key theories

Key Theories

Youth

Adolescence is inherently a time of storm and stress when all young people go through some degree of emotional and upheaval – Stanley Hall 1904

Youth is fun and youth is trouble  - Dick Hebdrige 1988

Mixed metaphors appear when stereotyping youth. Dual Stereotyping of youth creates these mixed metaphors – Bill Osprey 1998

How is age represented in this extract?

Refer to:

Camera work

Mise-en-scene

Sound

Editing

In 1904 Stanley hall argued that all young people go through ‘some degree of emotional upheaval’ the media language in the extracts supports Hall’s theory in a number of ways, but also at times disrupts this and moves more towards the arguments concerning mixed metaphors of; ‘youth as trouble and youth is fun’ that hedbridge (1988) and osgerby (1998) put forward concerning the media and youth stereotypes.

The extracts starts with a fast moving visually interesting montage of short clips that reveal the modern day setting and the characters. The whole montage is linked together by using a sound bridge of upbeat non-diegetic music. The non diegetic music acts as a mixed metaphor when read alongside the images because the shots show the characters acting rebellious and troublesome while the sound makes the who thing seem ‘fun’ this connotes that the extract links and supports hedbridge/osgerbys idea of youth as a mixed metaphor.

In terms of the images themselves there are a number of shots that tell the viewer a lot about youth representations such as on the opening credits there is an extreme close up of a teenage boy who is smoking a joint this relates to dick hedbridges theory of youth is fun and youth is trouble as at that age smoking a joint is a fun thing to do, also it would be seen as trouble to older peers. They used a blue overlay on that clip as it connotes to being mischievous also they put it in an extreme close up to show that it is a joint and not a cigarette.

After the opening montage the next shot is extreme close up (birds eye view) of the main character, it zooms back to a high angle shot revealing an interesting mise-en-scene choice – The duvet that has a naked man and woman on it, as its a  high angle shot it connotes that the audience should look down on the young male youth while the mise-en-scene choice links back to halls theory of all teenagers are sex mad.

After this montage of short clips it then shows the main star tony getting out of bed and it then plays a hip hop/r&b song in the background which is diegetic the song is mainly about sex which fits in with halls theory of youth being obsessed with sex. it then shows tony starting to do a workout and then an over the shoulder shot of him looking in the mirror, they used an over the shoulder shot as this shows what he can see in the mirror and the mise-en-scene is him checking himself out in the mirror and his expression on his face is looking like he's smug with himself and he likes what he see's this use of mise-en-scene links in with hedbridges theory its also shows more about the character as he likes to look good and by the way he was looking at himself in the mirror he obviously thinks he's a bit of a ladies man.