Sunday 1 November 2015

Notes and Quotes

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.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/film-news/11253840/The-Inbetweeners-Lad-culture-doesnt-represent-young-men-in-this-country.html


  • The Inbetweeners movie are aware they exaggerate the stereotypes of young British teenagers, the emphasis is heavily put on the concept of "lad culture" as this is exaggerated through the excessive partying and drinking. 

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?                                                                                                                                                                  

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