How does the representation of youth culture changer over time?

Youth culture or ‘teen’ culture is the way that adolescents live and the values in which they share. Ken Gelder produced six key ways in which sub-cultures such as teenagers can be identified , which includes “negative or ambivalent relation to work, and class” they do not conform, “association with territory” and their “stylistic ties to excess and exaggeration” as well as “refusal of the banalities or ordinary life”.

Gilberts ‘Cosh Boy’ was set in in post-war London showing the mise en scene of bombed out streets and estates in 1953, society lacked men after the ‘lost generation’ and this resulted in many fatherless children with little guidance and no aurthoritive hand, this strongly relates to the social group in which Roy belongs to as they are described as ‘Juvenile delinquents’ in the pre-amble of the film which states its ideology stance. They were seen as a threat to 1950s Britain, and their erratic behaviour is what Stanley Cohen would suggest leads to a moral panic and a threat to “society values and interests”. The Levi Straus’ binary oppositions through ‘Cosh Boy’ reveal the battle between aurthoritive figures and youth, although Roy is the main character, both protagonist and antagonist, the sorry is only told in the perspective of authority figures such as the police or his mother, no one feels any sympathy towards Roy as he has brought everything upon himself in his narrow representation. The essence of early ‘Teddy boys’ are present throughout ‘Cosh Boy’ in 1953, the same year as the film, Teddy boys were first referenced in ‘The Express’. The Young ‘Teds’ committed serious crimes involving stealing, and shooting an innocent man, which mirrors an event which could have influenced the film, the Derrick Bentley case, he shot a police officer and was hung for his offence; because of the explicit behaviour, ‘Cosh Boy’ was one of the first X-rated films in Britain. One of the ways which this generation got away from the social norm was to go to a social club, this was one of the places the group of teds seemed to act most civil and dress well presented, which was a classic look for ‘teddy boys’. Within the film, Roy gets a young girl pregnant whom after he tells her wants nothing to do with the baby tries to commit suicide, this is another negative representation of youth culture which still happens in modern day society and links to carol rites ‘Saturday Night and Sunday Morning’ (1958) where the character Arthur Seaton has an affair with a married woman and gets her pregnant as well, the contraceptive pill did not become legal for unmarried women until 1968. Arthur dresses similar to a ‘teddy boy’ but doesn’t belong to a gang or group as such, he is working class but as Ken Gelder suggests has “negative relation to work”.

‘Saturday night and Sunday morning’ shows the difference in attitude and styles contrasting adulthood and underlines the beginning of youth culture. The film has a restricted narration; it is told through Arthur Seaton’s point of view placing the audience on his side, therefore feeling sympathy and admiration to his character. He was highly

influenced by ‘teddy boys’ and takes little responsibility for himself however the audience still admire him. His wrong decisions lead ‘The Daily Mail’ to evaluate him, and the social group of teen boys as being ‘ill-behaved, immoral drunken teddy boys’. The right wing press didn’t like the film and the way it negatively represented and exposed the young men, they did not want working class, and blamed almost everything on ‘teddy boys’ as an easy target. Throughout the film there is a clear separation between adults and children, not showing any in between, which is where youth culture begins.

As opposed to Reizs’s representation of late ‘50’s and early 60’s Britain, The Beatles advertising musical ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ made youth culture its own. Older characters in the film see Britain as what they had fought for, and what it had become a scene which shows this is war veteran saying “I fought the war for your sought” and John Lennon replies “yeah I bet you’re sorry you won!”, this film did not overcome issues such as those which are in the earlier films such as ‘Saturday Night and Sunday morning’ however this gave the audience an insight in the difference between an adult society and how they are represented. Arthur Seaton’s attitude towards authority and frustration out of a lack of opportunities is exaggerated with films such as ‘A Hard Day’s Night’.

