Youth Decades Essay

Youth Essay:

Theorists:

,0          

Stanley Hall (1904) - “Adolescence is inherently a time of storm & stress when all young people go through some degree of emotional and behavioral upheaval, before establishing a more stable equilibrium at adulthood." Hall also argued that:

·      The common mood of teenagers is a state of depression.

·      Criminal activity increases between the ages of 12 & 24.

·      Young people are extreme and need excitement; “Youth must have excitement and if this is not at hand in the form of moral intellectual enthusiasms it is more prone to be sought in; sex, drink or drugs.”

Osgerby (1998) - We do not have to search too hard to find negative representations of youth in postwar Britain. Crime, violence and sexual license have been recurring themes in the media’s treatment of youth culture, the degeneracy of the youth depiction as indicative of a steady disintegration of the UK’s social fabric”

Dick Hebdige (1988) – “Youth as fun” and “Youth as trouble makers”

Cohen (1972) – “The media creates an idea of youth as a folk devil which fuels the negative representation of youth but also creates an attractive tribe for disaffected youths to join”

Medhurst (1998) – “Magnification theory”

·      “Awful because they are not like us”

·      Films and television comedies are full of images of gay men as effeminate screaming queens…It chooses that aspect of gay male behaviour (SELECTION), inflates it into the defining male characteristic of male homosexuality (MAGNIFICATION), then establish it as the most easily recognizable image (REDUCTION).”

Gauntlet (2002) – “Due to advances in technology, the boundaries between the producers and consumers has changed as now anyone can be the producer of a media text”

War Years:

"There were casualties perhaps inevitable for the remarkable view…These men laid down their lives for this country,” (Daily Mail September, 1943 ).    

The decade of the war years portrayed the youth positively. This is because they needed people out on the war fields fighting. They aimed it at the youth as they are more vulnerable. The
y are more vulnerable because of the positive rewards that would come out of them. These would be having a hero status coming out to then every women in your village falling in love with you. This portrayal of the youth disrupts Hebdige's  theory of; 'youth as trouble maker' (Hebdiges 1988)

The view that youth are viewed positive throughout the war is supported by a Daily Mail newspaper quote of, "There were casualties perhaps inevitable for the remarkable view…These men laid down their lives for this country". It states 'men' as if they are making the youth seem powerful. The films ' in which we serve'(1942)  and ' the way ahead' (1944) also support the positive stereotype during these years as the films show youth going to war as weak people and coming out strong. In short, I think the stereotypes of youths were biased during the war years because the controlling generations (Marx) wanted to manipulate the young into fighting (Medhurst, 1998). 

1950:

Blue Lamp

The youth culture for the 50's would be the term 'Teenagers' that started in American and immigrated over in England. The term 'Teddy Boys' was also being used. The subculture started in the early 1950's in England being strongly linked with 'Rock and Roll'.  Newspapers never started the negative representation of the youths until the term 'Teddy Boys' emerged. They realised they never had to compliment the youth as they didn't need them to fight in the war. This supports the theorist 'Osgerby (1998) - We do not have to search too hard to find negative representations of youth in postwar Britain'. The film 'Blue Lamp' clearly shows a youth killing an innocent policeman. 

1960:

'Wild ones invade seaside' 

'Wildest ones yet' 

Youth Culture was best known for the mods and rockers, and hippies. The decade of the 60's was pretty negative but not all towards the youth culture, but towards the like of the equal rights. Around this time Martin Luther King spoke. Some people thought good of the idea but some people however thought bad about it causing riots and trouble. Even though this was a big issue, Mods and Rockers was in the newspaper quite a lot. Mainly known for the Brighton Pier attack between the mods and rockers. This would relate to Stanley Halls theory of 'Youth must have excitement', 'sex, drink or drugs' and Hebdige  theory of; "Youth as Trouble Makers" (Hebdige 1988). The view that youth were negatively portrayed by a newspaper headline "Wild ones invade seaside" and "Wildest ones yet". The word 'Wildest' tells me straight away that they have had multiple account of being wild.

  

1970:

"Sid Vicious knifes girl to death" (Standard)

 The view of the 1970's youth culture was quite negative. The main subculture for this decade is the 'Punks'. Punk music is very fast and loud. This is the same as the Punk groups. This newspaper has a title which is very straight to the point. 

At the time of the 70's was the invention of the contraceptive pill. The pill however was quite strong when first invented, when left kids born was deformities. 

With punks, they were all sorts of trouble. They were causing riots. The film, 'clockwork orange' shows a group of bullies. With the film 'clockwork orange', there was a copycat crime. This made the film get banned. Only to be put back into British homes when the ... died. 

1980: 

"BEASTS! Boot gang savages a victim" (Daily Express)

"Skinhead clash shuts Waterloo" (The mail on sunday)

The view of the 1980's youth culture was very negative. The subculture for the decade was 'Skin Heads'. This is the opposite of the 1970's subculture as they were people who had mohawks and thick long hair. The decade started with the death of John Lennon on December 8th, 1980. This helped the oncoming swing in the music as the youth became the 'creative powerhouse'. 

A Daily Express headline like "BEASTS! Boot gang savages a victim" supports the negative stereotype that we was shown in that era. The film 'scum' 

1990:

"Acid party army of baseball bat brutes " (The Sun)

The 1990's is considered one of the worst representations of the youth culture. This would be because of the ecstasy drug and how much it was used. The decade brought a lot of distractions to the youth: drugs, technology like the game boy and mobile phones started to come out. 

The films, 'trainspotting' and 'Human Traffic' are a great representation to the decade. Throughout both films, Hall's (1904) theory of which youth are "prone to be sought in; sex, drink or drugs". Acid was also being taken during the decade, both of ecstasy and acid was a deathly drug but popular. 

                                                                 2000:

The decade of the 2000 to present shown a shift in the way characters were shown. The main change is the way youth culture was shown. Before the 2000 - present, the way youth was portrayed was negative. Each decade fits the theory, "Youth must have excitement and if this is not at hand in the form of moral intellectual enthusiasms it is more prone to be sought in; sex, drink or drugs," (Stanley Hall, 1904). In the directors, producers and writers then realised that the present time era wasn't buying for what they were selling. They are gone from social realism to genre like comedy and drama. This is because it has a bigger wow factor. 

Since the social media invention, the youth have had the chance to change the stereotyped of them. They could of reinvented the negative view. This is because the Medhurst (1998) 'awful not like us' theory doesn't run the social media. And because of how largely influencing the social media can be, we could of gave us a positive look. However they actually just fuelled, Halls 1904 theory, of 'sex, drink or drugs'. They have done this with through Facebook (2004), youtube (2005), Twitter (2006) and instagram (2010). Challenges like 'Blue Whale', 'Neck nominate'