Attack on the Block analysis

How are youths represented in the movie and media?
Attack on the Block

This movie represents the youth in a stereotypical way for the setting of the film. As the film is set in South London England it represents the youth in the stereotypical way they are seen in that area. In that area the youth are usually seen as delinquents and overall trouble makers.

This is seen through out the film as the youths are seen to be involved in many illegal and or mischievous things. The film is set in the council areas of London where it is common to see young people involved in illegal activities such as theft, drug use and many other smaller things, a lot of these are shown to be done by the youths in the film. 

One of the ways that the youths are represented are by the way they rob a women in the first couple of minutes in the film. This is something that media portrays youths to very often do in under developed areas of large cities like London. Ann Gould's theory on youth stereotypes outlines some of the ways that the youths are represented in the media and this film. The stereotypes included in Ann Gould's theory are that youths are rebellious, sexual, nihilistic, self-destructive, artificial tribe and violent. The main stereotypes that are shown in the film are violence and rebelliousness. The youths in the film first portray themselves as violent when they tell the audience that they robbed a women in the streets for her wallet. This is a characteristic that the media often portrays youths with as they know that any punishment they receive will be very light due to them being under aged and protected by the law differently than an adult, and therefore the media always picks at this as they know that young people take advantage of that protection and they see it as a ignorance of youths breaking laws and allowing them to continue with the knowledge that as long as they are under age they have nothing to worry about if  they commit crimes.

A persistent representation of youths in the film is that they use drugs. The youths are constantly seen using drugs through out the film which is a very common thing that the media portrays youths to be very accepting of drug use even though its illegal and that they're doing it at such a young age. Gerbner's cultivation theory reflects on the media's perspective of youth drug use as he talks about how because people watch so much TV and crime shows they are exposed to many cases of young people using drugs and from that knowledge they themselves see all youths as the same as what they saw on TV.