1. UNIT G325 SECTION B
MEDIA AND COLLECTIVE IDENTITY-REPRESENTATION OF YOUTH
IN THE MEDIA
“THIS IS ENGLAND”
–SHANE MEADOWS ,2006
Recap and define:
what is collective identity?
What is the collective identity of
this group?
“BIG FAT GYPSY WEDDING” – CHANNEL 4
T.V SERIES 1 EPISODE 1-“BORN TO BE WED”
2011-
Use extracts from this to explore representation of
youth in TV Documentary (Channel 4)
Discuss these representations and apply
postmodern theories regarding the “truth”
STUDENT NAME:....................................................................................................................
2. COLLECTIVE IDENTITY
IDENTITY
“Identity is complicated. Everyone thinks they’ve got one.” (Gauntlett
2007)
“A focus on identity requires us to pay close attention to the diverse
ways in which media and technologies are used in everyday life, and
their consequences both for individuals and for social groups.”
(Buckingham, 2008)
What is meant by collective identity? You have studied
“This Is England” (Shane Meadows) and have focused on
the representation of youth. Using “This is England” as
your starting point and source of examples, discuss the
collective identity of youth that is represented in this
film?
ACTIVITY: RECAP TASK. Watch the trailer for “This Is England” and look at posters provided.
Then answer the following questions on “This is England”:
1. WHAT GIVES THIS GROUP OF PEOPLE A COLLECTIVE IDENTITY?
2. WHAT DO THEY SHARE IN COMMON?
3. WHAT DIFFERENCES ARE THERE BETWEEN THEM?
4. HOW ARE YOUTHS REPRESENTED IN THIS FILM? 2
3. FILM ANALYSIS SUMMARY
http://www.filmeducation.org/pdf/film/ThisIsEngland.pdf
This Is England (2006, Shane Meadows)
This Is England is the story of a summertime school holiday,.
It’s 1983 and school is out. Twelve-year-old Shaun is an isolated
lad growing up in a grim coastal town, whose father has died
fighting in the Falklands War. Over the course of the summer
holiday he finds fresh male role models when those in the local
skinhead scene take him in. With his new friends, Shaun
discovers a world of parties, first love and the joys of Dr
Marten boots. Here he meets Combo (Stephen Graham), an
older, racist skinhead who has recently got out of prison. As
Combo’s gang harass the local ethnic minorities, the course is
set for a rite of passage that will hurl Shaun from innocence to
experience. Combo creates conflict and division and Shaun is
torn between the 2 gangs. As Combo escalates out of control,
he turns his anger onto Milky who he almost kills whilst Shaun
watches on.
Shaun is seen back home with his mum, once more innocent. He
goes to the beach and throws the union jack into the sea.
THE GANG
The members of the skinhead gang area Woody, the
unofficial leader of the
skinheads, who befriends Shaun after he has been bullied
Milky is one of Woody’s close friends and Lol is Woody’s
girlfirend -Lol is the leader of the girls.
Combo (the racist thug) ironically is mixed race
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4. SKINHEAD CULTURE: Woody and Combo are similar in terms
of dress, however the way in
which they behave is very different. The subculture that unites
them is what it means to be a skinhead.
SKINHEADS
.The original skinheads hailed from the late sixties. The
skinhead culture was taken up by black and white working
class kids working in shipyards and on factory lines, who
bonded over a love of reggae and forging a particular kind of
English identity, with braces, suits, boots, and sometimes a
Cromby hat atop heads shaved, military style. There was no
peace and love for this lot, life was a series of hard knocks and
this tough, fighter’s appearance was how they chose to express
those truths.
The second wave of skinheads, in the early eighties, were in
one sense similar: just kids from council estates finding their
place by being different together, like teenagers
everywhere. Allegiance was now sworn to bands that
acknowledged the heritage of Ska music, like Madness or
The Specials. At the same time a new genre sprang up in punk
infused Oi! Music, romperstomper, screwdriver tunes, charged
for fighting. Dressed in Dr Martens and with heads shaved
military style, these kids would give the V to anyone foolish
enough to give them the eye.
These were teens who came from areas of high
unemployment looking for solidarity beyond
Thatcher’s ‘me’ culture. They were abandoned by society and
that, of course, made them
vulnerable to the advances of the National Front.
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5. “BIG FAT GYPSY WEDDING” – CHANNEL 4 T.V SERIES 1 EPISODE 1-“BORN TO BE WED”
2011
Having analysed a range of representations of youth in Film, you
must now analyse representations using a different media text.
