PRIMARY TEXT - THE INBETWEENERS
1. The Telegraph –
Alice Vincent, 28.11.14
“The Inbetweeners: 'Lad culture doesn’t represent young men
in this country”
“Most young men, or the ones
I know, are quite nice and normal and good people.”
“There is
a huge pressure [on young men] and a theme of my life has been competition”
James Buckley from The Telegraph (28th Nov 2014): “Doesn’t
represent the actual young men in this country.”
James
Buckley from The Telegraph: “Most young men, or the ones I know, are quite nice
and normal and good people.”
2. Chris Tookey
from Daily Mail Online described the movie brand (26th Aug 2011): “This is
essentially a British rip-off of The Hangover 2, with four actors in their late
20s impersonating 18-year-old half-wits going on a holiday in Greece, where
they get drunk, vomit and use foul language a lot — and unaccountably attract a
quartet of physically attractive young women by doing so.”
Chris Tookey
from Daily Mail Online: “Astonishingly, two of the four lads claim to have won
places at university, which is yet more eloquent evidence for the dumbing down
of education.”
Daily Mail:
“Encouragingly, however, quite a few bright teenagers hate The Inbetweeners
too; they find it crudely patronising.”
James Buckley discusses if he'd let his own kids watch The Inbetweeners: "'I won't let them watch it!' Inbetweeners star
James Buckley thinks it'll be too embarrassing for his boys and dreads to think
about them ever turning out like Jay"
"Also taking the p*** out of your mates is a big
part of Aussie culture. That is something I think our two countries share and
actually that is a big part of what we do"
Quotes from the characters themselves who reflect on the movie and the impact of British vs Australian culture:
"We found the British humour in Australia very
similar. There’s a big overlap. Both countries are quite honest in their
humour, quite crude."
“The combination of excitement, adventure, teenage bravado —
plus a dollop of fear when things suddenly start to go wrong — is what the show
is about.”
“Four boys still vainly pursuing women, along with alcohol
and suntans”
“There’s the usual mix of schoolboy jokes and visual gags. The
white patch that emerges on Will’s sunburnt back is — almost inevitably —an
embarrassing, distinctive, phallic shape.
The language is ripe — there are
lewd discussions about genitalia and moments of full-frontal male nudity, too.
Add to that a liberal sprinkling
of The Inbetweeners’ lexicon of words and it’s little wonder that the stars of
the show admit it won’t necessarily be to everyone’s taste”
3.
· Empire
magazine: “Writers Iain Morris and Damon Beesley put them through the lads'
holiday from hell, taking in OAP shagging, nicking the sunbathing spot from a
disabled girl, projectile vomiting, sleeping in ants' nests”
· Empire
magazine: “It also captures those Greek
holiday resorts in all their garish awfulness.”
· Empire
magazine: “The Inbetweeners has always been about its central friendship and
amidst the vomit and the virginity losing, the film delivers a realistic
believable portrait of young blokes - look out for a touching discussion as the
penny drops that university might spell the end of the friendship”
4.
The Guardian
“The Inbetweeners is more realistic than Skins”
“The undeniably rude, but often hilarious, tale of four
middling teens stuck between social and emotional stations – is an exaggerated
version of the lives most of us lived, rather than the pill-popping, sexy,
navel-gazing years we imagined we did.”
5.
“The gang’s lack of success with girls and general social
awkwardness is integral to the show’s humour, so it is a relief to see that the
boys are now just as unpopular as young adults as they were as adolescents.”
“Despite being hilarious, though, neither the film nor the
show is, or was, doing anything new. The premise of the show – frustrated,
socially inept teenagers trying to get laid – has been done by a thousand
American teen movies. The characters are similarly derivative and
two-dimensional – all are essentially fairly predictable ‘types,’ and parallels
with characters from previous comedies are easy to draw.”
“The dialogue, firstly, is a huge factor. The ‘banter’
between the four is so brilliant not because of its wit, but because of its
total lack of it. There is nothing more false than watching a group of overpaid
actors pretending to be friends reeling off carefully crafted one-liners fed to
them by a group of writers, with each comment wittier than the last until the
fake studio audience explodes in a frenzy of whooping and canned laughter. That
kind of staged conversation is easier to construct, and is always far too slick
to ever appear genuine.”
