it doesn’t typify to a certain stereotypical group such as RnB or Indie.

Overall “The Inbetweeners” gives a fair representation of teenagers. On the other hand, this fair representation can be counteracted, for example in “Kidulthood”. This film gives a very bleak representation of the teenage culture. Most of the storylines are negative for example,  bullying, graphic fights and a girl committing suicide.

The teenagers in Kidulthood are much more aggressive than the norm, which is a very bad representation to teenage culture. For example, they carry knifes, physically abuse each other, extreme gang culture, work in mafias like the uncles slicing mens faces and trading weapons. The teenage girls also had a bad attitude, sleeping with numerous boys, pregnant, drugs, drinking a large amount of alcohol, their reputation relies on how good they are in bed.

Overall, it is a harsh, negative unfair representation of teenagers, from both youth perspective and im sure adults would agree that for the majority of teenagers this isn’t their way of life.

Following on from this we recently looked at several newspapers to find evidence to support the idea that the term ‘teenager’ or ‘teen’ in the newsprint media platform portrays negative social activities of young people. The news is most commonly blamed for what appears to be a mostly negative representation of teenagers.

We have to consider the news has to be interesting and so extreme storylines will attract more readers. This relates to the hypodermic theory, are the stories are fair representation or are actions of teenage over exaggerated so they become more interesting to read.

We looked at a number of newspapers and articles about teenagers, there was a clear difference between the negative representation for example fighting and drugs and the positive representation of teens such as helping for charity. Although, we found it difficult to pick out a positive story about teenagers and when we did it was mostly in local newspapers. It seems that to get positive representation, a teenage has to do something amazing and extreme to gain recognition.

An example of the unfair representation is that in the same paper, a 19-year-old man was referred to as a ‘teen’ and it was reported he had been involved in a gang related stabbing. However, a younger 17-year-old boy was refered to as a young man when he was given credit for walking the north pole.

We can conclude that the representation of Teenagers is widely negative when looking at many media platforms. On my perspective I think it is unfair, focusing on many of the negative social issues that only a minority of teens in a real life society follow the negative ideas given in the media.

We then looked at the poster and commented on it. We found that most headlines have the identification of the target group for example it mentions the age of the person or the words teenagers or teens. As teenagers ourselves we found this patronising and that it undermines responsibility of ‘teenagers’.  The word ‘teenager’ is a negative term if it is a negative story. Following on from this we noticed if it was a positive story the word ‘teenager’ is not used in the headline.

• positive representation- achievement, bravery, sports and grades (this positive representation is usually in local press rather than national)
• negative representation- drugs, murder and rape

• the ‘kids’ are streetwise
• issues of suicide because of bullying
• pregnant teenager
• girl who is bullying is then belittled and doesn’t react
• costumes tracksuits ‘chavy’ image, lower class
• language used is simple
• boys fighting- white boy walked into someone accidently which caused a fight
• boyfriend acting nice to mum but then bullying and threatening behaviour to his girlfriend- pushing her against the wall by her throat and shouting. The mum makes sure she is ok, but thinks they are having sex so says “use a condom” and walks away
• domestic violence images
• white man is tied to a table and beat up for not getting money to Trevor’s uncle for drugs
• uncles pressure making Trevor cut the makes head
• constant aggression
• bleak picture of teenage life
• hard feelings- issues on fighting, suicide and having an abortion
• girls acting the masculine stereotype
• the editing throughout echos the distortion of the mind
• the diegetic sound and editing techniques used work well together
• the girls are judged on the male gaze. for example called a “sket”
• sex is used for convenience
• teenagers are mentally forced of their elders their parents aren’t a good example. For example, the mum encouraging sex “use a condom” and the boys uncle getting him into gun crime, drugs and to torture someone
• Trevor has a moral thoughts after the torture this is shown through the editing match up of him running and looking guilty and upset matched with the images and the screaming of the man being cut
• different cultures/ different levels of life style
• setting- ghetto, slums, urban, industrial, dark- this image is a bit exaggerated of real life