British Television Drama: February 2009

Saturday, 21 February 2009

The Representation of British Youth

How has the representation of youth changed over time?

In British Television drama the representation of youth has changed vastly and dramatically over many years. I conducted some research to show and find examples of these changes, and to see exactly how the view of teenagers has transformed into what it is today.

I watched a range of television dramas including “Blooming youth, Derby Youth, Eastenders, Good manners, Portrait of a school, Three minute heroes, we are the Lambeth Boys”. As the watched these television series I made notes on the following:

· How teenagers are represented

· How they talk to each other

· Their costume & how they dress

· What storylines/situations they are involved in

· I noted whether it was a positive or negative representation

And I also made a note of how they were similar or contrasting to the television series Skins.

“Three Minute Heroes”, which was very popular in the 1980’s, is one of the shows that had a many similarities to Skins. In the show there was a frequent use of slang and colloquial language by the teenagers in the school. They dressed very youthfully in colourful outfits and the girls tended to have vibrant and flamboyant make up. The boys dressed rather casually whilst the girls wore quite dressy fashionable clothing.

In the show the teenagers are represented as fun loving and superficial as it is very evident that they care a whole lot about their looks and their outer appearance. They are also represented as quite immature. This is shown through the constant playing of video/ arcade games and play fighting, mainly from the male characters. Naïve could also be used to describe the characters. In one of the scenes a girl is complaining about her breasts growing and reveals her disgust at breastfeeding, which shows her naivety. The issues that arose in the episode were to do with sex/virginity, music such as the punk bad the “specials”.

All of these characteristics of the show are very similar to the storylines in skins, which also revolve around sex/virginity and music. Also another similarity found is the stereotypical characters. The stereotypical “Popular Guy” who comes in the form of Tony in Skins is also found in this show. Two young males from the school try to fool a locksmith into cutting them a key. Which is reminiscent of the way on which Tony fools his dad on a daily basis, which is outwitting and cocky behaviour. This show is one of one that had the most similarities with skins in terms of the representation of teenagers.

“Blooming Youth” also had many similarities with Skins. The students appeared to be very arrogant; they constantly spoke over one another and argued. They also smoked, talked about sex, cursed and used foul language openly. Also one of the students had an adult magazine in his room. And although they are a bit older than the characters in Skins the principles are still the same even though this programme is from the early 1970’s.

Another show that I studied was “Good Manners”. This show along with “Portrait of a school” and “Derby Youth” I found to be very different to the representation of teenagers in Skins.

In “ Good Manners” which was popular in the late 1930’s the teenagers are very well spoken, well mannered, very polite when addressing each other and their tone is overall very calm and placid. In “Derby Youth”(1947) there is no audio but the teens also look very well mannered and the school seems as if it has very strict regimes.

In all three of the programmes the young peoples clothing are neatly put together and if they are wearing a uniform it is spotless. They appear to be almost like robots. Especially with the females al sitting round in their spotless cotton dresses, knitting and sewing.

From my research I have gathered that the representation of teens has changed and evolved a great deal over the years. In the early nineties teenagers were represented as obedient, conforming young people who were un-sexualised and unsusceptible to the negatives of the world. However, as time progressed the representation of teenagers be came more realistic. They became more loud, expressive, individual, outgoing and sexually aware. Of course teenagers have always been this way but it was only as time progressed that these television shows started to show what real, everyday teenagers were like.

Monday, 9 February 2009

Skins: Title Sequence Analysis

Saturday, 7 February 2009

Skins posters - The Conclusion

The Conclusion

Teenagers are being represented in these posters as wild, rebellious, out-of-control, troubled and overall very complex characters.

This portrayal is somewhat realistic, but it only shows one side to young people today and could be described as kind of biased. Not all teenagers behave in this wild rebellious way, and not all young people of the UK are as sexualised as the poster leads people to believe. I think that these posters are a negative representation of teenagers. This is because they only show a biased one-sided view of teenagers and the images are rather controversial. However, it does help to show the struggles that young people go through in their everyday lives that older people sometimes forget about or fail to recognise.

Some people might say that this representation of teenagers is inappropriate and too controversial. This view would probably been taken up by the older, more mature audience, people who probably have children of their own. I say this because one of the posters was banned by the ASA for being offensive and claimed it "could cause serious or widespread offence". This came after many complaints were received “that the ‘orgy’ poster condoned underage sex and that the images would encourage children to copy the behaviour”. This poster was quickly removed and shows how the public, and mainly the older audience of Channel 4 felt about these images.

However the younger viewers and members of the public seemed okay with the posters, as the ratings for the show were not affected.

Skins Episode Analysis

Q. How are teenagers represented in this episode of skins?

In this episode of skins teenagers are represented in many different contrasting ways, so for my analysis I have chosen the characters Cassie and Tony to focus on.

Cassie is a young female around the age of 17. On the show she is portrayed as the typical airhead. She fails to understand simple concepts, acts rather ditzy, is everyone’s best friend and has the stereotypical “blonde hair” that is associated with this type of image. Tony is the main character of the show and is portrayed as the typical Popular, Bad Boy that all the girls want. He is the ringleader of his little group of friends and even has hes very own “nerdy” sidekick in the form of the character Sid. Although his character is talks foully, goes to wild parties, sneaks out, is promiscuous, takes drugs and is involved with criminals and violence; he also maintains the typical “Head Boy” attributes. He gets good grades, is a choirboy and is quite pleasant and respectful to most students. This is a huge contrast as to how the other characters are portrayed and also to the other side of his personality.

In the show both characters are involved in storylines about sex/sexuality/virginity, drugs, wild parties, fights/brawls and eating disorders like many of the other characters. All of the characters on the show are involved in the same or similar storylines, which shows the narrow view that the makers of this show have of UK teens today. Not all teenagers living in the UK act like this, and it is hard to believe that the majority of us do. The storylines and performances in the show seem to have been embellished a whole lot, as well as the overall lifestyle and behaviour of the teenagers.

As mentioned before Cassie is portrayed in the show as the typical “dumb blonde” but it is almost played to an extreme as she really does seem rather slow and also because of the fact that she has an easting disorder. This could be the shows way of forming an attack on these types of girls that are seen regularly and somewhat idolised in the media today.

On the show Cassie’s attire is rather scruffy. Her costume seems as if she may have put some effort into her outfit but it still comes off as rather scruffy and oddly matched. Her clothes are also quite bodacious and colourful all of which describe her character. However, Tony’ costume seems rather neat, tidy and put together. Even though he acts and participates in the same crude activated that his peers do he is different. This could be a way to show that the programme is not biased as they are attempting to show that not all teenagers are the same. But the fact remains that it is a typical stereotype that most teenagers dress quite scruffy and mis-matched.

Parks, school grounds, Bedrooms, the street, cafes, dance studios, church, bus, out-of-control house parties. These are just some of the locations and scenes that characters of the show are seen in. Most of these locations are seen as typical “hangouts” for young people and locations and scenes taking place in schools are also clearly linked to young people.

In the show a lot of slang is used. Swearing and bad language is perpetuated indefinitely throughout each episode and the use of cockney and colloquial is very common. Overall I have noticed that many of the characters speak and communicate with each other in a very aggressive manner. The parents seem to show this type of behaviour regularly. So it is not surprising that their children have picked it up, and also speak in the same way. Most of the characters are very loud and expressive in their speech, which makes up the diegetic sounds on the show. The non-diegetic sound is made up by the heavy metal rock music that is played in the background during certain scenes. This emphasises the events of that particular scene and also is quite young and edgy, just like the characters are portrayed to us as being.