Collective identity implies a
homogenous group, each with common interests and a similar lifestyle.
Representation is the way in which the media mediate, repackage or
‘re-present’ individuals, people, places and social groups to audiences.
Anything can be a representation. Theorists like Richard Dyer argue there are
political and social reasons for maintaining a hegemonic collective
identity in perpetuating social divisions, maintaining the dominant culture and
legitimising inequality. Hegemonic assumptions about collective identity are
often reinforced and circulated by the media as ‘common sense’ and this can lead
to marginalisation and can also embed ideological beliefs e.g. the
myth of older age and its association with wisdom. This in turn can be
underpinned by moral panics – wayward youth culture was seen to blame for
the 2011 London riots and applying Stanley Cohen’s appropriation from Wilkins –
1964 of the concept deviancy amplification, youth was demonised in
tabloid, mid market tabloid and television news coverage.
Changes in technology and the
liberalisation of social values has led to more pluralistic
representations however. Web 2.0 has changed the face of media and
technology empowering youth more, not just in relation to the
manifest rise of youth entrepreneurs. It suggests a more confident
identity and a more valued contribution to society than archaic cultural
stereotypes. David Gauntlett argues that the idea of identity is
“complicated” and that “everyone’s got one” with the added suggestion that the
idea of a collective identity is slowly being eroded – this would link with the
idea of the young ‘prosumer’ as both consumer and producer of media,
exploring digital parameters and sharing media via social networking. David
Buckingham approaches the concept of identity in a slightly different way
suggesting that it is the way we relate to, or ‘fit in’ with those around us.
This in turn could relate to notions of the disintegration of youth sub
cultures, prevalent historically but now perhaps recognising the power of the
individual and with identity as a “unique marker of a person”.
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Cultural stereotypes and moral
panics still remain however but arguably are as less obvious than before.
Passive computer game culture, obesity, young female drinkers and
smokers, unemployment and general social deviance are all still recurring though
and are often used to blame for problems within society.
Quadrophenia is a 1979 film that can be used as a historical frame
of reference to explore the changing representation of youth culture – using a
1964 event on Brighton seafront as a visually iconic, recognisable
narrative the film builds to a climax by recreating the well known fight between
two traditionally opposed youth sub cultures - the Mods and the Rockers. Stanley
Cohen described the event as a moral panic that was used to show how youth had
become ‘out of control’ but in the film it could be argued elements of these sub
cultures are represented as glamorous and aspirational. Produced by The
Who, the film had a primary objective to entertain target audiences and as such,
although themes and issues are explored, particularly through the character of
Jimmy it is a musical journey as much as a spiritual one. A young Ray Winstone
plays a biker while Sting (Ace Face) is represented as the ultimate Mod with his
Vespa GS 160 scooter that Jimmy drools over; his good looks, smart dress,
attitude and the ability to pay his fine in court immediately by cheque.
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This representation is later
‘smashed’ with Jimmy seeing the Ace Face for what he is as a Bell Boy in a
hotel, running around catering for the dominant classes which leads to his
complete break away from any structure or support mechanisms whether family,
girlfriend or youth sub culture. Older, middle class representations in
Quadrophenia reflect Gramsci’s concept of cultural hegemony
– middle class lives are seen normal, natural and commonsense while the behavior
of Jimmy and his friends is seen as ‘different’ and unacceptable with social
class as much as youth underpinning. This struggle for acceptability changes
over time in as much as the negative representations of age and social class in
1979 is seen differently in more contemporary television teen dramas such as
Skins (E4, 2007 – 2013) and Misfits (E4 2009 – 2013)
and British films such as Fish Tank (2009) and The Selfish
Giant (2013). The idea of spectatorship and the encoding
and decoding of, according to Stuart Hall dominant preferred
meanings is also important with interpretations varying.
Jimmy, for example could be
seen as a more contemporary representation of youth (in the end) looking to
break away from his social, and in the end cultural straightjacket with which he
becomes so embittered and disappointed. In the
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21st century his mental illness
and problems potentially would be identified but in Quadrophenia
he resembles notions of difference and the outsider as he reflects and obsesses
over his own mod identity which leads ultimately, applying Taijfel and Turner to
his marginalisation from the collective group (the Mods) to which being part of
was so important. Jimmy is semi suicidal, pill pops and in a final scene,
the dominant reading of which is that he takes his own life by riding the Ace
Face’s scooter off a cliff provides audience with a negotiated or
oppositional reading – Jimmy instead is symbolically trashing the culture of
the Mod and with it, his collective identity. He is seen at the beginning of the
film walking away from the cliff further anchoring his individualism with
the realisation that youth culture and the politics of youth is built on fragile
foundations.
