‘Government probably bred those things to kill black boys. First they sent in drugs, then they sent guns and now they're sending monsters in to kill us’
How does 'Attack the block' represent teenagers and is this
typical of media portrayals?
The knock on effect of teenage viewers
consuming films like ‘Attack the block’, it begins to think causing trouble is
socially acceptable as these characters choose to do it as well as save the
world. This also could link to the cultivation theory as society begins to
think this is how young people behave, and begin to make an assumption which is
why media starts to stereotype.
Media demonises young teens and
this can be shown through the ways they are stereotyped and represented to be 'Hoodies,
louts, scum'[1], this is
the typical names that has been called at teenagers, while some argue that not
all teenagers are louts and thugs. The news is dominating the viewers by the
use of moral panic and the hypodermic needle as they are portraying a negative
side of the youths; it informs others how the media is not showing the positive
aspects of teenagers in today’s society, the positive news that has been
increasing is the increase on better results. ‘Schlesinger
and Tumber (1992) found tabloid readers and heavy users of TV expressed greater
fear of going out at night and of becoming a victim’[2],
it shows us that viewers watch and read about the news and because of this it
can be linked to hypodermic needle which ‘is a model of communications
suggesting that an intended message is directly received and wholly accepted by
the receiver’ [3],
it injects information into the viewer’s mind and engages them and by this the
viewer’s start to stereotype and represent young youths in a negative way which
is common as they are always been typical of the media portrayals, ‘Kids
are out of control and more dangerous now than ever before, and that youth
crime is expanding at an alarming rate’ [4], Linking
this back to the case study which is ‘Attack the Block’ it tells us the
positive and negative side of this which can in fact be typical of the media
portrayals. In this essay it will investigate how this is being impacted on the
audience and the teenagers by the way the media is dominating young teenagers
as being deviant, as this enables them to react to being labelled which creates
more trouble.
‘The media
has a major effect on the way people think’[5] ,
Media is a big part of today’s society and always has been, this can be shown
by the way the media always talk about the young youth in a negative way and
how it impacts parents and other teenagers as it frightens them when they are
walking on the streets of London. Negative media portrayals in the case study
consists of the props being used such as knifes, bats, swords these are a ‘typical
stereotype’ as it can be shown through media as well as along with the start of
the movie when the group of teens approach an adult with a knife to mug her. It
represents the negative side of the movie where the audience can be related to,
as this is targeted at ‘E’ (demographics) an example of this are ‘unemployed,
students, pensioners, casual workers’ teenagers. Alvarado can be linked to the
case study, and this is by the way Alvarado believed that black teenagers fall
under the four categories which are dangerous, humorous, exotic and pitied;
they are represented as dangerous as they are part of a local who like to start trouble, pitied as
they live on a council estate, Moses lives with his father who is never around and
due to this he doesn’t have a role model , humorous as it can be related back
to the target audience who are teenagers due to them talking in slang which Is
found to be funny and last of all exotic as they are black.
Attack the
block represents teenagers in both ways, negative and positive representations
this can be shown through the use of Moses and his friends mugging people and
roaming the streets of London and during the end when Moses saves the world by
killing the monsters. But due to the media portrayals ‘they don't all wear hoodies, and
there is no need to bar them from shops’[6] as many teens are looked
at in a different way from how teens were before, however it also enlightens
that the older generation portray teenagers to be people who ‘chill on the
streets’ and mug people, from this they don’t see teenager for who they really
are.
Media also
portrays positive news as negative news as this is how it attracts the
audience’s attention, as well as news is always implied to be negative
especially on the use of crimes and violence which is often on young people as
negative news always sells more than positive news, it is shown to be
newsworthy which is a theory from Galtung and Ruge (1965). The media create a damaging
stereotype portraying black youths as criminally minded underachievers’[7], this clearly defines it
all on how the black youths are and especially in ‘Attack the block’ as the
main characters are black youths, the main reason why teenagers are typical in
the media is due to the rise of the headlines on teens and the way they are
being represented as criminals and underachievers.