The chosen text here is a Channel 4 documentary series “Big Fat
gypsy wedding” Series 1 Episode 1 entitled “Born To be Wed”
FROM CHANNEL 4’S WEBSITE - Series Summary -A visually
arresting portrait of the lives of gypsies and travellers in Britain
today. Picking up where the hugely successful Cutting Edge film of
the same title left off, the new series follows the extraordinary
rite-of-passage events - including weddings, communions and
christenings - to offer a window into the world of the gypsy and
traveller community. Each stand-alone episode gives insights into
the community's attitudes toward gender roles, education and
outsiders. The series also explores the remarkable rituals,
traditions and beliefs held by this minority group. Warm,
intelligent, engrossing and funny, Big Fat Gypsy Weddings tells
intimate stories on an epic scale, laying bare an exotic unseen
Britain that exists right on our doorstep.
ACTIVITY: Watch the opening 10 minutes of the DVD and answer
the following questions:
1. What is a documentary? What is the purpose of a documentary? What do
you expect from a television documentary?
2. What actually happens in this opening sequence?
2. Describe the lives of female teenage travellers.
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6. 3. How do you feel they are represented?
4. Describe the lives of male teenage travellers represented?
5. What makes these representations believable?
6. What makes these representations seem less believable?
7. To what extent do you think these representations of traveller youths
have been “mediated”(created by the media)
8. What do you feel about these representations? Are they fair, accurate or
could they be damaging?
ACTIVITY: READ THE FOLLOWING NEWSPAPER EXTRACTS AND CHANNEL 4
COMMENTS AND answer the questions that follow –
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7. THE MAIL ONLINE 16 Feb 2012 - THE HIT Channel 4 show My Big Fat Gypsy
Wedding has been accused of stereotyping gypsies while an advertising campaign
featuring gypsy girls and the strap-line 'Bigger. Fatter. Gypsier' has been slammed as
offensive by The London Gypsy and Travellers Unit and potentially 'racist' by two
London Assembly members.The documentary, which features gypsy and traveller
brides in colossal wedding dresses, was also accused of stereotyping gypsies as
"menacing" young men and "alluring young girls".A number of gypsies had told the
unit they found the programme insulting and degrading and felt it was turning them into
something they are not. The unit has also complained to the Advertising Standards
Authority and asked Channel 4 to remove the adverts and apologise.
"Gypsies and travellers are [already] pretty close to being bottom of the heap in terms of
the abuse they receive. Channel 4 should show greater respect and restraint."
Programme-makers claim that they are throwing "an overdue light on a secretive,
marginalised and little-understood segment of our society". But Joe Cottrell-Boyce, the
traveller policy officer for the Irish Chaplaincy, writes on the Liberal Conspiracy website
that nothing could be further from the truth. He points out that many travellers live below
the poverty line, 20 per cent of Britain's caravan-dwelling travellers are statutorily
homeless and 62 per cent of adult gypsies and travellers are illiterate. "These statistics
paint a grim picture of the traveller experience in Britain," he says. "One that is a million
miles from the high jinks of MBFGW."
Meanwhile, a spokesman for C4 told The Week: “Big Fat Gypsy Weddings is an
observational documentary series that features a mix of Irish travellers, English
and Romany gypsies and makes a clear distinction between those different
communities. All the issues touched on in the series were meticulously
researched and are told through the eyes of the contributors themselves, talking
about their own experiences in their own words. “While some of the issues
touched on in the series are challenging, the programme is a fair and accurate
portrayal of what happened during filming and all children were filmed with
parental consent.”
THE MAIL ONLINE -The programmes reveal the eye-popping, extravagant nuptials that
appear to be the norm today among young traveller couples. Initially a one-off show, My
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8. Big Fat Gypsy Wedding has been developed into a six part, prime-time series. Eye-catching
and back-breaking: Dresses worn at gypsy weddings can cost up to £50,000, weigh 20 stone and
have a 20-foot train In a carefully sympathetic, scrupulously politically-correct way, viewers are
given an insight into the lives and times of the modern gypsy. Here we are shown that ceremony
and ritual are all-important, providing the travellers with crampons to cling on to the rubble of
their ‘diminishing’ way of life. So we have the lurid weddings, the gaudy parties and the
unsettling ritual of the first Holy Communions. Here, feisty little gypsy girls are primped, curled
and made up like showgirls by their mothers and grannies to receive the Holy Sacrament. These
tiny toughies in their Sunday-best frills are oddly affecting, yet there’s no escaping the fact that
in their high heels, tight dresses and false eyelashes, they look like the can-can chorus line from
a munchkin strip club. Not little girls about to embark on their spiritual journey to inner peace.
Josie explained that she had tanning-bed treatments every week before her wedding, determined
to get so brown that ‘all people will see are my eyes and teeth’. Meanwhile, when munchkin
Margarita stumped up to the church in her enormous crinoline Communion dress, all the other
little girls at the ceremony - all non-travellers in their plain white dresses and scrubbed faces —
pointed at painted Margarita and laughed.
