Monday 6 February 2012

Representation of British youth

Find another text that represents British youth in the same way 'This Is England', 'White Girl' and 'About A Girl' do- in a short paragraph explain the links.

Skins is a program about a bunch of British youth who are a close group of friends and end up in different situations which involve classic stereotypical views of the British youth, including alcohol and drug usage. Like the previous texts we saw in class, these kids have to deal with there problems without the help of adults or parents at all, there is a relationship between the parents and the kids in skins, but it makes the adults come across as distant and not knowing what there kids are going through. Just like the young and impressionable child "Shaun" in "this is England" these kids are just trying to find some where they belong, just as "Shaun" tries out new things like kissing girls and drinking beer, these kids also go to extremes to fit in and to be different, just as in "white girl" "Leah" changed her religion because she feels it will somehow change her life, this fits in with the program skins because all the kids there want to make a difference in there lives, one thing they hold in common is wanting to be individual but also to have freedom and be given responsibilities, but you can tell how much they need adult presence once they get in troubled situations. Skins's controversial storylines have explored issues such as dysfunctional families, mental illness, adolescent sexuality, substance abuse and death, Dysfunctional families have popped up in two of the texts we looked at in class, in "white girl" you could see a lower class dysfunctional family that do not get on, and in "this is England" it shows another lower class dysfunctional family which has to deal with the death of there father/husband, all of these texts have dealt with the issues of dysfunctional family's and seem to ask the question that misguided youth may just come from family life and not necessarily the youth in general who is misguided and controversial.

1 comment:

  1. You identify some of the narratives of identity and British youth clearly here, Corrie, making appropriate links between the texts. How would you apply to this text the theorists/ theories we have studied?

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