Roddam’s ‘Quadrophenia’ released in 1973 Jimmy wants to be part of a group; he chooses ‘mods’ over ‘rockers’ who were rivals at the time. Dick Hebdige claims that the progenitors of mod subculture “appear to have been a group of working-class dandies, possible descended from the devotees of the Italianate style” Jimmy finds himself in a difficult position when he realises that he is individual and doesn’t belong to the group no matter how hard he tried to fit in, this is relatable to the audience and modern day society, you can see echoes of this from Margaret thatcher prime minister of the time who said that “There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women”. The behaviour of the ‘Mods’ and ‘Rockers’ have particular styles and meeting places outside of the home which links to Ken Gelder who talks about how sub-cultures such as youth have an ‘association to territory’, it also links to Dick Hebdige who calls this particular sub-culture a ‘subversion to normalcy’ meaning that the youths subvert tradition. In ‘Quadrophenia’ we also witness a real life event the ‘Brighton riot’ which is specifically the clash between ‘mods’ and ‘rockers’. In modern day the riots which are caused by youth are usually against aurthoritive figures and not necessarily each other, even though we still see the separate sub-cultures of youth including ‘chavs’ ‘Goths’ and ‘indies’ who are represented negatively in the press.

Skipping ahead to 2010 when ‘Kiddulthood’ was released, it was aimed at an entirely different audience – for youth culture, only rated as a ‘15’ even though it contains extreme violence and explicit language. The film itself still includes similar behaviour to that shown in ‘Cosh Boy’ and earlier films, particularly including the crimes committed,

weapons however the attitude and styles have completely changed. Even though the film is so violent, ‘Kiddulthood’ is a social realist film because the catastrophic events which happen are common in modern day society such as teen pregnancy and drug problems. Stanley Cohen would suggest that both of these films are what lead to a ‘moral panic’ threatening ‘society, values and interests’.

‘Harry brown’ youth culture is represented as dominant ideology; prevalence is used to keep them centre frame which reflects that they are the main focus of the film, and who become more powerful. This contrasts with the older films such as ‘Cosh boy’ where authority figures are only ever placed in centre frame which shows how through time youth has become more powerful and more intimidating or dominant, however bad mediation about youth culture has carried on through time, the ‘teens’ in modern day just seems to have lost the sense of how to identify an authorities figure and are no longer scared of the punishment.

‘The inbetweeners’ based in 2011 is most recent and most relatable for modern day teens, the TV series and Film are both comedies and have a target audience of youth. The characters in the film/program are British middle class which is oppositional to most youth films who always seem to present teens as negative, whereas here they are placed as the protagonists of the film, and prevalence is used to keep them centre frame. These stereotypes are seen in modern day all of the time with working parents and strong references to immature sexual jokes. This contrasts the working class youths in ‘Harry Brown’ who live in council estates.

The Television soap EastEnders was first broadcast in February 1985, it was created because the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) was looking for a primetime soap which could rival with the ITV soap Coronation Street and Emmerdale Farm. It was originally scheduled for 7pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays but was changed to 7:30pm to avoid clashing with Emmerdale, as the soap became more popular and was shown to a mass dominant audience through the BBC the days increased to each day in the week except for Wednesdays. The early evening time slot allowed adults to come home from work and was early enough for children and young people not yet to be in bed, as it is predominantly aimed at a family audience. Most young people in EastEnders are still represented negatively, such as the character Lucy Beale, recently killed, who excessively used drugs and alcohol, it has also shown young alcoholics and teen pregnancy with Lola who fell pregnant at 16 after a one night stand, teen pregnancy is proven to be popular, and is shown in older films such as ‘Cosh Boy’ and ‘Saturday night and Sunday morning’ it seemed to be normal to have a child and be married early, but in modern day can be looked down upon, but is relatable to the audience because it happened often in reality. All of the episodes of EastEnders which did show any violence or hard drug use were shown past the watershed, like wise with the soap aimed at a

younger audience ‘Hollyoaks’ who have once shown a male rape scene which had to be broadcast past 11pm. Both of these soaps have got social media sites and fan pages which enable the audience to get more involved, it also draws in a younger teen audience who are more likely to be on social media. The scandals for the shows also keep the audience’s attention; the audience show dominant readings however can be oppositional or negotiated through the different scandals. Blumer and Katz theory suggests that the audience should be noticed as individuals and not groups or sub-cultures, and they will each interpret the media in different ways. Hollyoaks is broadcast on channel 4 whose main target audience is for teens and young adults (15+) the soap started in 1995 as a comedy drama and continued becoming more popular with the young audience and went up to 3 half hour episodes a week and then up again to 5 in 2001.