Contemporary representations of British youth

Thinking of contemporary media, that is to say the media from 2009 onwards, is there evidence to support Hebdige's assertion that British Youth are portrayed as either:

"Troublesome youth"

The political representation of youth as posing a threat to society and the status quo. Youth are seen as dangerous and subversive of society's moral values.

                                                        
"Fun-loving youth"

The commercial representation of youth as going through a rites-of passage style period in their life during which they may behave differently but don't threaten society. They have a need to belong which can be exploited by society for commercial reasons.

1960s Youth Identity - A Different Representation

Let's go back in time to 1961, just 3 years before the media in Britain represented its youth as being violence driven hooligans who were a threat to the very fabric of society.

1961 saw the release of the film 'The Young Ones' starring, amongst others, Cliff Richard.

The story is about the youth club member and aspiring singer Nicky (Cliff Richard)  and his friends, who try to save their club in western London from the unscrupulous millionaire property developer Hamilton Black, who plans to tear it down to make room for a large office block. 

The members decide to put on a show to raise the money needed to buy a lease renewal. The twist in the story is that Nicky in reality is Hamilton Black's son, something he keeps keeps secret from his friends until some of them try to kidnap Black senior to prevent him from stopping the show. 

Although he is fighting his father over the future of the youth club, Nicky can't allow them to harm him, so he attacks the attackers and frees his father. In the meantime, Black senior has realised that his son is the mystery singer that all of London is talking about, after the youth club members have done some pirate broadcasts to promote their show. 

So, although he's just bought the theatre where the show is to take place, in order to be able to stop it, the proud father decides that the show must go one. At the end, he joins the youth club members on stage, dancing and singing, after having promised to build them a new youth club.

Here is the trailer for the film - how is the representation of British Youth different here to what you have previously seen? 

• Youths are portrayed as innocent as opposed to having bad behaviour.
• There is no violence shown, whereas in Quadrophenia violence was heavily influenced. 
• All the youths shown in this clip seem to be occupied with hobbies as opposed to causing trouble because they are unemployed. 
• The youth shown in this are seen as all quite wealthy and there is no differentiation in classes.
• There is no subculture, all the youths wear similar outfits as opposed to the Mods and Rockers. 
• All the youths appear to be happy as opposed to the miserable stereotypes that teenagers have. 

Quadrophenia: Summary and Watch The Film

early 1980s and the appearance of mod revival bands such as Secret Affair and the Purple Hearts on Top of the Pops.

It focuses on troubled teenager Jimmy, played by an amphetamine-fuelled Phil Daniels. Jimmy is a mod. He escapes from his boring job as a postroom boy at an advertising agency by submerging himself in his chosen subculture of scooters, The Who, pills and hatred of rockers.

He's essentially a loner, but loves being part of the gang, though he often finds himself strangely at odds with it.

 

The film builds nicely to its set piece: a bank holiday weekend trip to Brighton, where the mods clash with their leather-clad rocker enemies.

 

Aside from the chance to see Lesley Ash before her lip implants and Toyah Willcox before she was a celebrity who wanted to "get out of here", Quadrophenia makes a few pertinent points about youth and youth culture that are still relevant. 

Some teenagers will always attach themselves to subcultures and experiment with sex, drugs, alcohol and violence - and eventually they will settle into a more conventional routine. Watching it again, however, I couldn't help thinking today's youth have to be more sophisticated than their 1960s counterparts, surrounded as they are by myriad cultural influences in their daily lives and the media. Life isn't so black and white these days.

 

For Jimmy, the mod scene turns to disillusionment and can't sustain the excitement he found in Brighton. He returns to the seaside resort, steals the silver scooter of Brighton's Ace face (Sting) - who, to Jimmy's disgust, turns out to be a bellboy at a hotel - before driving it off Beachy Head.

 You can watch the whole film via Youtube.

Question: In what ways do the media texts referenced above create a representation of young people as being a danger to society?

Question

In what ways do the media texts referenced above create a representation of young people as being a danger to society?

