'Harry Brown'
Director: Daniel Barber
Released in 2009
How does 'Harry Brown' represent young people?
Iconography helps to construct the representation of young people including hoodies, pitbulls, knives, guns, drugs, subway, council houses (location), sexual confrontation, sexism, fighting territory, revenge, friendship, dialogue (real colloquial language), age (Harry - old, police - middle aged, gangs - younger)
Binary opposition (social class) - Harry Brown (working class) - Gangs (lower class) - Police (higher class)
Impact that the environment has on the way the gangs grow up...near drug dealers
Dark lighting - negativity, suspense, shadows, dark side, threatening, evil.
Genre - Thriller/horror use of signals
Female challenges media stereotypes as she comes out with a better status and more knowledge
Hoodies strike fear in British cinema
'Guardian 2009'
Un-emotional, inept of feelings, thugs, challenging societies norms, no hope (survival is a challenge)
Links to horror -
Monsters (vampires/zombies/supernatural/aliens/murderers) - Harry Brown brings non-fiction real life characters and applies them as monsters. (teenagers)
Social class -
Teenagers with blazers from grammer schools would not scare an audience where-as a hoody in the environment will.
Middle class/upper class vs lower class/working class
Capitalism
Hegemony - Power of the ruling class want us to believe something about the other class' - influences the way we think
Governed by rulings of media making us believe.
Moral panic - creating fear about a class - only way to control them being an ASBO
Self-fulfilling prophecy - told so many times you are something that you become exactly that.
'Eden Lake'
Director: James Watkins
Released in 2008
How are Jenny and Steve (the main couple) represented?
Normal clean-cut people that have gone for a romantic trip as a couple yet are challenged to show they have no hope yet from what the trailor leads us to believe they will do anything to survive (strong willed). Jenny is shown as the damzel in distress and Steve is her saviour and they are out of their comfort zone (isolated and vulnerable).
How is this contrasted with the representation of the other characters?
The other characters are the complete opposite to the couple. Drinking, smoking, wearing hoodies, aggresive dogs, stealing objects that do not belong to them etc. They show no remorse/respect in what they are doing to Jenny and Steve. Keeping hold of the territory that the couple are invading onto. Mainly male dominated with sexual violence towards women.
How important is the issue of social class?
The couple are of middle/upper class whereas the other characters are lower class as they do not look to have jobs so the audience will immediately prejudge the stereotype. The article we read pointed out that young people from blazers would not have the scare factor that someone of lower class does.
How are young people represented?
Young people are represented very poorly as the same 'Harry Brown'. As with the article they are shown to be a type of new age monster. The use of weapons and hanging around in gangs (hunting in packs) all the different stereotypical youth culture is shown mainly at night time.
The British youth in the films are represented by not conforming to dominant ideology/disruption to the equilibrium.
Dominant ideology - shouldn't break the law, be respectful etc.
Conformity to the dominant social norms.
'Attack the Block'
Director: Joe Cornish
Released in 2011
How are the main characters introduced in 'Attack the Block'?
Violent, hunting in packs, madness at nightime, bandanas/hoodys/baseball caps, knives, vulnerability of women, opportunistic crime, more middle class but crossing over into the territory of the youths, quiloquial dialogue, the monster.
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