Daisy Stone 13S

Youth Culture Essay can be adapted to a particular question

The media influences society on a massive scale; this is especially evident
through film and TV. The media represents youth culture in very similar and often
negative ways. This shapes the perception of an audience and can lead to the
public feeling that certain youth groups are more violent, dangerous and
misbehaving than others. For example, Stanley Cohens theory of moral panic
links to films such as Quadrophenia as the film itself portrays youths as violent,
troublesome, drug-addicted, rowdy and sex-driven criminals. In addition, the film
includes newspaper clips on the wall of the main characters bedroom, that
depict real events and riots that occurred; the main character is then part of the
Brighton Riots this suggests that this riot (a real event that is rec-created in the
film) was inspired by other youth riots. The fact that the media portrayed youth
subcultures as having this major rivalry, e.g. Mods and Rockers, kick-started a
comradery between young people who had similar styles, this made some of the
youths feel as though they had to act in a certain way to be accepted by their
peers some of the youths themselves were also willingly accepting and forming
these groups on a large scale and this worried the public, especially adults and
the police force. Moral panic refers to a reaction that exaggerates an event and
creates a negative perspective towards something the media usually enhances
moral panic and the wider public often accept this view as the norm; this links to
Gramscis theory of hegemony.
This theory refers to one ideology dominating a society this ideology is (on the
whole) a white, middle class view other groups and classes then accept this
ideology and this means that lower classes will nearly always be shown in a
negative way as they cannot have the same lifestyle as the middle classes. One
way in which hegemony has affected our society is through the concept of
identifying someone through fashion-related prejudices. For example, male
youths in hoodies are often portrayed in most films and TV programmes to be
lower class, uneducated vandals who rebel against the social norms therefore
there we see them as more of a social threat and tend to alert the authorities
about their behaviour when in fact they could be causing just as much trouble as
other youths it is just that they get caught because society has been
indoctrinated with the idea that they are dangerous and troublesome. More
modern films such as Kidulthood show an extreme view of how violent young
people can act. Moreover, this hegemonic view is even shown in the 60s through
the kitchen sink drama, A Taste of Honey. The lead character Jo, a working
class illegitimate child whose Mother abandons her and whose father is no-where
to be seen, drops out of school and becomes pregnant to a black sailor, in her
teens, to whom she is not married to. Jo is seen as poor, and is obviously
ashamed of being pregnant; she finds it hard to support herself she is
portrayed as angry and emotional she is also supposedly called names by the
children and people in the flats around her but Jo doesnt seem to really care.
She buries her deep feelings but has outbursts at other times this film is ahead
of its time in way as it begins to look at the psychosis of young people and how
the negative ways society can view them can force them to act-out.
Film started to show teenagers as rebellious social outcasts in the 50s through
pieces such as Rebel without a Cause, and The Wild One, making people think
that many teenagers had nothing to do but be disruptive for no reason. This