• Through their clothes- young people are often labelled through what they wear. For example, if someone wears a hoody then people assume they are violent and aggressive towards society.
• By highlighting their bad behaviour as opposed to good behaviour- The London Riots etc.
• Placing young people into groups within society- Mods and Rockers etc.
• Through their music taste- Older generations believe that some young people's music is offensive and encourages their bad behaviour. 

Mods vs Rockers in the 1960's: Creation of a Moral Panic

One weekend in 1964 residents and holiday-makers in the seaside towns of Brighton, Bournemouth and Margate, were rocked by a sudden influx of young, cool gangs. They were Mods and Rockers, and the culture clash that occurred that weekend, described in the articles below in The Daily Sketch, Daily Mirror and others, has become iconic in the history of youth culture. 

Mods and Rockers were easily identifiable by their distinctive clothing styles: the Mods wore Fred Perry and Ben Sherman designer suits, covered by a Parka jacket; while the Rockers wore leather biker jackets and jeans. Mods also rode European scooters like Lambrettas and Vespas and listened to a mix of Motown, ska and bands such as The Who. 

The Rockers favoured motorbikes and listened to American rock and roll such as Eddie Cochrane and Elvis. Although the movements were short-lived, violent clashes between the two gangs were seized on by the media and used by moralists to exemplify the outrageous liberties enjoyed by Britain’s youths. 

The seafront vandalism and violence described in the newspaper article was later made into the 1979 film Quadrophenia.

The following is taken from bbc.co.uk:

The seaside battles between the sartorially elegant Mods and their leather-clad rivals the Rockers fuelled much sensationalist media coverage in 1964.

As news of the fighting and arrests filtered out, these youngsters found themselves at the forefront of public outrage.

In fact, the Easter weekend shenanigans were pretty much the first mass-media scare over a drug-taking, mindless, violent youth.

The trouble caused enough outrage for Panorama to investigate the groups and work out whether this phenomenon would be become a regular feature of future bank holidays.

The results were strikingly candid; providing a snapshot of working-class youth at the point where deference to the establishment was beginning to wane.

The Mods preached a hedonistic take on life; enjoying drugs, music, clothes and violence to a lesser or greater degree and set a blueprint for many a youth tribe to follow.

You can watch part of the Panorama programme by clicking on the link below..

I Predict A Riot

Media Creation of Moral Panic- Art and Popular Culture

The following article is taken from www.artandpopularculture.com

BBC News stories from May 1964 stated that mods and rockers were jailed after riots in seaside resort towns on the south coast of England, such as Margate, Brighton, Bournemouth andClacton. The mods and rockers conflict led sociologist Stanley Cohen to coin the term moral panicin his study Folk Devils and Moral Panics, which examined media coverage of the mod and rocker riots in the 1960s. Although Cohen admits that mods and rockers had some fights in the mid-1960s, he argues that they were no different to the evening brawls that occurred between youths throughout the 1950s and early 1960s, both at seaside resorts and after football games. He claims that the UK media turned the mod subculture into a negative symbol of delinquent and deviant status. 

Fights occurred where territories overlapped or rival factions happened upon each other. As noted above, there was an urban/rural split, meaning that the groups could only fight if brought together for some reason - most often the seaside during summer. The film Quadrophenia, on the other hand, depicts some violence within London. Mods sometimes sewed fish hooks into the backs of their lapels to shred the fingers of assailants. Weapons were often in evidence; coshes and flick knives being favoured. The conflict came to a head at Clacton during the Easter weekend of 1964. 
 
Round two took place on the south coast of England, where Londoners head for seaside resorts on Bank Holidays. Over the Whitsun weekend (May 18 and 19, 1964), thousands of mods descended upon Margate, Broadstairs and Brighton to find that an inordinately large number of rockers had made the same holiday plans. Within a short time, marauding gangs of mods and rockers were openly fighting, often using pieces of deckchairs. The worst violence was at Brighton, where fights lasted two days and moved along the coast to Hastings and back; hence the Second Battle of Hastings tag. A small number of rockers were isolated on Brighton beach where they – despite being protected by police – were overwhelmed and assaulted by mods. Eventually calm was restored and a judge levied heavy fines, describing those arrested asSawdust Caesars. 

