EVALUATION 1:

THEORY
Our Narrative/Representation:
The fundamental aspect of our narrative is the fact that it is based on the London bombings, an educational thread
on current affairs. Giroux believes we deny reality and simply believe what is in the media. Therefore we
incorporated the idea of media being an influence and decided to do film on terrorism. Giroux’s ideology was that
the medias representation of youth becomes an ‘empty category’ due to mediation within the media. In the
London bombings the attackers were all teenagers, therefore exemplifying youth as criminals. After researching the
London bombings we came to understand that one of the attackers although not being a high achieving student
grade wise, was just a normal individual within his class community. He was involved in as BBC describe ‘racial
tension’ at school but was not deemed a trouble maker. This racial tension was not elaborated on and therefore
could suggest he was a victim of racial bullying. This could have led to his actions later on in life (terrorism) which
doesn’t condom his acts by any means but could portray him as a victim seeking empowerment. The fact that the
media didn’t elaborate o this story or the fact that he was a good student puts him in an empty category of youth,
depicting that teenagers are violent and morally incorrect.
The news is full of violence and crime, which makes people susceptible to fear. Due to the fact our target audience
was 12-25; the prime ages that sue technology, we felt they would understand the reality of the world we live in a
therefore understand our story line form an individual’s perspective. This ties in with Cohen’s moral panic theory,
which occurs when someone or something is defined by the media as a threat to the values or interests of society.
He says, “Calling something a 'moral panic' does not imply that this something does not exist or happened at all and
that reaction is based on fantasy, hysteria, delusion and illusion or being duped by the powerful.” Terrorism is a
theme that can evoke moral panic. The London bombings created mass fear, which was widespread, causing many
people to live cautious and uneasy lifestyles. Due to this, we wanted to create a powerful film through two central
protagonists that were in love and expecting a child; therefore we wanted to evoke this ‘hysteria’ amongst our
audience to make them emotionally involved within the storyline and the characters.
 The sub heading
exemplifies a profile on
the attacker which is a
paradox of his actions.
It allows the audience to
acknowledge the fact
that he was just a
normal teenager and His family were known
poses the question as as very nice people
to why he carried out which initiates the
such an awful attack; it question as to why he
aids ambiguity to the would do something so
context of out work as
vile. Is it for attention,
to his intent.
or is there a deeper
meaning. We used this
This creates an enigma as
ambiguity in our piece
to what this racial tension
and demonstrated how
was and if it pushed him
it effected the life of
to carry out the attack. It
two equally nice
looks at though the media
teenage lovers.
are hiding crucial aspects
of his life to exemplify him
as a criminal; he could be
an internally conflicted
individual.
Hebdige: Youth are trouble or fun
When taking into account the representation of our film, it was also crucial to take influence from media theories, in
order to exemplify a clear representation for our audience to understand and relate to.
Our film dwells on the probability of a couple being together due to the lack of commitment within their relationship
status. When evaluating the character of Kyle, it is clear to see his persona ties in with Hebdige’s theory of youth
representation being limited. At the start of the film he conforms to this theory due to his arrogant and rude
persona; people believe in the stereotype that young people are not committed within relationships and have
childish traits. When Olivia wanted to start a family with Kyle, he didn’t give her a chance to explain, connoting his
arrogance. Even from the mise en scene at the start of the film Kyle is exemplified in an anti social light, depicting
the social changes of technological proliferation and the concept of youth being glued to technology as a means of
survival.
Despite this, we contradicted Hebdige’s theory by giving the character of Kyle substance through showing his
development form an arrogant and ignorant teenager, to mature and self aware individual. Our target audience are
mostly of the youth culture apart from our 20-25 strand. The youth feel as though they are targeted in the media,
particularly through stereotypes and their demonization, therefore having a character symbolising the youth with
substance and a caring personage allows the audience members who are older to see another side to the stereotype
whist allowing the youth in the audience to relate to the characters. Furthermore having a character who both
conforms to the stereotype and broadens the truth about teenagers being caring too creates a verisimilitude de to
the realism. Teenagers can be arrogant but there are also manty teenagers who are kind hearted non dangerous
individuals; we wanted our audience to see the individualism in the youth rather than generalising through
stereotypical demonization.