“Stereotypes are simple, one-dimensional portrayals of people – usually based on sex, race, religion, profession or age.[1]” Crime, alcohol, and general bad behaviour: almost every time you hear the news today, there seems to be an endless supply of stories about teenagers in the UK taking part in negative, anti-social activities, stereotyping their generation as criminals. A sizeable proportion of male teenagers causing crime in the UK is, of course, an important issue as it affects society, regardless of anyone’s age, ethnicity, profession etc. But is this a true reflection of teenager’s lives today? Or is it only a small proportion of the teenage generation who are being focussed on by the media, generating moral panics and making teenage stereotypes worse? This essay will be looking into the various, but often limited, representations of male teenagers. It will pay particular attention to the representations of teenagers in the news media, contrasting and comparing those in the UK with those abroad and considering why young males living in different countries behave the way they do. The focus will also be on different contemporary and historical texts and will examine the possible reasons as to why teenagers today may act and subsequently appear in the media as different to teenagers’ years ago.
It has been said that: “the problem with the youth market is that it is a very difficult one to address because youth’s level of engagement with the mass media in general is less than the average.
When comparing the representation of teenagers in the United Kingdom, to those aboard, many similarities could be found. The most common representations of teenagers naturally include being loud, hyperactive, and curious about the world. Unfortunately, to some extent, this leads to moral panics being created about them and frequently this stereotype leads to teenagers becoming motivated to commit illegal crimes. However, there are countries in the East of Europe such as Ukraine and Russia, where we have had evidence of teenagers committing crimes that could be considered to be ‘ten times’ more serious than those being committed by teenagers in the UK. “Three guys, one hammer[5]” was an incident that began in the summer of 2007 in Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine. The incident saw Igor Suprunyuck, Viktor Sayenko and Alexander Hanzha, otherwise known as “The Dnepropetrovsk Maniacs[6]” deciding that the best way to commemorate their loss of childhood, and welcome adulthood, was to kill 40 people with hammers, pipes and screwdrivers. Each murder was recorded on their phones and some were found on the internet after the arrest of the boys. Not only did these three teenage boys kill people (generally the elderly), they also were found to have murdered helpless animals, such as cats and dogs, taking photographs of the dead bodies once they were mutilated. This demonstrates the fact that the representation of teenagers is sometimes negative due to such monstrous events. Teenagers are clearly capable of committing crimes.
On the other hand, so are adults. The crimes that take place in Eastern European countries, which have obviously strongly affected the minds of adults and the news media, portraying teenagers as a negative thing, has created a moral panic about something that can be committed by anyone. If the cultivation theory was to be neglected, and the hypodermic needle model enforced, it can be argued that teenagers react to the offensive material that they are shown. But, who makes this offensive material for teenagers to copy? It is very clear that with the copy cat effect, teenagers are freely allowed to watch all sorts of movies and listen to all sorts of music, which in most occasions are not suitable for their age, and therefore get influenced by murder scenes or fighting scenes in films such as “Goodfellas”. Scorsese’s ‘Goodfellas’ released in 1990, is a gangster film where there is a lot of violence involved, scenes of people getting shot and others getting stabbed with gory scenes of blood splattering. Although it is a negative effect, these are the types of things that teenagers are deliberately attracted to. “Goodfellas” involve ideologies of a carefree, rich lifestyle that teenagers crave.
In the same way that films influence teenagers to behave in a negative manner, and as a consequence, become represented in a negative way, could be due to celebrities. “When a celebrity gets arrested, the media swarms in and is relentless in their coverage.