In Subculture: The
Meaning of Style, Dick Hebdige posits the idea that youth sub culture
maintains divisions in society identifying two stereotypes – youth as fun and
youth as trouble. In The Selfish Giant, an independent social
realist film distributed in 2013 the latter ‘trouble’ stereotype is explored
– it portrays the dysfunctional lives of two young boys, Arbor and Swifty who
steal copper cable for Kitten, the unscrupulous boss of a scrap yard in
Bradford, west Yorkshire. The film compares well with Fish Tank as
two films from the same genre focusing on the representation of youth and
regional identity but also for British film, seemingly unable again to detach
itself from issues of social class. The Selfish Giant explores the
innocence of childhood, myths surrounding this construct and the idea of
consequences. Both boys attend school but Arbor is permanently excluded and both
have as priorities making money, long before they would be stereotypically seen
as legitimately on the job market. Arbor actually gives some of the money he
makes to his family in a reversal of parental expectations.
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The film stops short of
developing a macro narrative on the problems faced across the UK in
impoverished areas where young boys will risk their lives stealing cable from
railway tracks and other hazardous areas like behind power stations. At the same
time youth is represented as arrogant, selfish, aggressive, deviant and criminal
but Arbor and Swifty are also framed as kind, emotive and vulnerable with the
key criminal in the film the adult owner of the scrap yard who exploits them.
Skins, on occasion offers similar narratives to encode a
challenging representation of initially deviant youth but as victims of
adult crime. In series four, episode one audiences immediately are introduced to
youth culture through drugs and club culture but soon into the episode we see a
morally correct young DJ challenging his unethical club owner boss who on a
regular basis has no problem with having his club flaunting health and safety
guidelines in terms of numbers allowed in.
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The Selfish Giant
has parallels with the 2007-2014 long running Barnardos ‘Believe in
Children’ campaign, also social realism which asks the public to challenge
the aggressive, cultural stereotypes they are being presented with in the poster
campaign and think again about the vulnerability of youth. Martin Hoyles in
The Politics of Childhood examines how and why children have
gradually been separated from the adult world of work, in turn leading to a form
of marginalisation where their role in society is stereotypically to be ‘looked
after’ having no economic value (the Barnardos children are represented as
marginalised as everyone has turned their back on them).
Under no circumstances is
Hoyles suggesting a return to child labour but points out that media
representations of childhood commonly conform to stereotypical assumptions while
a large proportion of young people earn a small amount of money to sustain
themselves and to facilitate independence. In The Selfish Giant
and in Barnardos advertising Acland’s ‘ideology of protection’ can be
studied with Arbor and Swifty promoting the collective notion that young people
are in need of constant surveillance and monitoring, allowing society and the
state to have more control over them. The two boys in the film strongly
challenge this collective ideology on one level but in terms of narrative
outcomes it arguably is reinforced with Arbor hiding under his bed and refusing
to come out until the Swifty’s Mum (Swifty has just been fatally electrocuted
while with Arbor stealing cable) appears in a scene that suggests emotional
understanding and forgiveness.
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In Fish Tank,
representations of youth are similar. The more middle class Connor exploits Mia
sexually and she is seen in a victim role, despite her manifest aggressive
behavior in a similar way that Arbor and Swifty are exploited by Kitten. Her
family, like Arbor and Connor’s is also dysfunctional and the film takes
a ‘Broken Britain’ approach to representations of family and social class. Mia
is an interesting character in that her youthful vulnerability is evident and is
given over to audiences as equally as her anti social behavior – this references
Martin Barker’s ideas of how moral panics of deviant youth culture are often
challenged through good and bad deeds. Mia’s positive feelings for her sister
are apparent and her symbolic desire to free a horse she thinks will be killed
by Billy and his brothers is admirable (the role of horses is also important in
The Selfish Giant). Andrea Arnold positions audiences
however into decoding intelligent, sympathetic readings of poverty, neglect,
abuse and notions of the difficulties faced by single parent families on a low
income and the idea of consequences. Through the mise-en-scene the film
represents all of the youth chav stereotype signifiers but arguably suggests a
more pluralistic representation.