“The total lack of any originality or brains behind their
insults makes their conversations, and their relationship, totally believable.”
“The boys occupy that twilight zone between adolescence and
maturity, trapped frustratingly between two freedoms: the innocence of
childhood and the financial independence of adulthood. Thrown in with that
general angst is the awkwardness of unreciprocated crushes and embarrassing
drunken misdemeanours which almost everyone can relate to.”
“The joy for younger viewers is inextricably linked to the
realisation that they are not alone – no matter how cripplingly shameful
adolescence can be, there is genuine comfort to be had in knowing that Will,
Simon, Neil and Jay are experiencing mortifications on a different scale, and
managing to survive in the only way possible: by making light of their
situation.”
“The reality is that for most people life is far more like
‘The Inbetweeners’ than ‘Skins.’ Dull, frustrating and humiliating, tainted
with self-consciousness and immaturity – this is what adolescence and young
adulthood was/is like for most of us.
"The Inbetweeners’ is successful not only
because it works brilliantly as a sitcom, but because people truly connect with
it. For that reason alone, it fully deserves its success.”
SECONDARY TEXT – TOP BOY
1.
Gangs, guns and drug dealers: was Top Boy's portrayal of
life in Hackney too hackneyed and American ? Or a harrowing insight into the
youth of today? (JIM SHELLEY FOR MAILONLINE, 20th Aug 2013)
· “In terms of
their lives on the Summerhouse Estate, the way they inveigled very young kids
as lookouts or dealers, and the struggle that parents face to keep their
children out of the gangs, Top Boy didn’t show us much we hadn’t seen already,
either in British films like Kidulthood, Shifty or 2004's Bullet Boy, which was
also set in Hackney and starred Walters.”
· “The very
real possibility of a generation of kids missing their education as a result of
being seduced by the rewards offered by dealers like Dushane was powerfully
conveyed, even if it did replicate the American TV classic, The Wire.”
· “Bennett
sensitively balanced the way the children had to act like adults to fulfill
their dreams of money and a way out with their innate desire to do things like
play football, walk their dogs or eat chips: to just be kids.”
2.
Top Boy gets a mixed reception from Hackney’s youth (2nd Nov
2011)
· It's about
young people in a deprived estate struggling to survive, dealing with the
temptations of violence, gangs and drugs, and touching on themes of mental
health, single-parent families, neglected children and loyalty.
·
"There's a lot of playing into stereotypes," he said.
"It's a drama not a documentary, so it's going to happen but I don't like
the glorification of the gangs, that worries me."
· Top Boy,
written by Ronan Bennett after extensive research into Hackney's underclasses,
undoubtedly has authenticity
· "You
can do right by your kids if you want to. Plenty people working hard for their
kids. A lot doing two, three jobs."
· "You
see a lot of young boys tired, so tired, from running around selling the drugs
for the older boys. If they lose the drugs then they have to work it off and
you see them working all hours. Oh, those bits are real!" Janet Williams,
Hackney resident
· The theme of
fatherless children is strong in Top Boy
· Lisa, 16,
said she saw her father "out sometimes" but they did not acknowledge
each other.
· Crime fell
18% in the 12 months ending in September 2011, and murders fell from six to
three, according to police statistics
3.
The Literary London Journal: Top Boy Season 1 (Reviewed by
Kevin M. Flanagan (University of Pittsburgh, USA) (Spring 2014)
· Their work
in Top Boy plays as quality melodramatic realism, touting location-based
shooting, authentic East London accents, the evocation of poverty and a visual
style based on immediacy, favouring hand-held close-ups over staginess.
· Wildly
successful at telling a touching story that shows the various dangers of drugs
and violence on poor youth, but it does this at the cost of formal
experimentation or the bucking of genre expectation.
· A focus on
black youth, the cyclical, escalating nature of drug-related murders, the drug
trade’s exploitation of children
4.
Channel 4’S Top Boy Slammed for Reinforcing Hood Stereotypes
Written by Juliana Lucas
09/09/2013 12:14 PM
· UK rapper
Sway, who had a role in the first season, said: “So glad we have a show like
Top Boy, despite what people might say it gives some insight to what really
happens out here.”
