In this clip, the main characters that are shown are a group of youths who are assumably friends living on a council estate in London. Throughout the sequence, the youth are represented in many ways, mostly negatively. They are portrayed as being deceitful, such as when they lie to their parents, violent, such as when they instinctively get weapons and prioritise fights, and discourteous from their use of expletives and vulgarisms.
These portrayals of youth are common or stereotypical in society, particularly when an age groups such as this are portrayed in an urban, working class location such as what appears to be East London. This representation is common and considerably accepted, in my opinion due to the identity that is created for this demographic by the media. In the modern day, the majority of media coverage of youth is negative and highlights their wrong-doing as opposed to their achievements. This had led to society accepting these as characteristics of youth and therefore generalising the demographic as a whole to possess these same attributes.
Contrasting to the Attack The Block Trailer, released in 2011, The Young Ones, produced in 1961 provides a very different outlook and representation of the Youth. In this clip, the youth are mostly portrayed as being community activists as well as responsibly social. We can gather this from the places that they are shown associating with and socialising in 'The Youth Club' and the way that they are trying to passionately save it from its closure. This contrasts significantly to the modern day representation of youth as previously shown, as the characters appeared to have less of a sense of identity due them having no signifying or collective place of social activity. In addition, the characters are shown to be well-presented, wearing fairly formal clothing. The way that the characters are characterised in a positive light is likely due to the media representations at the time, when generally, less negative stories were being circulated as they are today as poor behaviour could be considered less acceptable.
Theorist Anthony Giddens states "There is a social structure that which shapes our lives (traditions, institutions, moral codes, established ways of doing things), but it relies on individuals following these structures". This can be applied to the two contexts of the texts above, as they way that the identity of youths is represented shows that they have all been subjected to similar societal influences in order to become similar products. In addition, David Buckingham suggests that "Identity is complicated and complex". This is also reinforced in these clips as although the characters involved appear to be similar in the way the dress and in their belonging to a community, their identity cannot be derived completely from this, as there are many other factors that define it.
Theorist Anthony Giddens states "There is a social structure that which shapes our lives (traditions, institutions, moral codes, established ways of doing things), but it relies on individuals following these structures". This can be applied to the two contexts of the texts above, as they way that the identity of youths is represented shows that they have all been subjected to similar societal influences in order to become similar products. In addition, David Buckingham suggests that "Identity is complicated and complex". This is also reinforced in these clips as although the characters involved appear to be similar in the way the dress and in their belonging to a community, their identity cannot be derived completely from this, as there are many other factors that define it.