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Using Stuart Hall’s framework,
this dominant or oppositional reading would be dependent on audience – I
witnessed a white, middle class west London independent cinema audience laughing
at the representations, aghast that people ‘could live like that’ while a
BFI audience fully understood the social realist conventions and the
director’s encoded meanings. The film had a limited theatrical release in only
40 cinemas and for some audiences it was reassuring in how it perpetuated
cultural stereotypes, applying Dyer’s theory again of legitimising ideas of
difference to maintain unequal power relations in society. Mia could be seen as
‘belonging’ to a collective group of dysfunctional, urban teenagers with no
value in society, economically or socially. The representation of this
collective group is frequently alluded to in the right wing press, e.g. during
and after the London riots and similar images are circulated and reinforced,
often deliberately placed in binary opposition to more ‘normal’
mainstream culture. Levi Strauss’ framework is useful in understanding this with
middle aged, more respectable representations seen as the dominant culture in
teen dramas such as Waterloo Road and mainstream soap operas like
Eastenders.
Like Jimmy in
Quadrophenia however, Mia manages to break of out this spiral
(hence the title ‘Fish Tank’) and is empowered to escape from her life when
narrative resolution sees Mia driving away with her boyfriend to a new, albeit
uncertain life in Wales. Tyler, her younger sister waves her farewell uttering
the immortal line, “Say hello to the whales for me”. Tyler is also wayward in
that she drinks, smokes, swears but has more of an emotional, dependent loyalty
to her mother and ironically is seen in some scenes ‘telling Mia off’ for not
attending meetings with the local education authority about getting her back
into school. Youth culture in Fish Tank on one level is seen as
empowering despite the fact that Mia’s childhood ‘innocence’ has been destroyed
by her upbringing as she challenges societal norms, escapes from a recognised
collective identity and builds her own future.
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Fish Tank,
Kidulthood (2006) and Adulthood (2008) reflect the
recent trending of social realism towards youth audiences – central
protagonists of social realist films have always been young, angry and
alienated but potentially a more compassionate reading is becoming evident. An
oppositional reading to this could reference the aspirational genre
hybridisation of recent social realist films like Shifty,
Ill Manors and Shank with the gangster genre. The
deviant threat of criminal youth culture could potentially be amplified by the
hybridisation with a negative collective urban group reinforced – passive
consumption by youth audiences remains a possibility but there are moral
messages encoded into the films. Many contemporary social realist films have
moral closure e.g. Shaun turning his back on racism at the end of This is
England or Ricky’s younger brother Curtis symbolically turning his back
on gun crime in Bullet Boy. In Kidulthood, Trevor
pays the ultimate price for exploring his individualism with collective identity
a key theme of the film in relation to youth and gang culture.
The representation of age is
also subject to biological and social constructions. Youth culture is mediated
through media representations to an audience who read potential encoded meaning.
The TV teen drama Waterloo Road is an interesting text that
explores this concept as it main narrative function – the main characters in the
drama are school children and teachers, often teachers ‘saving’ and looking
after their charges with parents rarely seen throughout the nine series. A
latent meaning from Waterloo Road, and on occasional manifest is
how the programme takes a critical approach to parenting, often blaming parents
within the narrative for the anti social behavior of the children. Originally
set in Rochdale (Greater Manchester) it again, like many other British media
representations of youth makes clear correlations with deviant, anti social
behavior linking with working class culture. The programme moved from a
dysfunctional school in Rochdale to an independent academy in Greenock, Scotland
for the eighth series but for the ninth series currently airing (as of February
2014) the school has lost its benefactor and has returned to a comprehensive
status.
Waterloo Road in
its ninth series presents audiences with exaggerated narratives that deal with
hyper real, although potentially realist scenarios including a teacher
discovering a pupil is suffering from neglect, finding out her brother is
dealing cocaine from their family home, a kidnapping by a supply teacher,
alcoholism and social exclusion – Gabriella, a pupil from a privileged middle
class family who has recently been excluded from school arrives in Greenock as a
form of ‘tough love’ metered out to her by her parents. Other themes explored
over the years have included homosexuality, racism, rape, cancer, divorce and
suicide; all directly involving the children in the school. The programme
borrows from soap opera conventions in terms of familiarity with character and
setting also the dramatic nature of the representations encoding at times a form
of hegemonic cultural stereotyping (common for mainstream texts aimed at mass
audiences).
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Waterloo Road
concerns itself with negative and positive representations of youth culture with
an emphasis on the negative. David Buckingham, in Youth, Identity and
Digital Media explores the idea of deviance and delinquency as a social
problem which legitimises various forms of treatments e.g. the work of social,
educational and clinical agencies that seek to rehabilitate troublesome youth.
‘Problems’ are omnipresent in the drama, normalising the traumatic world of the
teenager by way of hegemonic representations suggesting even that narrative
events are a form of rites of passage. While good drama is not always born from
‘normal’, non dramatic representations Waterloo Road perpetuates
the idea of ‘youth as trouble’ and successfully marginalises working class youth
culture into a collective identity.