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refers back to Cohens moral panic as youth cultures (often specific subcultures
of youths, such as gangs) are negatively mediated and this creates an
unrealistic, and negative, hegemonic outlook towards them. The next stage of
films began to think of teenagers doing things that they regret, e.g. sleeping with
people or abusing people films such as Look Back in Anger really show this
portrayal of young people being out of control and emotionally unstable. The
films then started become more realistic, kitchen sink dramas started to be
made and teen pregnancies, school drop-outs and criminal youths became more
common characters as social outlooks on things were changing; it wasnt as
scandalous and sinful to be a pregnant teen but it was still shocking and did
make many parents at the time panic. Films and TV programmes today are often
realistic as the teenage audience can find it interesting to relate to the
characters they are watching, and adults find it funny to look back on their time
as a teenager and relate what they used to be like to what they are seeing. In
this way TV dramas such as The Inbetweeners are a modern, humorous, and
exaggerated reflection of male middle class youths, whereas films such as The
Fundamentals of Caring show a snippet of the lives of a more unorthodox couple
of youths, one of which is a disabled, middle class boy, and the other is a
confident, working class girl. This particular film does not create moral panic but
creates a heart-warming feeling towards the main character, Trevor however,
even though the main character is a disabled youth, his attitude, humour and
general language-use is rude and this stereotypically portrays the mind-set of
troubled youths as being negative and egotistical. In my opinion, through the
decades, we as a society have been moving away from portraying and mediating
acts of violence and physical disruptions of teenagers and focusing more on their
mental state and how this can affect them and others. For example, depression
and anxiety are common in young people especially students and film and TV
are focusing a lot more on how mental issues affect the behaviour of youths: this
media coverage shows that youths can act-out emotionally either by being
rude or through new technologies, e.g. cyber-bullying as well as acting-out
physically through violence. The threat of teenagers has evolved there is
beginning to be a moral panic that they have too much power: the internet
allows them to access people even when they are not close enough to physically
cause them any harm, also cyber-crime levels are rising, and the fact that most
technological communicators use the internet and the fact that adults and
veterans are not as used to the technologies of today makes it more difficult to
stop youths from getting online and causing chaos; an extreme example of this is
A Girl Like Her a film about a girl who secretly films her life to prove that she is
being bullied both physically and online by another girl.
The media also represents many youths as unstable and in emotional crisis. A
report by the mental health charity Calm (the Campaign Against Living
Miserably) has found that men are struggling to cope with the pressures and
expectations of their personal and professional lives. 78 percent of all UK
suicides are male; suicide is the biggest killer of men aged 20-49 in England and
Wales. Suicidal thoughts are often caused by depression often the pressure of
society, which is largely enforced and more increasingly challenged by the
media, makes men (and women) doubt themselves; whether it is the way they
look, their lifestyle, their likes and dislikes (adverts for boys toys are often in
blue and girl ones in pink), their fashion-sense, or their emotions. Men are
humans yet they are portrayed to be less emotional than women, men are on the

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whole seen as the ones who have to be emotionally strong in situations this is
not only unfair to men but demeaning to women. This enhances Anthony Clares
theory of masculinity in crisis, which relates well to more historic films such as
Quadrophenia as the protagonist Jimmy is a lower middle class, white, drugaddicted, troubled, sex-driven, moody and attention-seeking teenager who does
not enjoy his job (he conforms to society by having a job but rebels by being a
Mod). Jimmy cannot control his emotions, he feels as though he has to lash-out,
be crazy, and hate Rockers as he feels like that is what a cool Mod should do.
Jimmy feels like an outcast his family and friends seem to reject him, he finds
no help as he does not seek it, and at the end of the film we subsequently see
him commit suicide. Similarly, in the 2012 film My Brother the Devil shows two
brothers Mo and Rashid grow-up in a lower class area of London. They are
part of a gang culture they have almost no choice in the matter as they have
little money, little education, and do not venture far from their homes; we also
find out that even when they decide to leave the gang it is hard for them to get
out violence and murders occur. Mo wants to become an independent adult, he
wants to be like Rash was when he finds out that Rash is gay he is ashamed
and does not want to be associated with him but they both discover that it is
better to share their emotions: Rash gets a legal job and is open about his
sexuality even though people are conflicted about it, and Mo saves Rash and
tells Rash him that it is okay that they are both moving on with their lives. This is
a happy ending considering the violence of the rest of the film. The more modern
ending shows them acknowledging their emotions and mental state; even
though Mos shoulder has been shot, his emotional injuries have healed. This film
also has a lot of racial and cultural influences; the gangs are stereotypically
made up of Englishman with foreign heritages, for example Mo and Rash are
originally from Egypt, and Izzy had African heritage. Cities such as London are
multicultural with a varied society but the fact that the media often shows this,
and includes many ethnic groups in one gang, can lead to a hegemonic fear of
multicultural and/or foreign, lower class youths. Greg Philo is famous for
researching and theorising about hoodie cinema they are usually youths, the
word hoodies has become interchangeable with lexis such as thug, yob, and
scum as rebellious groups in hoodies are demonised through the media as
violent vandals. Hoodies are defined as lower class people (usually young men
this refers back to masculinity in crisis) and their social standing is usually
opposing to the law and the higher classes. This links to moral panic that seems
to occur due to a fear of the unknown and uncontrollable; you cant see the face
of the person under the hoodie. Moreover, hoodies link into gang culture they
are like a dress code, this links to Richard Hebdiges research his book The
Meaning of Style (1979) explores Britains post-war subculture styles as
symbolic forms of resistance; they seem to dress similarly, and have the same
sociolect, ideologies, material goods, musical tastes, and behavioural style.
Subcultures such as gangs, punks and goths do this to feel included as part of
something bigger than themselves as they often feel excluded from the rest of
society, they do it for emotional support, and sometimes people a part of these
subcultures or cliques because of the peer-pressure to be cool and accepted.
Contemporary films such as the American High School Musical trilogy show
exaggerated youth subcultures as very separate at first but then show that they
can like in reality work and socialise together. This effective because it proves
that negative media portrayals of youths are mostly based on fiction or are

