Watch the trailer for Bully (2001) and the opening of Skins (Series 1, episode 1, 2007).
Answer the following exam questions
1. Compare and contrast the representations of teenagers in the two texts
Both these texts have a negative representation of teenagers, showing them as troublesome but one is more comical while the other is serious.
The representation of teenagers in ‘Bully’ are serious and extreme mostly sutured by the voice over of the mother saying they “smoke”, “drink” and “don’t do anything”. The most shocking representation is their violence with shots of one punching another character in the face, a shot of one raping a girl and a shot of one hitting a base ball bat towards an unknown character. Though in more contemporary representations there are news reports of knife crime, gun crime and violent deaths amongst teenagers, this text seems to exaggerate a dominant representation of teen.
This contrasts to the troublesome nature of the teenagers in Skins. They appear to annoy their parents to create humour, such as the protagonist turning the radio to max and ignore his father but refusing to turn it off or locking the bathroom door and exiting through the window. What is more comical is how this was apart of a plan for the teen girl to sneak in who reflects a dominant representation of rebellious teens who sneak out at night to parties for example.
Not only does this represent teenagers as mischievous and annoying, but also willing to help each other out and clever as their extreme and funny plan left the father unsuspicious of both the son and daughter.
Similarly, towards the end of Bully, the audience get a sense of community between a group of teens, even though they plot to kill a fellow member. This also brings ups issues of rivalry between teenagers such as gangs which is often shown about teens in the media.
Both texts also look at sexuality, which is always linked to the representation of teenagers. Again Bully takes a more serious view to it while Skins look at it in a more comical way. Bully’s trailer signifies that there is a lot of sex and nudity with shots like a low angle of a girls bum, a close up of a girl’s legs, and many shots of people having sex. The most noticeable and shocking shot is the still shot of a girl screaming while having sex which suggests she is being raped.
This contrasts with the themes of sex and nudity in the opening of skins. The establishing shot zooms out to see the protagonist lying in bed with a duvet cover of a naked man and a naked woman, which is comical. Also he checks the time on his watch and promptly looks out his window to stare at his naked female neighbour who shockingly doesn’t seem to be bothered that a teen boy is staring at her. This reinforces teen stereotypically seen as being concerned with the opposite gender.
2. Consider the view that the current representation of teenagers is simply another ‘moral panic’
Cohen believed that the media can sensationalise particular news and constantly recreate ideologies about certain groups, usually negative, and he called this ‘moral panics’. These are defiantly present in the media as the same representations of teens are causing parent and other members of society to be concerned or even fear teenagers. Some might argue that current representations aren’t just moral panics but truly represent teens today. This may be due to events in the news such as an article in the Metro about teens recruiting gang members via YouTube. Audiences might see these constant negative representations of teens as the truth as the news represents itself as the truth.
Others say that these are only moral panics and misrepresent teenagers. The media is mostly the cause of these moral panics, as one big event can trigger the media to select certain reports that constantly reinforce particular stereotypes of teens, at the moment, its is often about teenagers and pregnancy, drugs, alcohol and violence. As the news selects what they think is news valuable content, it makes it hard for other teen representations to be shown, cornering them into particular stereotypes and creating moral panics.
3. To what extent has new and digital media given younger audiences the opportunities to shape their own media representations?
The introduction of web 2.0 and the rise of the internet have had a major impact on all members of society, especially teenagers and younger adults. These young people that many years ago were powerless and not heard amongst others in society now have the ability to represent themselves via the internet.
Firstly the introduction of social networking sites have played a big part in shaping representations. With sites like Facebook, teens can now represent who they are with information such as their interests in music, TV shows and films. Though this provides basic information, audiences get to see what sort of people teenagers are really like rather than basing it on what they see in the media.
Though Facebook allows democracy amongst audiences, its often been negatively represented in the media for privacy and safety issues. This moral panic about safety and privacy could lead to bad representations of users, who are typically teens and young adults. This therefore means that teenagers’ ability to represent themselves has little purpose as larger media institutions still uses the site as a platform to negative stereotype the group. This also reinforces hegemony theory where the “dominant classes rule other classes” (Gramsci).
Web 2.0 has also allowed many well regarded media platforms to be available on the e-media platform, but also allow audience participation in a way that was not able before. Now anyone can comment on things like blog, magazine and newspaper websites and catch up services websites. All major institutions allow audiences to comment allowing themselves to represent their groups.
However, there is a sense of representation and stereotyping with these institutions and who they are targeting. For example, the guardian is a well regarded newspaper and is targeted at adults who are well educated, and therefore are more likely to comment, which allows them to be represented through a well regarded institution. On the other hand, E4’s popular comedy series Inbetweeners, has more comments from younger audiences as they are the target. This may be a negative representations teens as they “love the inbetweeners”, a show full of negative stereotypes of teens which others might see as a true representation. Therefore, the platform and institution that audiences comment on could reinforce particular stereotypes about them.
