To what extent can the contemporary British film Fish Tank and Eden Lake be said to offer a negative representation of youth?
Fish Tank
The film 'Fish Tank' gives a negative representation of youth. It does this throughout the whole film, several times. An example of a way in which the film does this is by showing the way that the youth in a run down area behave. The whole of the estate seems to be filled up with youths that are causing trouble and starting fights, but although this may be true of some areas, the extent at which these instances happen are greatly exaggerated. For example. it may be true that areas are filled with crime and violence and gangs, but it isn't pure crime and violence and the film has exaggerated the truth to make these areas seem a lot worse than they actually are.
They have also given the traveller community bad representation. This is done by when mia (the main girl actor) enters the travveler site they take all of her things and give the impression that they are going to rape her or beat her up. They also show the traveler youth community and put them in bad light by having the girl imply that they are treating the horse badly, and she tries to set it free as she thinks that the horse is being kept badly and should be treated better and put in better conditions.
Another way that bad representation is shown is through the actions that the younger girls take. For example mias sister who is about 6 years old is with friends and they are drinking and smoking. Although smoking and drinking could be started by children at a young age, i don't think it is to the extent of 6 year olds meeting up and doing it. All of them also have discusting words. This is shown when they argue and this seems to be all the time. For the majority of the film there is constant arguing and discusting uses of the english language in which they just insult each other. One of the only times where there isn't arguing is when the 15 year old is seduced by connor and ends up having sex with him. This represents girls as being slaggy and having sex with someone who they clearly shouldn't due to the age difference and its her mums boyfriend. This scene implies that youth will just do things like this given the chance, but it is highly unlikely that these things will actually happen, but this makes it look like if the youth these days are offered a chance to do something illegal or that comes with trouble or bad consequences, they can't resist doing it.
Poor representation is also shown when mia applies to be a dancer. She goes there and is up against a lot of other girls that are all having their audition, dancing to try and get picked to have the job. All the girls that are there applying for the job have barely any clithes on. And when mia is up there dancing, she is wearing a tracksuit whilst looking out at all the other people auditioning who are wearing things such as short skirts or hot pants. The people hosting the audition ask her to take off her hot pants, almost as if it wasn't right that she was covered up and fully clothed. This makes it look like the youth are desperate and willing to do anything for money as all the other girls are barely clothed.
Eden Lake
In the film Eden Lake their is an introduction of the stereotypical 'hoody' which is very similar to that of the stereotyping in Fish Tank. However the 'hoody' is basic in a more contradicting setting of a rural village. The hooded characters act like they own the village and show no respect to the other people living there. This is a very negative representation of youths as it massively over exaggerated the common stereotype.
The behavior is very extreme and over the top, for example the youths torcher and abuse the male character, the ring leader of the gang gets all the other members to use a knife and stab the character steve, this leaves him in a condition close to death. Although they did this they did not have intentions to kill him but he then dies later on from the wounds, because of this the female character ' Jenny' is at risk because the gang then want to find her to kill her as well and protect them selves from getting in trouble with the law. This makes the youths appear less human and there morals seem to not be present within there characteristics giving them a very negative representation.
In the film an 'innocent' younger boy is portrayed as being good as he does not follow the rest of the gangs traits, later on though in the film this image of innocence is later betrayed to Jenny and the audience as he shows the gang the location of Jenny when he could help her. This gives an inaccurate representation of youth because in real life a young boy that behaves in a normal way wouldn't help what is considered 'evil'. Later on the kid then gets betrayed himself and made to seem like a pointless life that isn't worth living because the gang burn him alive for the sole reason of trying to encourage Jenny to return to them to face her faith.
Conclusion
In conclusion both the films give a bad representation of youth which is not accurate across the majority of the population. We believe that both the films offer a negative representation of youth to a large an not necessary degree.
Toby Moffat, George Tibbett, Graeme Beck
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