On the other side of the social
class spectrum, Outnumbered is a British situation comedy based in
west London that focuses on the role of the children within a middle class,
barely functional family. Sue and Pete are literally outnumbered by their
children who do not conform and engage in stereotypically adult dialogue with
their parents, suggesting a form of pluralistic representation. It is worth
remembering however the fact that the programme follows mainstream genre sitcom
conventions and is scheduled on BBC1. Audiences are positioned into
understanding the innocence of childhood and into ‘feeling the love’ in that
there is a clear feel good element to the show as the two central parent
protagonists actually like each other which is a key appeal – cynically
the show has surveillance aspects to it and it is actually promoting the
ideology of a middle class, nuclear family lifestyle. Although the
children on one level challenge cultural stereotypes they exist within the
safety and parameters of a stable family environment. To explore representations
of youth in British comedy further it is often worth turning to C4 and E4 for
more alternative approaches that potentially offer a more obvious critique of
hegemonic constructs revealing collective identity.
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Misfits for
example was a science fiction comedy drama broadcast on E4 between 2009 and 2013
about a group of young offenders sentenced to work in a community programme
service where they obtain supernatural powers. On one level, the comedy presents
audiences with the familiar idea of ASBO teens (audience identification) but
represents them in a likeable way. By giving them superpowers it directly
contradicts the negative stereotype, offering audiences a point of view from the
protagonists themselves. As with parents in Waterloo Road adult
roles are represented negatively with characters like probation officers being
represented as monsters – this leads audiences onto a latent preferred meaning
that what is in fact monstrous is the negative representations of youth in
society and the whole idea of stereotyping. Again linked in with working class
culture, the programme is a genuine site of struggle exploring societal
hegemonic constructs through humour. As with any text however, the audience is
crucial and as with all E4 programing, the positive representation of youth
culture may be explained by the niche 15-35 target audience.
Film and television, despite
social networking and viral interactivity are still one-way narratives
that either challenge, reinforce (or sometimes both) the idea of youth and
collective identity. Perhaps looking at digital technology and developing
further the role of the prosumer is a way of analysing the changing
representation of youth culture in society with young people constantly
exploiting new commercial opportunities. Memes are quite an interesting
construct as a shared representation and Facebook also makes a perfect case
study to discuss notions of the construction of ones own identity. Michael Wesch
suggests the idea of peer to peer sharing has led the to fragmentation and
implosion of traditional youth identity. Henry Jenkins reinforces this by
challenging the dominant, mainstream belief that internet communication reduces
social skills by stating instead, that users are actively participating in
multiple communication. Without end loading this resource with theoretical input
this in turn would support David Buckingham’s argument of the fragmentation of
traditional collective identity. Digital technology, of all media is
fundamentally changing the concept of collective identity while traditional
media still mediates cultural stereotypes but dependent on audience and context.
Audiences still expect these representations but are increasingly challenged by
moves towards self-construction and pluralism within a changing hegemonic
framework.
Mini Glossary
of Terms
- Homogenous Group: A group that all have the same characteristics
- Mediation: The selection and construction of material in how it is given over to audiences via editing and point of view
- Hegemony: Traditional stereotypes that are reinforced and circulated as common sense to audiences
- Marginisalisation: How stereotyping can lead to someone or a social group being ‘placed’ on the outside of accepted cultural norms
- Ideology: An overarching set of ideas often uses as a form of social control
- Moral Panics: Issues in society that often lead to the blaming, and marginalisation of a scapegoat
- Deviancy Amplification: Associated with moral panics, this explains how the media exaggerate a negative representation to ensure a dominant shared reading
- Liberalisation: A more diverse, tolerant, equally acceptable approach
- Pluralism: Again, more liberal suggesting and range of different, challenging representations
- Web 2.0: Interactive internet media e.g. blogs and social networking
- Manifest: Obvious, on the surface meaning
- Cultural Stereotyping: The stereotyping of social groups in society by the media
- Prosumer: A producer and consumer of media
- Passive Audiences: Audiences that accept and do not challenge representations
- Iconic: Well known and respected
- Aspiration: Looking up to something or somebody
- Encoding/Decoding: Putting meaning in, taking meaning out
- Dominant, Negotiated and Oppositional Readings: The intended meaning of a text, where meaning is uncertain or where audience have decoded a completely different reading
- Anchorage: How meaning is made more definite
- Binary Oppositions: Where representations are deliberately different to construct further meaning
- Latent Meaning: Less obvious meaning
- Memes: Internet ‘stars’