· 23-year-old
aspiring film director Rakheem Noble urged producers to create “positive
alternatives about black families”. He added: “I think the show offers one
version of how life is in Hackney for some but not all…It does not show
ambitious black people fulfilling education or pursuing a career.”
· “There is a
problem with the lack of variety of films and TV shows depicting the lives of
black people in Britain. When you see ethnic minorities portrayed on TV what do
you see? Do you see them in positive or negative light? It is usually negative.
· "This
reinforces false perceptions and stereotypes and limits the opportunity to have
different stories. The result is that this is how some people will view black
people and expect us to behave.”
5.
Top Boy – the gritty truth of London gang culture ( Mansha
Haurdhan )
· London’s
gang culture is tangled with troubled social and domestic issues that trap many
of the capital’s youth.
· A prominent
feature in inner cities’ gang culture is drugs.
·
Approximately two-million people in the UK smoke cannabis and half of
16-29 year-olds have admitted to trying it at least once.
· With youth
unemployment seeing one in five not in full-time work, education or training,
the reality is becoming more prominent.
· Selling
drugs is seen as a reliable income to many youth and as the number of
unemployment rose with the recession, a growing number of young adults became
involved in the drug appeal.
· With youth
unemployment hitting a new record of 1.2 million, over a three month period up
until September, who can predict the increasing number of youths lured into the
drug seduction and struggle to escape?
· The dark
story of ‘Top Boy’ has opened a crucial insight into the troubled lives that
some of the next generation are tragically caught in.
Articles to do with youth culture:
· Kate Devlin
and Andrew Porter from The Telegraph: “A study, by the World Health
Organisation, will show that more young people in Britain have been drunk at a
young age than in most other developed countries.”
· BBC, Mark
Easton: “Sex, drugs, booze, fags, crime - teenage problems with these have all
fallen hugely in the past few years.”
*
Media Magazine – April 2010 – MM32
·
One paragraph in essay: discuss how Inbetweeners
represents youth from a comedic perspective, whereas Top Boy gives a more
realistic view
“Comedy is a peculiar and subjective phenomenon; and we’ve
been fascinated by the range of texts you’ve unearthed, from the unexpected
humour to be found in Eminem and Lily Allen, through the superheroics of The
Misfits, to the postmodern ironies of the Inbetweeners”
Emma Louise Howard states how sitcoms now have a “narrow
audience”
Sense of humour: “The British and American sense of humour
is different”
Key concepts of ‘surrealism’, ‘oddities’ and ‘nuttiness’ are
seen as being “British”
·
Theoretical study of comedy comes from Richard F. Taflinger, who
put together six ‘rules’ which allow a situation to be humorous.
Comedy must:
1 Appeal to the intellect rather
than the emotions.
2 Be mechanical.
3 Be inherently human, with the
capability of reminding us of humanity.
4 Have a set of established
societal norms with which the observer is familiar.
5 The situation and its component
parts must be inconsistent or unsuitable to the societal norms.
6 Be perceived by the observer as harmless or
painless to the participants.
·
Philosophies of humour: ‘the superiority theory’: laughing at the
misfortunes of others. While this may appear cruel, think about slapstick and
also those ‘cringeworthy’ moments in British comedies like The Office, Peep
Show and The Inbetweeners in which the characters embarrass themselves horribly
or make a social faux pas. We squirm for them, but there’s catharsis in
thinking, ‘Thank goodness that’s not me.’ While these shows will often end at
the moment in which the failure or embarrassment reaches its horrible pinnacle
Area for debate: Can Postmodernism make us laugh?
Key terms to refer to:
• Hyperreality – a
situation where images cease to be rooted in reality
• Fragmentation – used frequently to describe most aspects
of society, often in relation to identity. So, what
• Bricolage – mixing up and using different genres and
styles
• Intertextuality – one media text referring to another
• Parody – mocking something in an original way
Examiner Tina Dixon -
“The Inbetweeners although it can be argued that comedy is subjective, a good deal
of comedy on our television screens draws on universal values and beliefs.”
Let’s start with The Inbetweeners (made by Bwark
Productions, and shown on E4 and Channel 4 from May 2008). When first shown,
the pilot episode attracted an audience of 238,000; the series as a whole
averaged 459,000 viewers. Series Two, Episode One attracted 958,000 and the
series averaged just over a million.