Positive
representation in ‘Attack the block’ can be depicted at the end of the movie
when the leader of the local gang ‘Moses’ saves the world by killing the
‘monsters’, where he is represented to be a warrior by the use of his sword. During
the end of the extract ‘Moses’ is taken by the police and because he destroyed
the aliens the crowd of people chant Moses, shows that all stereotypes are not
true. This implies that not all teenagers are shown to be negative but in fact
the teenagers are caring and thoughtful as the media demonise teenagers, Moses
risked his life to save and protect the world from monsters and from this is
shows that teenagers do help people, It also shows the audience that they
changed but changed for the best as they were helping others and from this it
suggests that anyone can change their behaviour so it means that teenagers who
are stereotyped to be negative can change their behaviour to be positive so
giving them a chance is acceptable and should be accepted from individuals and
especially the media as they are being portrayed in a bad light. However
teenagers nowadays are performing better in education, GCSE and A-levels
results are much more better than what they were before, and because of this
they are much more variety of people who are in university and graduating,
‘Boys have done better than girls at achieving the highest grade at A-level,’[8]
the quote shows how instead of girls doing better than boys, boys have
outperformed better than girls, from this it shows everyone that not all
teenagers are portrayed negatively but in fact that media exaggerates to get a
better story to target their audience.
Knowing that boys have done better changes the whole theory of media
demonizing teenagers especially males.
The use of
the only white guy in the local gang suggests that it can be applied to the
theory of Frank Fanon which is ‘The white mask’, there is only one white
teenager (Pest) who is with the black teen, due to there is only one white guy
it shows the audience he is acting out like he is black, by the way he has been
dressed (hoodies, trainers and caps) and his speech (slang) which can be
related back to the target audience. Pest is known to be the funny one in the pack
as he acts stupid. It can also be related to ‘Cultivation’ (Gerbner) he
believes that news is being over exaggerated as it is making heavy viewers
believe this is reality for example this can consist of hoodies being bad, ‘Street rats wear hooded tops and
baseball caps’[9];
everyone even other teenagers agree that all teenagers doo is ‘They sit on the
street and drink’[10], shows what people think
about teens but how they get carried away with drinking and drugs as they are
rebellious.
‘If a young person listens to
gangsta rap he or she will go out and shoot someone, do drugs, have unprotected sex’[11] , this just informs the audience
that not everything that has been said
about teenagers is in fact true! Listening to rap and shooting someone after
that? Teenagers are not that bad and portraying teenagers in this way is why
people are afraid of young youths as the media influences the audience to
believe the negativity to be true about teens but mostly black youngsters
(Hypodermic needle theory). Listening to rap music, ‘all you hear
about is sex, drugs, violence, and money’[12],
some people argue that teenagers listen to rap music to fit in to the crowd as
copying people in the environment around us encourages teens to be accepted in
groups of friends (Albert Bandura). ‘Sound of da police’[13]
is the name of the song which was played during the movie when the clip comes
on it shows the audience of the white male petrified of the teenagers who come
and stand behind him to wait for this lift, because he was on his phone he
instantly switched it off and put it in his pocket, shows how he was scared of
getting mugged.
‘The
breakfast club’ (1985) is the historical text that has been used to cover the
concept on how teenagers were back in the days, it shows 5 teenagers ‘each a member of a different high school clique’[14]
who are in Saturday detention class from when they didn’t talk or knew each
other from having a fun time and spending time with people from totally
different cliques, an example of this can be the teen who is stereotyped to be
‘the quiet one’ and the one who is shown to be
‘the jock’ who are getting along. No swearing or
Violence was
involved but in fact was talking back to the teacher and doing drugs, it shows
how they were having innocent fun and not acting like ‘thugs and loots’ where
teens are represented to be in today’s society. The negative aspect of this is
that due to the teenagers being in Saturday detention class shows us that there
have obviously been in trouble which was led to being held back on the day.
Involving
the historical text to the case study shows the differences of how teen movies
were then and how they are now, in today’s society of movies includes crime,
violence, use of gun scene and blood, where as ‘The breakfast club’ there was
no violence at all what so ever, it shows how it has changed over the period of
the time. Life for people living in the 1970’s was not the same as today’s
society as there was no rap music as rap music today is extremely popular with
the younger generation, back than there was no use of technology of teenagers
going on their mobile phones and use of internet which would have been harder
for them to contact each other while in summer 2011 the use of interaction like
BBM and twitter between the teenagers was one of the reason groups of teens were
looting in the 2011 riots ‘Police looking on Facebook and Twitter for signs of unrest spreading
will have missed out – they should have watched BBM’[15]
explains how the riots occurred from the use of BBM interaction as well as the
social networking sites which led to encourage group of friends to meet at a
specific time and place, from this is shows the reason why the media has
been demonising teenager in a negative way by the use of engaging the audience to be aware of their teenagers, but yet again a positive outcome can include the rest of the teenagers who cleaned up the mess from after the riots which shows an advantage on teenagers behaving in a sensible way and acting out like citizens from their society, ‘The recent riots that ripped through London inspired an group of teenagers to clear-up their community’[16].
