Thursday, 25 April 2013

Critical Investigation

‘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’[1]

How does 'Attack the Block' represent teenagers and is this typical of media portrayals?

‘Attack the Block’ is a British movie that was released on May 2011; it is directed by Joe Cornish and produced by Nira Park, which is set in south London in an estate, from this it shows how it is related to the target audience who are teenagers. In the movie there are 5 teen boys who defend each other throughout the film from ‘alien invasion’. The genre of this consists of comedy, sci-fi and action which widen the use of target audience members as this attracts them to watch the movie. The budget for this movie was £8 million and the box office was £3,615,712 which shows a large amount of intake they received from this. Throughout the film the tracks from the basement Jaxx and Steven Rice were played which grabbed the target audience’s attention as the soundtracks were mostly heard by that specific age group. However the knock on effect of teenage viewers consuming films like ‘Attack the Block’, begins to think causing trouble is socially acceptable as these characters choose to do this as well as saving the world. This also could link to the cultivation theory[2] as society begins to think this is how young people behave, and begins to make an assumption which is why the media starts to stereotype.

The media demonises young teens and this can be shown through the ways they are labelled and represented to be 'Hoodies, louts, scum'[3], these are the typical names that have 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’[4], 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’ [5], 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 have 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’ [6], Linking this back to the case study which is ‘Attack the Block’ it tells us the positive and negative aspects of this which can be typical of the media portrayals. In this essay it will investigate how this is being impacted on the audience as well as 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’[7] , 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 adverse 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 ‘typical stereotype’ which can be shown through media 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 is ‘unemployed, students, pensioners, casual workers’ teenagers. Alvarado[8] 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 gang 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 known to be funny and last of all exotic as they are black.

‘Attack the Block’ represents teenagers in both ways, negative and positive representations as 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, which shows a balanced argument of teens in the media which can be balanced out of how teenagers typically are.  But due to the media portrayals ‘they don't all wear hoodies, and there is no need to bar them from shops’[9] as many teens are looked at in a different way from how teens were before it suggests how things have changed, 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. The 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’[10], 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. A positive representation can be shown in Tabloid of a teen who is shown in Daily mail of being a ‘hero teenager gave his life to rescue more than 30 people’[11], the teen boy risked his own life to save 30 people including saving mothers and children and from this he died being a hero, media does not always publish as many positive representation of teenagers but when they do it shows how teenagers have been risking their own lives just to help people in their society today and how it shows a totally different side of teens.

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 but can be changed in a positive way. 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 it shows that teenagers do help people, he is shown as a hero which links to Propp the character theory as his role is to be the hero and protect others by saving the world, It also shows the audience that they changed, but has changed for the best as they were helping people and from this it indicates that anyone can change their behaviour so 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,’[12] the quote explains 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  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 as the perspective shows a different view of this.

The use of the only white guy in the local gang suggests that it can be applied to the theory of Frantz Fanon[13] which is ‘The white mask’ theory, there is only one white teenager (Pest) who is with the black group, due to this reason it implies to the audience that he is trying to act 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)[14] 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’[15]; everyone even other teenagers agree that all teenagers do is ‘They sit on the street and drink’[16], shows what people think about teens & how they get carried away with drinking and drugs as they are rebellious. ‘If a young person listens to gangsta rap he/she will go out and shoot someone, do drugs, have unprotected sex’[17] , 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 which can be linked to Hypodermic needle theory[18]. Listening to rap music, ‘all you hear about is sex, drugs, violence, and money’[19], 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, this theory is by Albert Bandura[20]. ‘Sound of da police’[21] is the name of the song which was played during the movie when the clip comes on this shows the audience of the white male petrified of the teenagers who come and stand behind him to wait for the lift, because he was on his phone, he instantly switches it off and puts it straight in his pocket, shows how he was scared of getting mugged. ‘The Breakfast Club’ is a movie that is similar to ‘Attack the Block’ but because this is an old movie it has been portrayed different to how society would see teenagers today.

‘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’[22] who are in Saturday detention class where no one knows each other or been spoken to before, this changed as they started talking as well as having fun,  spending quality time with people from completely different cliques, an example of this can be the teen who is stereotyped to be ‘the quiet/weird one’ and the one who is shown to be  ‘the jock’ are getting along and even flirting during the end. 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 and arguing with each other in the start due to not knowing who one another were as they did not get along as they were all stereotyping one another.

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 include crime, violence, use of gun scenes 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’[23] 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, it shows the reason why the media has
been demonising teenagers in a negative way by engaging the audience to be aware of the 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’[24].

‘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’[25], 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 are 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’[26] . The media should take a new light on representing teenagers and not encouraging 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’[27] 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.

Throughout the assignment ‘Attack the Block’ represents teenagers and this is in fact typical of the media portrayals. The Media always exaggerates the story of their news which is why it gets higher number of viewers watching the news especially on teenage youth. From the news it enables people to learn new things about what is going on around their society 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’[28]. During the end of the movie ‘Attack the Block’  it shows a completely different side of the local gang as they helped to save the society they live in and because of this it shows a respectable side of them. The film balances the representation of young people overall as it practically doesn’t show them being deviant, as during the movie it shows the teenagers helping the nurse they recently had mugged as a friend as they worked together to save the world and from this it shows a total different aspect of the teenagers in the movie that has not been seen before, and due to this it links to the hypothesis which is ‘The media balances the representations of young youths in the society’, most of the stories are about achievements of young teenagers. The stereotypes are changing over the years from the way media portraying teens, it shows different generations views and opinions of the media, Teen movies such ‘The Breakfast club’ shows a different approach on how young teens are depicted as they show a balanced view on teenagers of how they are behaving, the movie shows 5 teenagers who all have made mistakes but throughout the film they all overcome their problems by trying to sort it out; it helps them to change their behaviour in a positive way which is what challenges the whole perspective of the negative news in the media as it also shows wide range of positive news being shown.

Word count: 2714 - (without quotes)
[2] Shanahan, J., & Morgan, M. (1999)
[4]  Webb,R, Trobe K, (2010) p49
[6]   Schissel,B. (1997) p.12
[8] Alvarado, M., & Gutch, R. (1987)

[9] It seems that we can only be interesting if we are smoking, snorting or stabbing

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/apr/15/stereotypes-young-people
[10] 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

[11] Philippines floods: Hero teenager saves more than 30 lives before he is swept away - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1216643/Philippines-floods-Hero-teenager-saves-30-lives-swept-away.html

[12]- 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
[13] Fanon, F. (1967).
[14] Preiss, R. W. (2007)
[15] - How a top can turn a teen into A hoodlum - http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2005/may/14/ukcrime.immigrationpolicy
[16] IBID
[17] - Steinberg,Shirley R, Priya P, Birgit,R (2006) p.6
[18] Starker, S. (1989). 
[19] Is rap music setting a bad example to younger kids?-http://youthvoices.net/discussion/rap-music-setting-bad-example-younger-kids
[20] Bandura, A. (1977)
[21] Attack The Block - Sound of da Police - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTUP9iEguIY&safe=active
[23] - London riots: how BlackBerry Messenger played a key role
 http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/aug/08/london-riots-facebook-twitter-blackberry
[25] - Browne, K(2006) p.207.
[27] Williams, A, Thurlow C, (2005) pg24.
[28] Webb,R, Trobe K, (2010) pg.32
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