1. Contemporary British Cinema and the
Representation of Youth

2. Watch the opening sequence of ‘Harry Brown’.
How does it represent young people?

3. Read the article about the
representation of hoodies in
contemporary British films and
make notes on the key points.
You should consider:
• How it suggests young people
are represented
• The links to the horror genre
• The significance of social class
• The implications of the
representations
Link to article

4. Watch the trailer of ‘Eden Lake’. How are Jenny and Steve
(the main couple) represented? How is this contrasted with
the representation of the other characters? How important
is the issue of social class? How are young people
represented?

5. • Film theorist Robin Wood
Horror and the
Representation of Youth
argues that the basic
formula of the horror film
is ‘normality is threatened
What is the significance of the
emergence of a cycle of British by the monster. I use
films in which the ‘monster’ is
young people? “normality” here…to mean
simply “conformity to the
How do they threaten
normality? dominant social norms”’.
What term could we use
instead of normality?

6. ‘Attack the Block’ – Youth, Stereotypes, Social Class
Watch the opening sequence of ‘Attack the Block’ – how are the main characters
introduced? How does this representation change?...

7. ‘Attack the Block’ – Youth, Stereotypes, Social Class
• Opening sequence stereotypical hoodie
representation.
• As the film progresses the representation becomes
more positive. Develops a more sympathetic
representation.
• The film initially represents the young people as
‘monsters’, then replaces them with actual
monsters.
• Contrast to other ‘hoodie horror films’.

8. ‘Attack the Block’ – Youth, Stereotypes, Social Class
‘While Attack the Block has moments of hilarity, and evokes the loneliness of ET – the
fantasy, the bizarre things happening in residential streets – this is definitely a horror
film. A political horror film, far less silly than fans may expect. There are
monsters, aliens of the sort we haven't seen in the cinema for a long time.
"They're all the things that the press and people call those kids, made into a monster.
People call these kids monsters, they call them feral, they call them animalistic, they
say they've got no morals or values and all they care about is territory and
competitiveness. So what if there was a creature that really was like that, and then
you pitted the kids against it?“’
The Observer, interview with director Joe Cornish

9. ‘Eden Lake’ – middle class adult main characters, antagonists are
teenage hoodies (monsters) who torture and kill the main
characters. Reflects middle class fear of working youth and their
perceived threat to hegemony.
‘Harry Brown’ – middle class, adult hero. Teenager hoodies are
antagonists. Hero hunts/kills antagonists. Middle class revenge
fantasy in which threatening working class youth are punished.
‘Attack the Block’ – film initially opens with middle class
protagonist, teenage hoodie ‘monsters’. These characters then
become heroes. Film is an attempt to resolve tensions between
middle class and working class youth.

10. Entertainment and Utopia, Richard
Dyer
• Film theorist Richard Dyer argues that one of
the functions of entertainment is utopianism.
‘Entertainment offers the image of “something
better”…the sense that things could be
better…Entertainment does not present
models of utopian worlds…Rather the
utopianism is contained in the feelings it
embodies.’

11. Utopian Categories of Entertainment
• Energy
• Abundance
• Intensity
• Transparency
• Community
• Dyer argues these categories reflect
‘temporary answers to the inadequacies of
the society’.

12. Watch the ending of ‘Attack the Block’. How can you
relate Dyer’s theory of entertainment and utopia?
(1:00:00)

13. Applying Theory
Homework
Research into the following theories (record on blogs) and
consider how you can apply them to the three media texts we
have just covered (write notes for each*):
• Giroux (1997), empty category
• Acland (1995), reinforcing hegemony/ideology of
protection
• Gramsci (1971), hegemony
• Cohen (1972), moral panic
• McRobbie (2004), representations against the working class
• Gerbner (1986), Cultivation theory, Mean World syndrome
• * These must be re-written in your own words

14. Support for Homework
Theorist Year Concepts Your explanation
Giroux 1997 Youth as empty category
Acland 1995 Ideology of protection; deviant
youth and reproduction of social
order
Gramsci 1971 (1929- Cultural hegemony
1935)
Cohen 1972 Moral panic
McRobbie 2004 Symbolic Violence
Gerbner 1986 Cultivation Theory

15. Giroux (1997)
• Representations of youth in popular culture
have a long and complex history and
habitually serve as signposts through which
American society registers its own crises of
meaning, vision, and community…youth
becomes an empty category inhabited by the
desires, fantasies, and interests of the adult
world.

16. Acland (1995)
• Order has a key function: to reproduce itself.
Youth in crisis, youth gone wild, is a central
site in which this activity of reproducing order
takes place. It involves the constitution of the
normal, adult, the normal youth, and the
relation between the two. The deviant youth
is thus a crucial trope of this relationship; it
helps patrol the boundaries

17. Gramsic (1971)
• Cultural hegemony - a culturally-diverse
society can be ruled or dominated by one of
its social classes. It is the dominance of one
social group over another, e.g. the ruling class
over all other classes. The theory claims that
the ideas of the ruling class come to be seen
as the norm; they are seen as universal
ideologies, perceived to benefit everyone
whilst only really benefiting the ruling class.

18. Cohen (1972)
• Societies appear to be subject, every now and
then, to periods of moral panic. A
condition, episode, person or group of
persons emerges to become defined as a
threat to societal values and interests; its
nature is presented in a stylized and
stereotypical fashion by the mass media

19. McRobbie (2004)
• Symbolic violence against the working class is
a form of social reproduction

20. Gerbner (1986)
• The repetitive pattern of television’s mass-
produced message and images influences
people’s understanding of the world
• Cultivation theory
• Mean World syndrome

21. Choose one of the three films to research. Try to find
reviews which reflect different perspectives, e.g.
from conservative newspapers like the Daily Mail, or
the Telegraph, and liberal newspapers like The
Guardian, and The Independent.

22. Essay Question
• How are young people represented in
contemporary media?
• Introduction:
– State argument (link to theory)
– Identify texts