According to the media, other aspects that strongly influence crime in the UK and teenagers behaving badly are the facts that the UK is a multicultural society. Within London alone, one would assume that the percentage of people from different ethnic minorities is extremely high. However, it has been found that there is only a total of 37% of ethnic minorities living in Britain, which has a representation of being a home for people of all ethnic backgrounds. Even though this is the case, Britain has witnessed continuous conflict between people with different cultural backgrounds. Occasionally, such incidents have no connection to the idea of racism; however, different teenagers from different countries compete against each other as part of their daily lives. Such events may lead to physically fighting, stealing, selling illegal drugs and even prostitution. It also leads to gangs. “Researching gangs in the US shows that gang members often share common characteristics. They may be victims of child abuse; many have never seen a conflict settled without the use of violence; many are school drop-outs; they have inadequate family lives.”
“Every time I go to the supermarket, I see another magazine cover saying there is something wrong with teens. A troubled teen that looked angry and dangerous. His eyes were cold and mean. The headline stated in bold, white letters, The Secret Life of Teens."
Negative stereotypes not only affect how adults see teenagers, they also influence how teenagers see themselves and other teenagers. "An important issue is how adults treat me just because I'm a teenager. Sure there are bad ones out there but I'm not one of them. It doesn't just hurt but it's disrespectful when security figures follow me around like I'm some kind of loser or criminal."
Generally, the media has created a moral panic within the surrounding society about young people, where they only see teenagers as criminals. Male teenagers in hoodies, especially, have become stereotyped as anti-social criminals who enjoy spending time stealing, attacking people and street-hang-outs who have nothing better to do with their time apart from cause chaos. [15]"Gangs are often reported in the media as a modern issue, the number of teenage members of gangs has increased in many countries in the past 20 years." Although, to some extent the stereotype can be considered correct, like the majority of stereotypes it certainly is not true of all teenagers. It is clear that the media does not effectively show enough achievements in young people, and focus on the disturbances instead in order to sell more news. This could be seen to ‘breed’ more criminals as the media, as a controlling force in our everyday lives, may not listen to the thoughts or fall to the persuasion of teenagers. Knowing this, teenagers may assume that as they are going to be portrayed like this no matter what they do, and therefore find that they might as well be the ‘rowdy’ people that they are represented as rather than fight against this stereotype; they choose to conform to it as it seems to have become the hegemonic representation. However it is important that: “whatever way the media show images of youth it is important that young people themselves challenge stereotypes and question the representations they encounter[16].”
Word Count: 2080
[1] Stereotyping in the Movies (website)
[2] Representation on Youths (website)
[3] Kings, C. (2000). Page ***
[4] Oliver & Peter Braham (eds.) (1987) Page ***
[5] Three Guys, One Hammer (website)
[6] Dnepropetrovsk Maniacs Murder Guy with Hammer and Screwdriver (website)
[7] The Cult of Celebrity and its Effects on Society (website)
[8] Rapper 50 Cent Arrested (website)
[9] ibid
[10] Stones, R. (1998):
[11] Representation on Youths (website)
[12] The Media Distorts Teens (website)
[13] Rayner, P. Wall, P. Kruger, S. (2004) Page 254
[14] Youth Stereotypes News (website)
[15] Gifford, C. (2006) Page 43
[16] Representation on Youths (website)
http://www.media-awareness.ca/english/parents/movies/concerns/stereotyping_movies.cfm
http://minshengmonster.blogspot.com/2009/08/3-guys-1-hammer.html
Dnepropetrovsk Maniacs Murder Guy with Hammer and Screwdriver (Real Snuff Video) taken from:
http://www.bestgore.com/murder/dnepropetrovsk-maniacs-murder-guy-hammer-screwdriver-real-snuff-video/
The Media Distorts Teens taken from: http://www.freechild.org/Firestarter/contents/FS1001.htm
http://www.media-awareness.ca/english/special_initiatives/toolkit/stereotypes/youth_stereotypes_news.cfm
An Exploration of the Representation of Teenagers taken from:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/16741072/An-Exploration-of-the-Representation-of-Teenagers-in-Two-British-Film1
Representation of young people in the media taken from:
http://www.npsp.sa.gov.au/site/page.cfm?u=1010
http://aarmanitvdrama.blogspot.com/2009/02/representation-of-british-youth.html