“The focal
point of the comedy comes from Will (Simon Bird) who joins the school,
when his wealthy parents divorce and his mum can’t afford private school fees.”
“However, for all of its ordinariness I would argue that
this sitcom is quite postmodern.”
“Firstly, in some respects it parodies previous school-based
texts such as Grange Hill (1978- 2008) in that it sets the drama/action around
characters at school, but makes those characters all the things the Grange Hill
characters weren’t. They swear (frequently), they constantly talk about sex and
bodily functions”
“I would also argue that it uses bricolage, in that it mixes
comedy, drama, romance, realistic issues and slapstick.”
“All of which creates a rich bricolage or layering of
meaning”
Examples:
·
A scene where Will is thrown in a lake in his
underpants by the mechanics at the garage where he is doing work experience is
pure slapstick.
·
The love of Simon (Joe Thomas) for Carli is
quite touching and romantic.
·
The representation of Jay’s father as an absolute monster, never
missing an opportunity to humiliate him, is quite realistic: it provides a
psychological reason as to why Jay is such a liar, as a result of a huge
inferiority complex.
·
Neil (Blake Harrison) has an almost surreal spin
on life. And the Dickensian Head of Sixth Form Mr Gilbert is a sadist.
·
Series One, Episode Three, ‘Thorpe Park’,
parodies the archetypally sleazy male driving instructor, turning it on its
head: Simon is the object of the female instructor’s desire.
·
Any episode (for example, ‘Will’s Birthday’ )
reveals numerous intertextual
references, such as posters in the common room for ‘Run DMC’ and ‘NWA’.
·
The boys discuss porn on the internet, and use
Live Messenger.
·
There are other references to Russell Brand,
Take That and Supersize Me, all of which, like bricolage, create layers of meaning. They are
there to be read by the audience if they get the reference, but it does not
matter if they do not see or hear them. The reference to Supersize Me makes the
joke funnier if you know what they are talking about, but is still funny, even
if you do not.”
The Nature of Comedy:
·
Greek Theorist ‘Aristotle’ stated there are two
modes of drama broken down into a “tragedy” tends to end badly and “comedy”
usually ends happily.
·
“Many people will tell you that they enjoy
comedies because they make them feel good. But many comedies are cruel, and
most are offensive, since jokes depend on allusions to some sort of
taboo-breaking.”
·
Most comedy from The Inbetweeners based around
theme of sex. This is breaking social taboos but also from transgressive
behaviour that has sometimes fatal consequences. Some forms of modern comedy
ask us to enjoy the embarrassment and humiliation of others.
·
“Sexist jokes are damaging to society”
·
“ If we try to exclude everything that might
offend, we can expect some kind of backlash against new taboos”
Satire – used to ridicule with the intent to bring about
improvement
·
British culture is accurately represented
through the iconography
·
The movie was a cinematic sensation at the UK
box-office, earning £45 million. In USA
- $36,000 at only 10 screens, and the film's co-creator Iain Morris has blamed
it on the language barrier.
Reference to article which questions: Does British comedy
have to be ‘doctored’ in order to satisfy the American appetite, and vice
versa?
“The digital media stream is closing both the physical and
cultural gap, and when it comes to comedy, it could be argued that any rigid
sense of cultural identity is softening in the wake of schedules which
incorporate more” Emma Louise Howard
Characterisation of Simon:
Corresponds to the great British Comedy institution
character: The Loser
·
Presented as an “archetype” within British
comedy - defined by a strong sense of
failure. The typical narrative trajectory for this character type is one of
repeated attempts to better themselves. These attempts play out as an almost
titanic struggle against all the odds in a futile effort to achieve; yet time
and again and despite their very best efforts, the Loser always fails.
·
As each narrative unfolds, it becomes apparent
that the Loser is, in fact, an individual who conceals a profound lack of
confidence, struggling as they do not only to overcome this personality trait
but also to prove themselves – e.g. Simon’s numerous attempts to get with a
girl
·
“The comedy these characters elicit is in their
attempts to achieve and to prove their self-worth: the effort they put in and
the lengths they go to make the audience laugh for they know it will end in
failure – that is the audience expectation of such a character type. Yet, for
all this humour, the Loser also elicits a certain sense of sympathy for their
experiences, their predicaments and their lack of self-confidence can be
readily recognised by most audiences”
MM35
“In a parallel development, pioneering work by Dick Hebdige
and others on the study of British youth sub-cultures acknowledged for the
first time that white working-class youth in the UK was consciously adopting
and developing aspects of the culture expressed in American and Jamaican black
popular music. Far from mindlessly absorbing ‘simple’ popular music, as critics
had claimed, sections of British youth were seen as re-working the meanings and
the cultural references of music produced in another culture”
Comparison of youth cultures:
Representations of young men from ethnic minorities are the
main social group represented in both films. Each film has a young black male
protagonist: Rocket in City of God and Hubert in La Haine.