It was an uncomfortable moment. But are viewers slyly being invited and encouraged to do
exactly the same? Perhaps the freak show that is My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding has more in
common with Big Brother than just high ratings. Certainly, the weddings are spectacular. Girls
stagger into church in enormous dresses that sometimes weigh more than they do, watched by a
community that lives alongside, but detached from, mainstream society.
CHANNEL 4 CLAIMS ;The Cutting Edge viewpoint in the programmes is strictly non-
critical and non-judgmental. No difficult questions are asked of the travellers and very few
men from the community allow themselves to be filmed or interviewed.
ACTIVITY: having read the articles above answer the questions below:
1. List the criticisms of the programme:
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9. 2. List the comments in support of the programme:
3. The travelling community clearly feel very strongly about the ways in which they feel
their youth has been misrepresented. Why do you think Channel 4 would create this
mediated view of travellers?
Academic theory –postmodernism
Jean –Francois Lyotard and Jean Baudrillard offered different definitions
of postmodernism or post modernity but what they share is a belief that the
idea of truth needs to be “deconstructed” so that we can challenge
dominant ideas that people claim as the truth, which Lyotard(1984)
described as “grand narratives”.
Baudrillard (1988) said: He who hangs on to truth has lost.”
Postmodernism cannot wish to remove one version of the truth and
replace it with another supposedly ”correct version”. They would argue
that all notions of the truth must be viewed with suspicion. TASK:
Apply postmodern theory to “Big Fat Gypsy Wedding”
In what ways could you say that this a truthful
representation?
In what ways could you agree with the postmodernists and
say this is an untru representation?In what ways could the
representation of traveller youths be damaging
/harmful/negative
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10. The opening 8 Minutes storyboard of Big Fat Gypsy Wedding
VOICEOVER: “For hundreds of years the
traveller way of life was one of ancient
“Born to Be Wed” traditions and simple tastes,”
1
V.O :Then their world collided with the 21st
2 century
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Do you want some beef?
(lively folk dance music –upbeat mood)
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11. 5
With unprecedented access to some of the world’s most
secretive communities
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Thelma the dressmaker: “They dont’like peole knowing
anything about them at all. They even have their own
language.”
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VOICEOVER: This series will take you to the very heart
Of gypsy life through the biggest celebrations to
8 important events in the traveller calendar
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12. 10
From the most extravagant children’s parties to the
biggest weddings on earth.
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13
“It’s the most important day of a travelling girl’s
life.”
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13. 15
VOICEOVER: Over 5 episodes this series will
explore..
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Unique aspects of gypsy and traveller life.
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In a world where a man is a man..
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A woman knows her place..
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14. 20
“if a girl don’t give you a kiss straightaway, you got
to beat them.”
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VOICEOVER: “From the day a traveller day is born
the preparations begin for the biggest day of her life..
her Wedding day.”
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Thelma: from the day these girls are born all they are
thinking about is their wedding dress..the bigger the 14
better.
15. 25
Thelma: “But when you get to know them...their
morals are so high...definitely, definitely no sex
before marriage.”
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VOICEOVER: “Marriage for these girls tend to
happen at a young age. 16 year old Irish traveller,
Josie, met her 19 year old fiancé, Swanley, just 4
27 months ago. The wedding is in just 5 weeks time.
Josie: “We first met on Facebook. We started
chatting and I thought... mmm Nice guy!”
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Traveller girls must be chaperoned even when they
are engaged to be married. Swanley’s mum,
29 Christine has accompanied the couple..
Christine: “Girls start very young looking after the
kids. I was 10 when I started.” Homemakers...we’re 15
bought up to be homemakers-we’re bred into it.”
16. 30
But for the single traveller girls the place to meet boys
is in this West London carpark. Gypsy cousins,
Cheyanna and Montana, can be found here most
weekends dressed to impress.”
I’m 15,I’d like to get married at 16-defintely by 17..
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32 VOICEOVER: traveller girls have to follow the strict
rules of courtship imposed on them by the community.
Girls aren’t allowed to approach boys, they must wait
to be chosen-sometimes through a ritual known as
grabbing.
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INTERVIEWER So why do you come here then boys
34Boys:”To get some good looking girls like these”
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Upto 8 minutes
17. JOSIE AND SWANLEYS WEDDING ( 37 MINS TO 45
MINS)
V.O :As the guests await the bride, Swanley has gone
down the pub.
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Swanley arrives at church still gulping down beer and
spills some on his suit!
The bride in her “classy dress” and her dad
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The wedding vows. Josie dissolves into laughter as she
says “ Swanley I give you this ring....
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Swanley joins in the laughter in the middle of the vows!
18. 38
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Cousins preparing for the reception.
VO: Girls will have to be on guard from boys wanting
grabs.
The cake fight!
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The dancing-younger generation arrive...