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blown out of proportion however, the High School Musical films still
stereotypically show youths as being cliquey, overly-dramatic and hormonal.
The film Fast Girls, which as the title suggests is predominantly focused on
female youth, relates to the theory of hegemony as Lisa the white, middle class
girl is given most of her kit, has enough money to train more regularly, and she
uses connections to get her to where she wants to go. This contrasts with Shania
the black/mixed race, working class girl whos kit is worn, she doesnt have
much of a family of a home, and whos biggest chance to get out of the ends is
to win a running race in the Athletics World Championships. However, both the
girls have dysfunctional families Lisas father pushes her and forces her to run
and win rather to run because she wants to and because she likes it. On the
other hand, Shania has no father figure, except for her old coach, her Mum is
dead, her Aunt kicked her out and her sister doesnt care much about her. This
shows that social class does not define the richness of family-life or happiness.
Lisa and Shania are brought together through their family issues, and through
their passion for running; they become a team when they need to. George
Gerbens cultivation theory also links to Fast Girls as we expect Shania to be
less well at controlling her temper, this is proved when she pushes Lisa after the
second relay race. The theory suggests that prolonged watching of television
can tend to induce a certain paradigm about violence in the world. Theorists
break down the effects of cultivation into two distinct levels: first order is
general beliefs about the world, and second order which are specific attitudes,
such as a black people are more likely to be violent or involved in crime, which
Fast Girls subtly hints at. However, Lisa is seen to retaliate and mostly uses
spiteful comments to irritate and belittle Shania this emphasises that she is
more educated than Shania but is just as (perhaps more so) violent, she simply
uses verbal abuse rather than physical outbursts of rage. Paradoxically, the end
of the film shows both Lisa and Shania defy the stereotype of isolating,
emotional, and sometimes violent young women it shows them work together
as mature individuals to become a supportive team.
The feel-good ending of this film links to the ending of My Brother the Devil
which ends with both brothers getting out of gang culture My Bother the Devil
also links to the cultivation theory. The protagonists in this film are ethnic youths,
however they are male therefore the cultivation theory applies to this film in a
different way. It links to the cultivation theory as gangs and lower class, ethnic
youth subcultures are mediated as murderous and drug-addicted criminals, when
if you look deeper into the film, many characters just want to get an education
and a better life. This sort of immediately negative portrayal of young people has
led to negative stigmas being forced upon certain people; prejudice views are
being cultivated by people who watch a lot of television and have a large intake
of media regularly. However, I think that if you include a variety of media sources
in your media intake and actively watch/read/listen to the media then your views
will not be as sculpted media can sculpt views subconsciously though which is
often how hegemonic opinions first arise, this is an issue.