The narrative, cinematography and use of music are all
clearly influenced by American independent films such as Boyz N The Hood and film-makers such as Martin Scorsese and Spike
Lee. The American ‘hood’ film sub-genre often has a character that is trying to
reject a life of crime and escape the trappings of the ‘hood’ in which he lives
(see also Boyz N The Hood and Menace II Society).
Diversity and identity:
·
City of God’s focus is mainly on black youths.
The favelas were initially created to house freed slaves, and therefore black
people are massively over-represented in this setting.
·
On the other hand, La Haine emphasises racial
hybridity with the three protagonists being of Arab, Jewish and African
descent. The characters all refer to each other with racial banter; in La Haine
the three friends refer to each other’s ethnicities continually. It is argued
that people from ethnic minorities often do this to celebrate their difference
from the rest of society and also to give them a sense of belonging within their
own sub-culture.
·
A defining characteristic of these ghetto
cultures is their antagonism towards the police. The representation of the
police in both films is almost entirely negative
Women are under-represented in both these films, and often
portrayed in a negative light
Masculine-dominated stories with little time for female
characters
Inbetweeners Notes:
·
Steadicam movement with long flowing shots
following characters through their environment
·
Theme song – Gone Up in Flames – Rock song,
reflects time era, how society is changing, upbeat, urban realism
Dehumanisation of working class:
“disturbing icons of youth gone wild” “dehumanised”
“Impression
that youths have recently become an unruly bunch; but remember that ‘youth
crime has always been around, we just hear about it a lot more now’ (Heath,
2011)”
“Sense
of realism and also to create truly iconic representations of British youth”
Sara Mills describes time era as a
“youthful rebellion” and “the rejection of mainstream values”
Article MM41
Pete Turner:
“British rapper Plan B has criticised the label for being ‘a
derogatory phrase no different to the ones concerning race or sex’. But some
argue being a ‘chav’ is about attitude and behaviour, not race, sex, class or
education”
“The typical representation of contemporary young people in
Britain is the iconic image of the ‘chav’. The chav has become a symbol of
David Cameron’s ‘broken Britain’ and a cultural movement of young people that
is easy to recognise.”
“Hooded, tattooed and often anonymous due to a covered face,
‘chavs’ wear tracksuits and trainers and often sport some dazzling golden
jewellery, commonly referred to as ‘bling’. These are supposedly the youth of
British streets; uneducated, poor but covered in labels and logos, and above all
aggressive, most likely waving gun and gang signs around”
Adulthood:
Adulthood (Noel Clarke, 2008) have been accused of
glamorising violence and chav culture, ‘while The Times has accused it of indulging
middle-class voyeurism
Noel Clarke, the writer of both these films, defends them as
being honest representations of Britain’s modern youth
The youths in these films may look and sound ‘real’ with
their iconic ‘chavvy’ representations, but they are also a cause for concern
for many members of society with their promiscuous sex, drug taking and violent
behaviour.
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/the-inbetweeners-2-film-review-men-will-be-boys-in-a-lewd-likeable-comic-return-9655493.html
- "Men will be boys in a lewd, likeable comic return"
- "Much of the charm of the original TV series lay in the fact that the four friends were "inbetweeners," perched between adolescence and adulthood. There was a naiveté about them that helped atone for their excesses."
- The naivety aspect is presented through the character of Neil who usually is submissive to the jokes the rest of the group make. He is usually the central subject to the jokes that are made
Geoffrey Macnab
Article MM47 –
David Buckingham – “Does the market simply exploit and
manipulate young people, or does it offer them opportunities to fulfil their
needs, to express themselves, and to create their own identities”
Is The Inbetweeners an accurate representation?