Newspapers described the mod and rocker clashes as being of "disastrous proportions", and labelled mods and rockers as "sawdust Caesars", "vermin" and "louts". Newspaper editorials fanned the flames of hysteria, such as a Birmingham Post editorial in May 1964, which warned that mods and rockers were "internal enemies" in the UK who would "bring about disintegration of a nation's character". The magazine Police Review argued that the mods and rockers' purported lack of respect for law and order could cause violence to "surge and flame like a forest fire". 

Cohen argues that as media hysteria about knife-wielding, violent mods increased, the image of a fur-collared anorak and scooter would "stimulate hostile and punitive reactions" amongst readers. As a result of this media coverage, two British Members of Parliament travelled to the seaside areas to survey the damage, and MP Harold Gurden called for a resolution for intensified measures to control hooliganism. One of the prosecutors in the trial of some of the Clacton brawlers argued that mods and rockers were youths with no serious views, who lacked respect for law and order. Cohen says the media used possibly faked interviews with supposed rockers such as "Mick the Wild One". 
 
As well, the media would try to get mileage from accidents that were unrelated to mod-rocker violence, such as an accidental drowning of a youth, which got the headline "Mod Dead in Sea."

Eventually, when the media ran out of real fights to report, they would publish deceptive headlines, such as using a subheading "Violence", even when the article reported that there was no violence at all. Newspaper writers also began to use "free association" to link mods and rockers with various social issues, such as teen pregnancy, contraceptives, amphetamines, and violence.

Youth sub culture: New Romantics

The New Romantics were a fashion movement that peaked in the United Kingdom during the early 1980s. It was often linked with new wave music scene that had become popular at that time. Spandau Ballet, for instance, was New Romantic both fashion-wise and music-wise. Adam and the Ants, however, while certainly New Romantic in the fashion sense, were post punk musically.

                  

The origins of the look took place largely through the nightclub Billy’s in Dean Street, London, which ran Bowie and Roxy Music nights in the late 1970s. Teens & twentysomethings at the time were becoming disillusioned with punk rock, thinking it had lost it’s original appeal and they had nothing to identify with. Bowie and Roxy Music quickly became these ‘New Romantic’ idols. In 1979, the growing popularity of the club forced organizers Steve Strange (Visage) and DJ Rusty Egan to relocate to a larger venue in Great Queen Street called the Blitz, which was also a wine bar.

The goal of the patrons was self expression and to be unique, cool and noticed.

The Blitz club quickly became known for the colourful and flamboyant fashions of its patrons (who became known as the Blitz Kids), which greatly contrasted with the ripped/offensive t-shirts and jeans associated with the punk movement of the time. Both sexes often dressed in counter-sexual or androgynous clothing and the guys thought nothing of wearing eyeliner, eyeshadow and lipstick. Many wore frilly fops shirts in the style of the English Romantic period, or exaggerated versions of upscale fashion and grooming which drew influence from sources such as glam fashions of the 1970s, science fiction films as well as the golden age of Hollywood.

 

Clubgoers frequently made it a point to dress as uniquely as they possibly could in attempt to draw the most attention to themselves. Midge Ure credits David Bowie for spreading the New Romantic look. Bowie cast Steve Strange and a few other Blitz Kids in his video Ashes to Ashes and, according to Ure, within two weeks New Romantics were popping up in clubs all over the UK, Ireland and the rest of the world.

Musically, New Romantics spawned many bands. Blitz owners Steve Strange and Rusty Egan joined Billy Currie and Midge Ure of Ulltravox to form Visage. Boy George and Marilyn worked in the cloakroom of The Blitz; George obviously formed Culture Club while Marilyn became a well known and loved solo artist. As with most things, the movement moved out from London to other regions and soon New Romantics popped up in other places. *Bands such as Adam and the Ants, Ultravox, Japan, Visage, Spandau Ballet and Duran Duran were labeled New Romantics whether they were or not. The actual term New Romantic is disputably reported to have been coined by Richard James Burgess (studio drummer, producer & author) in an interview with reference to Spandau Ballet.