been demonising teenager in a negative way by the use of engaging the audience to be aware of their teenagers, but yet again a positive outcome can include the rest of the teenagers who cleaned up the mess from after the riots which shows an advantage on teenagers behaving in a sensible way and acting out like citizens from their society, ‘The recent riots that ripped through London inspired an group of teenagers to clear-up their community’[16].
‘young people have often been used as scapegoats by the media to create
a sense of unity in society, by whipping up a moral panic against the folks
devils who pose a threat to society’[17], Moral panic is when
an individual is a threat to society and from this they are stereotyped by the
media, the concept is by Stanley Cohen, examples of moral panics are hoodies
which is a type of clothing demonised of young people; nevertheless technology
is also a threat in today’s society e.g. through the summer 2011 riots the use
of social network sites were used such as Facebook and twitter and other smart phones like Blackberry messenger,
‘Londoners use Twitter to talk about BBM's role in the
violence and looting, and even to offer to retweet BBM pins’[18]
The media should take a new light on representing
teenagers and not encourage a moral panic. Having some sort of faith in
essentially what is the generation set to ‘rule the world’ in the long term
could have a good effect. Seeing constant news about negative teenagers puts a
pessimistic light onto teenagers this gives a lack of motivation which hinders
young people’s success and mind. The media have portrayed young people both as
potential threat to the stability of society and as a symbol of hope for the
future of society’[19] Stereotyping in both ways changes the way teens look
at the media shows them another side when looking into the positive aspect of
the mass media.
In conclusion ‘Attack the block’ represents teenagers
and this is in fact typical of the media portrayals as media always informs the
viewers on negative aspects of their life, Media always exaggerates the story
of their news which is why it gets higher number of viewers watching the news
especially on teenage youth. It also helps to inform and educate the audience
to learn new things about what is going on around their society to do with
teenagers and how they are behaving. Teenagers are not always bad but are
represented to be bad and labelled which is argued by Lemert (1972) ‘he argues
that, by labelling certain people as deviant, society actually encourages them
to become more so: societal reactions causes “secondary deviance”[20].
(Word count: 2,643)
[1]
'Hoodies, louts, scum': how media demonises teenagers’ - http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/hoodies-louts-scum-how-media-demonises-teenagers-1643964.html
[2] Webb,R, Trobe K, (2010) p49
[5]
Adolescence
and the Portrayal of Teens in Film and Television http://usftherapist.wordpress.com/2009/07/29/adolescence-and-the-portrayal-of-teens-in-film-and-television/
[6] It seems that we can
only be interesting if we are smoking, snorting or stabbing
[7] Our black
youngsters: how often do you hear the good news? http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jun/20/where-is-good-news-black-youngsters
[8]- Boys are top of the class!
Teenagers celebrate as they get A-levels marks… and lads do better than girls
at getting A* grades - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2188974/A-Level-Results-Day-2012-Boys-better-girls-achieving-A-grades.html
[9] - How a top
can turn a teen into A hoodlum - http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2005/may/14/ukcrime.immigrationpolicy
[10] IBID
[11] - Steinberg,Shirley R, Priya
P, Birgit,R (2006) p.6
[12] Is rap music setting a bad
example to younger kids?-http://youthvoices.net/discussion/rap-music-setting-bad-example-younger-kids
[16] - Teenagers clean up East
End streets after London Riots - http://www.eastlondonadvertiser.co.uk/news/teenagers_clean_up_east_end_streets_after_london_riots_1_1021977
[17] - Browne,K(2006)
p.207.
[18]
-London Riots:
Blame Twitter -- or BlackBerry Messenger? -
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/london-riots-blame-twitter-blackberry-messenger/story?id=14255618
[19] Williams,A,
Thurlow C,(2005) pg24.
[20]
Webb,R, Trobe K, (2010) pg.32
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