In
contemporary media today, young people are represented negatively as they are
mainly portrayed as violent thugs who have no morals or values, such as those
in Harry Brown, Eden Lake and to an extent the music video Ill Mannors by Plan
B, where the majority of characters are drug dealers (or addicts)
who terrorise innocent people through threats and acts of violence.
However, other texts such as Attack the Bloc portray a different image that
opposes this view as the youths are using violence in a similar way to the
police and other authority figures: to protect, suggesting that young people
today do have morals and values.
In the text
Harry Brown young people are represented extremely negatively; they are
extremely violent (especially in comparison with the other media texts), which
is stressed in the opening scene where a handheld camera is used to represent
the use of the gangs mobile phone to create verisimilitute within the diagesis
and thus feel like they are a part of the gang itself. In this video the
audience sees the gang threaten a woman with a pram with gun shots, and then
the audience sees that the gang has actually killed her. The fact
that this scene was used in the opening sequence stresses how dangerous these
young people are as they have no reason to kill someone - it's just fun to
them, suggesting that they don't have any morals and do not follow cultural
hegemony (Gramsci) so they need to be controlled. This is stressed further when
Harry Brown, the protagonist says 'for them
out there it's just entertainment'. In the film Harry Brown represents the
dominant ideology in society where Harry Brown and thus the dominant ideology
needs to be enforced to control these wild youths and
hence reestablish the equlibrium in the film (Todrov's Narrative
Theory). Also, the contrast between the ages of the older
and more traditional protagonist and younger, violent antagonists
really accentuates the youth’s behavior as wrong and unacceptable.
A similar stereotypical view is portrayed in the Eden Lake trailer where
once again the antagonists are the young people as they are rude and don't
speak as eloquently as the middle class couple. Like in Harry Brown
they are portrayed in a stereotypical way and are seen as an 'empty category'
(Giroux 1997) as they are seen as rude - even the lady in the cafe calls
them 'little terrors' although this is ironic as she means it in a jokey way,
but it's the truth. However, this label becomes the 'empty category' and thus
they are portrayed in a stereotypical view throughout the trailer - a
view that reflects adults concerns, anxieties and needs as they are rude, for
example, they play their music really loudly at the lake when the audience are
first introduced to them and their behaviour continues to worsen as the trailer
goes on as they become increasingly violent - boy uses a knife when
the man confronts him again, then they tie the couple up and then chase the
woman through the woods. The fact that you see their behaviour worsen
throughout the trailer does reflect adults views and worries in society as it
suggests that youths can not be stopped and they are monsters, like the lady in
the cafe said.
Also, like in Harry Brown where the contrast in age was used to reinforce
hegemony (Acland 1995) and thus show youth
behaviour as deviant, contrast between mise-en-scene of costume is used in Eden
Lake as it opens with sunny and bright lighting,
the eloquent couple laughing and having fun. This is seems as normal
and dominant behaviour as the couple are well dressed and presented and they
have a middle class accent which reflects cultural hegemony. The youths
however, wear darker and stained clothes which could suggest that they don't
have as good lifestyle as the couple, thus being seen by the audience as
inferior. Also, after the youths are introduced the lighting used in the
trailer darkens, connoting danger and darkness and even evil, therefore
suggesting that the youths are the complete opposite of normal as they don't
conform to societies dominant values, meaning that they should be controlled
because of this, reinforcing hegemony.
Also, in Ill Mannors this stereotypical view is stressed to reinforce hegemony as they are out of control - they
steal, set fire to cars, fight among each other. However the 'normal adult and
youth behaviour', contrasted with deviant youth behaviour is actually similar
to the deviant youths behaviour - there's a politician who hits a member of a
crowd when an egg is thrown at him and David Cameron looks stupid when he hands
out 'free money', suggesting that the state are just as bad as the deviant
youths.
Media representations of delinquent youths in Attack the Bloc initially
reinforce hegemony as in the opening scene we see the youths attempting to mug
a vulnerable lady which is unacceptable behaviour and thus needs to
be controlled by the police, which they try and do when they bring the lady along
with them in the hope of finding her attackers creating the image
that the police have more control and reinforcing the ideology of protection.
However, when the aliens attack the police officers this view changes as now
it's the aliens that need to controlled and monitored - not the youths. Also,
it's the youths, not the police who do this which goes against hegemony as it
shows that they don't need to be constantly monitored and that the British
police force are actually useless.
The fact that young people are represented this negatively in the media
has resulted in a moral panic (Cohen 1972) which has been enhanced through news
coverage such as that of the London Riots which
furthermore reasserts cultural hegemony. There are elements of the
riots being dramatised into these texts despite the fact that the riots
happened after they were made, such as in Harry Brown when the police storm the
estate and the thugs retaliate suggesting that riots were soon to
come if the police didn't do anything about it. Additionally, one reason
as to why young people are portrayed negatively in contemporary media, such as
tv dramas, films and music videos could be done to stress this moral panic as
the media can clearly tell it creates fear which would also create interest,
thus making films in this genre sell more, thus only representing a small
minority.
However, young people aren't always represented so negatively in
contemporary media. For example, even in Attack the Bloc, even though we are
introduced to the young people when they attempt to mug a lady, our perceptions
change throughout the film as they are only being violent in retaliation to the
attack of the aliens and they are doing it to protect themselves. Also, young
people were portrayed positively in the news coverage of the Olympics
as athletes such as Tom Daley, who is 17, won a bronze medal while
completing his A-Levels (which he got straight As for) which represents young
people in contemporary media positively as it proves that they can work hard
and achieve greatness if they put their minds to it, unlike the way in which
young people are represented in texts like Harry Brown and Eden Lake.
In conclusion, young people are primarily portrayed
negatively and stereotypically as thugs who are violent and wild and need to be
controlled. This stereotypical view is portrayed to reinforce cultural hegemony
to clearly show audiences how to behave, however, although a rise in youth
subcultures and crime has contributed to a moral panic, it is likely that the
media has exaggerated elements of young people in order to sell their media
text as they know that it would grab audience’s attention, thus not
representing young people as a whole. Despite this, young people have been
portrayed positively – especially in the Olympics and even in Attack the Bloc
our opinions of the young people change at the end, making the audience see
young people in a different way.
