inbetweeners ( ben palmer 2011)

representation in the inbetweeners ( Ben Palmer 2011)

• age

going on a boys holiday showing there age. seems too be quite realistic. leaving school/sixth form. education is a big part him. they seem to have an obsession with sex and drinking.

• ethnicity

un real listic. should have more cultural people. live in a suburb of London. and associated with being dominated by white people. symbolic of the representations that we are receiving. 16-24, middle class is the target audience. the lower class wont be able to relate to the

• gender

very male dominated. the young boys are represented differently. Neil is shown  as being stupid and dumb. will has just been dumped and doesn't know what to do with himself. But he is shown as a very unstable person. he cries a lot and cant cope with losing Carly. will is shown as a very middle class attitude towards life and tries to avoid trouble. he seems geeky and intelligent. Jay likes to think he is the alfa male of the friends and will do anything for a bit of sex. he is first shown looking at a porn site jacking off to a girl. then he is told his grandad has just died. The dads of the four boys all seem to be normal apart from jay's dad who seems to offend every one and seems very common compared to the more middle class families.the females are more objectified. revered to being sexual objects. the males seem more dominant. But when the girls break up with the guys they don't know how too cope. The boys try to be more stereo typical males. gender is very over rieded throughout the films that we have watched- protagonist.  how the audience are positioned to see the females through the males eyes.

• social class and status

middle class. starts off with drinking tea. use quelocial language. how Niel got a job shows that he is more middle class. how they were able to go on Holiday was paid by there parents which suggests there social class. aka they are middle class showing that they are more dependant on their parents rather than the working class needs to be more on there own. the shows show that they are middle class. even when the boys leave it is very civilised. much more traditional parenting.

think about what is there and what isn't there

social class- reinforcing cultural hegemony/ dominant ideologies

working class British youths are generally represented as being violent  brutal unapologetic criminals addictive personalities- harry brown, kidulthood, quadrophenia, Eden lake

vs

middle class British youths are generally represented as being more law abiding, conscientious citizens- the inbetweeners

on top of this the antagonists are always the working class youths and middle class adults are positioned to be the protagonists

how are the main charecters introduced into the trailer for fish tank?

shown on stero typical working class family- the location is on a council estate the mother hits her children and doesnt have any time for them. she would rather be with her new boyfriend. the main chacter seems to of had hard life. she seems to pick fights with people and tries really hard to get out.  this film is challenging male dominance. you see the girl as a victim.

media effects

do media representations  of young people  effect how they are percieved?

if so how does this effect occur?

hypodermic model

cultivation theory- if you see enough viloence and criminal behavouir on the tv you will believe it is happening in real life

copy cat theory- copy what you see.

moral panic- makes you beleive that its happening and creates panic in society. news apers porduce artivcles on british youth culture and in turn create a panic for the rest of society thinking omg this is happening? this sets the british youths to be antagonist. you then have the government and the police becoming the protagonists turing the hegemoney on its head

contempory british social realisim

what do you understand by contempory social realism?

• social realist films attempt to portray issues facing ordinary people in their social sitiuations
• social realists films try too show that society  and the capatilist  system  leads too the exploiltation  of the poor or disposessed
• these groups are shown as vicitms of the system  rather than  being totally  responsible for thier own behaviour
• these places  represent an everywhere of britian  where relationships are broken  down  and where  people have become isolated  and diconected. their britishness is thier culturally  specific address to audiences at home ( murray, 2008)

audience

• social realists films which address social problems in this country offfer a very different  version of collective identity than british films which are also aimed at an american audience. films like notting hill and love actually  reach a much bigger audience  than the lower budget social realist films
• social realist films are aimed at predominantly british audience
• if many more people see the more comercial films consider which version of our collective identity is more powerful or has the most impact

analysing representation of collective identity

when comparing how britishness and our colective identity is represented in films consider the following questions

• who is being represented
• who is representing them?
• how are they being represented?
• what seems to be the intentions of the represenations
• what is the dominant dicourse? ( world view offered by the film)
• what range of readings are there
• look for alternative discourses

collective identity

the media contributes to our sense of collective identity  but there are many different versions  that change overr time

representations can cause problems for the groups being represented because marginalized groups have little control over thier representation/ stereo typiong

the social context in which the film or tv program is made to influenses the messages values dominant

encoding- decoding ( stuart hall 19800 ACTIVE AUDIENCE THEORY

•  encoding-decoding  is an active audience theory  developed by stuart hall which examines the relationship between a text and its audience
• encoding  is the process by which  a text is  constructed  by its producers
• decoding is the process by which a text is constructed  by its producers
• decoding is the prexeess by which the audience reads  understands and interprets a text
• hall states that texts are polysemic, meaning they many be read differently by different people depending o  thier identity cultural knowledge and opinions

prefered reading/ dominant hegemonic

when an audice interprets the messagee as it was meant to be understood  they are operating in the dominant  code. the position of the proffesional broadcasters and the media producers  is that messages are3 already sinigried within the hegemony  manner  to which they are accustomed. proffesional codes for media oranisaxto serve to contribute to this type of industural psychology

the negotiated theory

not all audiences many understand what media priducers  take for granted there many be some acknowledgment  og different understanding:

decoding within the negotiated versions contains  a mixture of adaptive and oppostional elements it acknowledges the legitimacy of the hegemonic definations to make the grand  siginications which at a more restricted situational level it makesd its own ground  rules  it operated with execptional rule

oppositional reading/ 'counter- hegemony'

when media consumers understand the contextuakl and literary  inflections  of text yet decode  the messages by a completly oppositional means this is the globally contrary postion/ oppositional reading

stereo typing

why do we stereo type?

it puts people in too catigories and boxes so that we can recognise them easily