Representation in The Inbetweeners

Director: Ben Palmer (2011)

Representation of

- Age

The four boys are represented as more normal than their parents. Jay and Simon's dads are quite innopropriate when talking about sex in front of the boys. Its a realistic representation of young boys as they are all going on a holiday abroad to meet girls and have a good time, which a lot of young boys do in the real world. Therefore, this allows other young boys to relate to the main characters.

- Ethnicity

All the people in the programme are white. You don't see people from other ethnicitys and as they are middle class it gives representations that most middle class people are white.

- Gender

The boys are represented as quite lazy and dependent on their mothers, seen as Simon doesn't help his mum with dinner and Will tells the audience how their parents have paid for their holiday. The females in the programme are quite objectified and the way in which the boys and men talk about the women is disrespectful. They are only seen as sexual objects. Audience being positioned to look at women from a males perspective to objectify females.

- Social class

All the people in the programme are represented as middle class from their level of education, they live in nice houses in the 'suburbs', which comes with it the stereotype of wealthy people. Simon also says the parents are paying for their holiday. Lower class people are not being targeted by the Inbetweeners as they will not identify with the middle class people in the film. The fact they go on holiday reflects they are middle class. If you are working class you have to stand on your own two feet more whereas the middle class don't have to rely on being independent. Types of cars they have. Their housing is safe and secure. Middle class parenting is represented to be much stronger and more traditional whereas working class representations show a lack of parenting.


Social class: Reinforcing cultural hegemony/ dominant ideologies

Working class British youths are generally represented as being violent, brutal, unapologetic, criminals, addictive personalities- Harry Brown, Eden Lake, Quadrophenia, Kidulthood

vs

Middle class british youths are generally represented as being more law abiding, conscientious citizens

On top of this the antagonists are always the working class youths and middle class adults are positioned to be the protagonists.


Fish Tank

Immeditately connotates their class and subculture by their clothes, colloquial language. Film is challenging dominant male representations because its a female protagonist. She is positioned as someone you need to identify with unlike Harry Brown where you are meant to identify with middle class. The style of film, use of handicam and lack of stylish camera work gives it a british feel and social realist edge.

Fish tank continues to represent young people in a similar 'broken britain' context but is more sympathetic to them.

The behaviour of the characters is less extreme- no torturing and general mayhem.

Most teenage characters in representations are working class whereas most adults are middle class. Youth representations are being filled by adults anxieties as Giroux's theory of an empty catorgory states.

Who produces these representations and why?


Media effects

Hypodermic model - Media injecting their theories into consumers, we as consumers have no power over how the media influences us. We are passive and believe everything we hear.
Cultivation theory - If you see enough violence, the more you see it the more you believe its actually happening and occuring in society at that level.
Copy Cat theory - So influenced by what you see, you copy what you're seeing. Jamie Bulger killing 'due to' copy cat theory.
Moral Panic - Media creates panic in society by setting the british youths to be antagonist, then the governement or police come as protagonists.

Analysis

Whose perspective is dominant in each of the texts?

What do the representations have in common?

How are the representations different?

How are the parental figures being represented?

How important is social class?


Social realist films attempt to portray issues facing ordinary people in their social situations.

Social realist films try to show that society and the capatalist system leads to the exploitation of the poor or dispossessed,

These groups are shown as victims of the system rather than being totally responsible for their own behaviour.

"These places represented everywhere of Britain where relationships are broken down and where people have become isolated and disconnected. Their britishness is their culturally specific address to audiences at home" (Murray, 2008)

These are directed at a British audience. In comparison to that films that are targeted at american audiences such as notting hill or love actually have more 'glossy' representations.

These films are made on a lower budget i.e fish tank, with handheld camera work.

When analysing representation, consider the following:

Who is being represented

Who is representing them?

How are they being represented?

What seems to be the intentions of the representations? Whats film trying to say?

What is the dominant discourse? ( World view offered by the film)

What range of readings are there?

Look for alternative discourses


Media contributes to our sense of 'collective identity'

Representations can cause problems for the groups being represented because marginalized groups have little control over their representation/ stereotyping

The social comtext in which the film/ tv programme is made influences the messages/ values/dominant discourse of the film.

Encoding- Decoding (stuart hall, 1980)

Encoding- Decoding is an active audience theory developed by stuart hall which examines the relationship between a text and its audience.

Encoding is the process by which text is constructed.

Decoding is the process by which the audience reads and understands and interprets.

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

Three ways

- Preferred reading- These representations are created to fufill hegemonic expectations so this is when an audience interpret the message that was meant to be understood. We understand the media text exactly how the industry wanted us to understand it - we agree with what we are seeing.

- Negotiated meaning-  This contains a mixture of adapative and oppositional elements- you may not agree with everthing you see- you're going to acknowledge the dominant ideologies that are imbedded in the film. But there will be other elements in the film that you don't neccersarilly agree with.

- Oppostional reading/ counter hegemonic - You may understand the dominant ideologies but you disagree or refuse the media text completely.

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 in which the representation is taking place

Stereotyping 

We can identify with characters easily if there are stereotypes

Implicit personality theory

When you meet someone- you already make judgements

Past experience is more important than the actual personality we are judging

We have a system of rules that tell us which characteristics go where

We catogorise people into types (workaholic, feminist. etc)

These traits form a pattern of connections that can be called a prototype.

If we encounter someone in reality or in the media who seems to fit neatly into a prototype, we feel reassured. It confims our stereotyped view- we do not need to think further.

Once a few traits fit the prototype, we bundle the rest of the traits from the prototype onto the person.

If we find people who do not fit into our prototypes, we will form strong impressions of them, forces us to think more deeply.

We will try and twist the truth to make it fit into our prototype.. as time passes we forget these traits that do not fit in, this can lead to enormous differences bwteen our perceptions of people.

All of this happens naturally in our minds, its almost as if we conspire with the media to misunderstand the world.