Inbetweeners

Ben Palmer 2011

The representation of: 

• age
• ethnicity
• gender
• social class and status

comedy rather than social realist drama

The representation of the boys shows that as they are teenage middle class boys who have just finished theyre education for the summer holidays therefore have lots of free time on there hands with not many responsabilities to worry about so they are going on a 'lads holiday' which is a holiday thought to be full of alcohol, stupid jokes and sex. your average teenage boy is generally thought as to only think about girls and sex and in the film it is proven how important the opposite sex is to the boys and that is their main aim.The boys are white and nerdy therefore would not be seen as gangsters or yobs as they simply do not have the right attitude or look to fit the bill.
Exaggerated however much more realistic to how youths are today in age.
Ethnicity isnt realistic as they live in london middle class which is associated with being predominantly white.
Target audience teens, cos we can identify,middle class, the people represented in the film are generally also going to be the audience.

Females are objectified, sexual objects.
trying to be stereotypical boys however much more in tact with their emotions that what is seen as acceptable.
Status is important as although they are friends they are all competing to be the leader.

Binary opposition when parents say goodbye compared to in Harry Brown
parents are very involed in childrens lives whereas in HB they are in prison or leave children to fend for themselves...

Social class:reinforcing cultural hegemony dominant ideologies.

Misbehaving however not stealing or selling drugs, no gang culture simple travelling together for companionship, much more law concious, consciencious citizens.

Protagonist=hero
Antagonist=villan
headmaster, parents

Fish tank
lack of parenting/education
true british cinematography
social realist edge

ta: teens working as maybe they can relate and also middle so that they can understand why lower class act the way that they do and what they may be subjected to on a daily basis.

who produces these structures and why?








Media effects

• Do media representations of young people effect how they are perceived?
• If so how does this effect occur?
• Hypodemic model
• Cultivation theory
• Copy cat theory(clockwork orange)
• Moral panic

Suggests that we as consumers have no power as to how the media influences us, passsive consumers, robots.


The more you see it happening in media particularly tv the more likely you are to believe that is is realistic in society and that it will happen at that level.

• Whose perspective is dominant in each of these texts?
• what do the representations have in common?
• How are the representations different?
• How are parental figures represented?
• How important is social class?

Contemporary British social realism


Ordinary people in their ordinary enviroments
Subcultures are boprn into that enviroment therefore they are a product of their own enviroment.
Groups are shown as victims of the system if you are born into working class you are automatically starting on the worng foot and with a disadvantage


Social realist films are directed at abritish audience therefore their constuction is very different to american.


not glossy idiolised. lower budget.


Hugh Grant, epitemy of what americans think of english people laughing at them rather than with them


KEY QUESTIONS


asked when analysing the representations 

1. Who is being represnted 
2. Who is representing them?
3. How are they represented?
4. What seems to be the intentions of the representations? 
5. What is the dominant discourse?(communication)
6. What range of readings there are?
7. Look for alternative discourses

Collective identity.
The media contributes to our sense of collective identity but there are many different versions that can change over time.
Representations can cause problems for the groups being represented because marginalised groups have little control over their representation/ stereotyping.
The social context in which the film/tv programme is made influences the messages/ values/ dominant discourse of the film.


 Stuart Hall Decoding 1980


Encoding decoding is an active audience theory 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 buy which the audience reads and understands and interprets a text


Hall states that texts ate polysemic; meaning they may be read differently by different people, depeding on their identity, cultural knowledge and opinions.


Preffered reading/ dominant hegemonic: when an audience interprets the message as it was meant to be understood, they are operating in the dominant code.the position of professional broadcasters and media producers is that is that messages are already signified within the hegemonic manner to which they are accostumed.


Negociated reading: Not all audiences may understand what media producers take for granted.There may be some acknowledgement of differences in understanding.
Decoding within the recognised version contaisn a  mixture of adaptive abd oppositional elements.stuggle to understand those domingant ideologies or have a problem with them.


Oppositional reading/ counter hegemonic:You disagree with the text entirely,guardian or independent readers will not but the sun as they disagree with everything about it.
you may understand the dominant ideologie sthat are embeded in the text but you refuse them.


Any representation is a mixture of:

1. The thing itself
2. the opinions of the people doing the representation
3. The reaction of the individual to the representation
4. The context of the society ini which the representation is taking place

Stereotyping


Why do we stereotype?
so we can recognise them easily
the fact that we naturally see the world in this kind of shorthnd way, with connexions between different character trates allows, the media to create simplistic representations which we find believable.Implicit personality theory explains this process...


As humans we use our own unique storehouse of knowledge about people when we judge them


What we have experienced in the past we tend to rely on more than what is actaully hapening now with that person


We categorise people into types


Pattern of conextions form a prototype
assumptions
identity and the way we choose to see others


conspire with the media to misunderstand the world we do it to eachother and to ourselves.