"Merchants of Cool" PBS Frontline Documentary

• Teenagers have a lot of disposable income and the Media are happy to make products which they want to buy
• Objectified by the Media
• 3, 000 advertising messages a day, and 10, 000, 000 by the time they're 18
• "More money to spend and more choice in terms of how to spend it"

"Most studied generation of history"

"Teens are like Africa"

"A blizzard of brands targeting the same teens"

"Stubborn demographic"

"One thing they respond to: Cool"

"Look for the 20% Trendsetters who will influence the other 80%"

"Culture spies" = Correspondents who look for Trendsetters

Paradox of Cool Hunting is that once found, it is eventually killed

• "By discovering Cool, Cool has to move onto to the next thing"
• Kids see marketers as the enemy
• First rule of Cool - Don't let them see marketing

MTV

F-Nography Study - About studying teenagers as people or as customers?

The "Mook" - A character, rude, loud and obnoxious

"Most buyable creation"

No longer trying to understand teenagers to make them happier and design products for them… Rather studying them to learn how best to pitch their products to the market

Media spit out another type for females: the "Midriff"

• Prematurely adult
• He (Mook) is crude, She (Midriff) is a sex-obsessed
• E.g. Brittany Spears

Americanisation of British Youth Culture

"It's one enclosed feedback loop," Rushkoff says. "Kids' culture and media culture are now one and the same, and it becomes impossible to tell which came first - the anger or the marketing of the anger"

"Is it possible to be a Non-Post Modernist teenagers?"

Comparative Film Project Feedback

Stephen

"My Brother the Devil" (2012) and "The Inbetweeners Movie" (2011)

Ali

"Ill Manors" (2012) and "Anuvahood" (2011)

Mousa

"Shank" (2010) and "Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging" (2008)

Shank

• Adam Deacon, Ashley Walters and Noel Clarke "Monopolising the genre"
• Fast-paced, adrenaline-pumping, "Skins Culture"; Sub-genre of films
• Peppered with stereotypes 
• More televisual = Lifts representations out of cinema and adds a certain realism and similitude 
• Advertising, such as the film posters, are strikingly similar, all showing the characters posed on the streets, confrontational, dark lighting and bold, gritty font and colour scheme
• "Blackboard Jungle"; first youth culture film focusing on the negatives of teenagers, taking the perspective of adults disapproving youth
• Criminalisation of the working-class

Type-casting e.g. Joe Cole, Jack O'Connell

1950's-60's

Representing "Youth" as deviant by the media was popular due to the split felt (Eventually known as the "Generational gap") between youth and adults

Through music, created their own sub-culture

The media's reaction was generally to vilify them

"Kidulthood" ultimately wasn't made to socially comment or challenge authority, unlike Punk

Comparison: "Good Vibrations" and "The Inbetweeners Movie"

Continue...

Starter:

"Culture… Is not artifice and manners, the reserve of the Sunday best, rainy afternoons and concert halls. It is the very material of our daily lives, the bricks and mortar of our most commonplace understandings."

Willis (1979)

But what if the "bricks and mortar" of our most commonplace understandings are mediated to us?

Roberts (2014)

Good Vibrations

Good Vibrations, Lisa Barros D'Sa and Glenn Leyburn (2013) 

http://www.londoncitynights.com/2013/03/good-vibrations-2012-directed-by-lisa.html

"New York has the haircuts! London has the trousers! Belfast has the reason!" 

What is re-presented?

Teenagers are represented as aspirational, and talented, and this presentation stems from focus of the plot, the band The Outcasts, who rose to fame with their hit song "Teenage Kicks". The film is set during The Troubles, which plays a part in negatively presenting the social group as violent, and the punk scene included showcases teenagers as delinquent, unmotivated, alternative and desperately trying to escape their adult futures. 

Whose representation is this?

The two directors are fairly unknown, and the producer Andrew Eaton, has made films such as "Rush",  "The Killer Inside Me" and "9 songs".

Why has this presentations been constructed in this way?

The Troubles in Ireland was a time of social upheaval and so, would likely be made to add to the realism and historical accuracy of the film. The film also doesn't challenge the naturalised convention of teenagers appearing violent and irresponsible. The entertainment value likely increases as a result of including interesting and dangerous characters.

How can this representation be decoded (Audience Reception)?

• Historically accurate
• That teenagers during that period were aspirational, talented and popular, the successful rise of The Outcasts is evidence of this. There is also a suggestion of influence and meaning to the social group, who create a song that changes a mans life in a time where everything seems so hopeless
• However, the Punk scene showcases a social group trying to break out on their own and be different from their parents 
• Irresponsible = Terri Hooley marries his wife at a young age (However, this was the norm for that period)

What points or arguments can you make as a result of this analysis?

That teenagers as alternative lifestyle seekers and delinquents is a popular and long-lasting representation, included in films which portray the 1970's-1980's.

Which theories and theorists can you reference in support of your comments and arguments?

• Hegemony Theory and Charles Acland
• Dyer's Typography
• Baudrillard "Simulacrum"

What is overall conclusion you come to for this case study?

That the film presents both positive and negative perceptions of teenagers, and although they the negative perceptions in particularly are naturalised and the "norm" for the media contemporarily, there is a suggestion that because the film is historical, the representations can be seen as more genuine, rather than deliberate. 

Hegemony Theory

Antonio Gramsci

Cultural Hegemony Theory = The idea that the ruling classes maintain power and dominance over the lower classes by manipulating information provided designed to keep them under their control

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_hegemony

Charles Acland's Theory

The idea that the messages made in the media are designed to reinforce re-presentations already current in order to preserve and emphasise the hegemony of a society

E.g. "Kidulthood" actively portrays teenagers as delinquent and dangerous, reinforcing the desire to stay away, isolate and ignore them. This limits how much their opinions (which might include recognising the power the ruling classes hold and wanting to rebel) make an impact.