Answer the following exam questions
1. Compare and contrast the representations of teenagers in the two texts
Both these texts have a negative representation of teenagers, showing them as troublesome but one is more comical while the other is serious.
The representation of teenagers in ‘Bully’ are serious and extreme mostly sutured by the voice over of the mother saying they “smoke”, “drink” and “don’t do anything”. The most shocking representation is their violence with shots of one punching another character in the face, a shot of one raping a girl and a shot of one hitting a base ball bat towards an unknown character. Though in more contemporary representations there are news reports of knife crime, gun crime and violent deaths amongst teenagers, this text seems to exaggerate a dominant representation of teen.
This contrasts to the troublesome nature of the teenagers in Skins. They appear to annoy their parents to create humour, such as the protagonist turning the radio to max and ignore his father but refusing to turn it off or locking the bathroom door and exiting through the window. What is more comical is how this was apart of a plan for the teen girl to sneak in who reflects a dominant representation of rebellious teens who sneak out at night to parties for example.
Not only does this represent teenagers as mischievous and annoying, but also willing to help each other out and clever as their extreme and funny plan left the father unsuspicious of both the son and daughter.
Similarly, towards the end of Bully, the audience get a sense of community between a group of teens, even though they plot to kill a fellow member. This also brings ups issues of rivalry between teenagers such as gangs which is often shown about teens in the media.
Both texts also look at sexuality, which is always linked to the representation of teenagers. Again Bully takes a more serious view to it while Skins look at it in a more comical way. Bully’s trailer signifies that there is a lot of sex and nudity with shots like a low angle of a girls bum, a close up of a girl’s legs, and many shots of people having sex. The most noticeable and shocking shot is the still shot of a girl screaming while having sex which suggests she is being raped.
This contrasts with the themes of sex and nudity in the opening of skins. The establishing shot zooms out to see the protagonist lying in bed with a duvet cover of a naked man and a naked woman, which is comical. Also he checks the time on his watch and promptly looks out his window to stare at his naked female neighbour who shockingly doesn’t seem to be bothered that a teen boy is staring at her. This reinforces teen stereotypically seen as being concerned with the opposite gender.
2. Consider the view that the current representation of teenagers is simply another ‘moral panic’
Cohen believed that the media can sensationalise particular news and constantly recreate ideologies about certain groups, usually negative, and he called this ‘moral panics’. These are defiantly present in the media as the same representations of teens are causing parent and other members of society to be concerned or even fear teenagers. Some might argue that current representations aren’t just moral panics but truly represent teens today. This may be due to events in the news such as an article in the Metro about teens recruiting gang members via YouTube. Audiences might see these constant negative representations of teens as the truth as the news represents itself as the truth.
Others say that these are only moral panics and misrepresent teenagers. The media is mostly the cause of these moral panics, as one big event can trigger the media to select certain reports that constantly reinforce particular stereotypes of teens, at the moment, its is often about teenagers and pregnancy, drugs, alcohol and violence. As the news selects what they think is news valuable content, it makes it hard for other teen representations to be shown, cornering them into particular stereotypes and creating moral panics.
3. To what extent has new and digital media given younger audiences the opportunities to shape their own media representations?
The introduction of web 2.0 and the rise of the internet have had a major impact on all members of society, especially teenagers and younger adults. These young people that many years ago were powerless and not heard amongst others in society now have the ability to represent themselves via the internet.
Firstly the introduction of social networking sites have played a big part in shaping representations. With sites like Facebook, teens can now represent who they are with information such as their interests in music, TV shows and films. Though this provides basic information, audiences get to see what sort of people teenagers are really like rather than basing it on what they see in the media.
Though Facebook allows democracy amongst audiences, its often been negatively represented in the media for privacy and safety issues. This moral panic about safety and privacy could lead to bad representations of users, who are typically teens and young adults. This therefore means that teenagers’ ability to represent themselves has little purpose as larger media institutions still uses the site as a platform to negative stereotype the group. This also reinforces hegemony theory where the “dominant classes rule other classes” (Gramsci).
Web 2.0 has also allowed many well regarded media platforms to be available on the e-media platform, but also allow audience participation in a way that was not able before. Now anyone can comment on things like blog, magazine and newspaper websites and catch up services websites. All major institutions allow audiences to comment allowing themselves to represent their groups.
However, there is a sense of representation and stereotyping with these institutions and who they are targeting. For example, the guardian is a well regarded newspaper and is targeted at adults who are well educated, and therefore are more likely to comment, which allows them to be represented through a well regarded institution. On the other hand, E4’s popular comedy series Inbetweeners, has more comments from younger audiences as they are the target. This may be a negative representations teens as they “love the inbetweeners”, a show full of negative stereotypes of teens which others might see as a true representation. Therefore, the platform and institution that audiences comment on could reinforce particular stereotypes about them.
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