How Do Contemporary Media Represent British Youth And Youth Culture In Different Ways?

Horror and the Representation of Youth
Film theorist Robin Wood argues that the basic formula of the horror film is 'normality is threatened by the monster. i use "normality" here... to mean simply "conformity to the dominant social forms"'


Harry Brown


What is the significance of the emergence of a cycle of British films in which the 'monster' is young people?
- People can relate it to the real world and it is realistic to viewers. It is an escalating fear within society, people are intimidated by the youths known for their drug abuse and violence.
How do they threaten normality?
- They threaten normality because people can relate directly to the characters shown stereotypically in the movie.
What term could we use instead of normality?




Attack The Block


How are the main characters introduced? How does this representation change?
the main characters are introduced in a negative way, they are intimidating, violent and dismissive of consequences. the lighting is dark making them even more intimidating and creates the horror genre conventions of night time sinisterness. they are represented as the bad guys of the movie.
Opening sequence stereotypical hoodie representation.
As the film progresses the representation becomes more positive. Develops a more sympathetic representation.
The film initially represents the young people as 'monsters', then replaces them with actual monsters.
Contrast to other 'hoodie horror films'.