BFI Semenar Notes

Teenage Riot! - Youth, media and collective identity.

How do macro factors affect politics/community?-"Who you are" and how are you unique?
-"What makes you similar" (with others)
-What social groups do you belong to?

Identity and Media
-Jacques Lacan (pyschoanalyst)
-The mirror stage, when a child begins to develop their identity
-What is our relationship with what is on screen?
-What pleasures do they offer? "Helping us define who we are"
-IDENTIFICATION (who we are)
-ASPIRATION (what we want to be)

Influence of Media
-How could they affect us?
-"Beaming an opinion"
-Do we consider representations accurate? "Closure and solidity"
-Inaccurate or distorted portrayals create a distorted identity = False aspiration and beliefs
-Draw confidence in what you are or aren't

Identification/Aspiration could inspire escapism?

Constructing the Teenager
-Youth culture emerges
-19th century "Bowery Boys" of New York
-Own slang, dress code, musical tastes etc (creating a recognisable culture)
-First time entertainment and fashion industries targeted youth groups

1900-1940
-400% rise in school enrollment in USA
-"Peer culture" (making comparisons)
-Magazine industries targeting insecurities of adolescence
-1940 WWii = Labour demand = young people with disposable income

1945-60 'Birth of the Teen'
-Economic potential obvious (market of the future)
-Youth similtaneously represented as "Prosperous and liberated future" and "A culture of moral decline"
-First sign of adult culture dichotomous image of teenagers
-Film example: The Wild One

1950's Rock 'N' Roll culture
-Not trying to fit in to adult mainstream (rebellion)
-Happy to rebel, first indication of Generation Gap
-In values and lifestyles

Adult Hegemony?
-Adult world supplied the culture, targeted it, constructed it
-Dominant social group, keeps an oppressed group in subservent position by making them feel this position is normal or desirable
-Adult mainstream exploited the image of the 'rebel teen'
-Sold to teenagers as aspiration
-Sold to adults as fear

James Dean - An Accurate Portrayal of Youth?
"Rebel without a cause"
-First celeb to capture dissonance of youth
-Delinquent behaviour
-Reinforce adult fear
-Not a 'Bad Boy'
-Confused, sensitive, frustrated
-Empathy/desire
"Live fast die young" = start of adults fetishing youth?

1960-70 Subculture to counter culture
-Next generation of teens cynical about commercial exploitation of youth
-Rebellion chimes with social upheaval
-Civil rights, feminism, anti-vietnam "Rebels now have a cause"
-Resistant to marketing and consumerism, wanted to make world better
-Film example: Easy Rider

Punk and Hip Hop
-Punk = reaction against optimism of hippies and more synical of mainstream
-Not just rebellious or anti-consumerist. Also anti-establishment
-Punk = aesthetic and political rebellion
-Hip Hop = dealing with relaity of poverty and racist oppression
-Film example: Scratch

Recent article: www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/feb/25/emo-pop-tribes-mods-punks

Adult Fetishisation of Youth
-Who is the intended audience?
-Adult obsession with youth (why?)

Women in Journalism Reports
-"Am I Bovvered?" Concensor sexualised images in media, beauty, appearance
-"Hoodies or Altar Boys" over half the stories about youth crime in regional/national papers.
-"Yobs" mentioned 591 times
-"Thugs" mentioned 254 times
-"Sick" 119 times
-"Feral" 96 times
-Positive representations of youth used when they are dead, or killed by other teens
-Images from media 85% afraid of "stereotype"

Internalised Stereotypes
-Self = fulfilling prophicies (representations accepted by search for solidarity and collective identity)
-Film examples: Kidulthood, Harry Brown

-9-14 yr olds spend $300bn per year in US (companies keen to target youth)
-Morgan Stanley "Youth = vanguard of digital revolution"
-Intern opinions made front cover of magazines
-Film example: American Beauty (about adult idolisation and fetishism of youth)

Why?
-Nostalgia (never appreciated youth when they were younger ages)
-Empathy (Adults frustrated with lives to rebel again)
-Envy (Teens don't have a career, relationship, financial burdens etc)
-Envious of adolescent sex drive
-Freedom

Accurate or Idolised?
-'Juno' (do kids really talk like this?)
-Misfits/Skins (Do kids really have these lifestyles?
-Aimed at teens or adults audiences?
-Film example: Ferris Buellers Day Off (in Chicago 1988, more adult audience?)