The representation of youths in the media.

The way youths are portrayed in the media is generally negative. In most televisions shows they are presented as bad mouthed, immature, sexually frustrated misfits. So many televisions programs, and reality TV programs, portray this these days, for example "Misfits" "Bad education" "my mad fat diary" and "educating essex", mostly because its very comical. But I will be looking at how the youth is portrayed in the first episodes of "Skins" and "The Inbetweeners"


Skins -

•  Skins is a teen drama which attempts to show British teens in a half realistic way.  
• The writers have taken aspects of a teens life and exaggerated them to a comical size. (However the program is not to be mistaken as a comedy, its genre is Drama.)
• These exaggeration make the program more entertaining and make aspects of what is being represented more noticeable.
• Skins is ideal to show how youth are represented in the media, as they are seen doing drugs, abusing alcohol and getting into trouble with the police and parents.
• Very desirable and glamorised - Even though the events in the program are shown in a negative light, it still makes the audience want to experience what the characters are experiencing.
• Shows teenagers strive to always be popular.
• Over exaggeration of expectations
• Youth however can be like the people in Skins, but not all of them are like that.

Inbetweeners -

• "The Inbetweeners" shows four teenage boys on their transition from young adults to men, and them trying to do more mature and grown up activities for acceptance, but always failing. 
• It represents an over exaggeration of youth and characters that most ordinary people can relate to during their school days. The main characters are all are depicted as outsiders to some degree - they are not the most popular boys in school but they are the normal ordinary boys that are forgotten about. 
• The four male characters as a group are the losers at sixth form - for example none of them have ever had an intimate relationship with a girl (which is apparently important for young people) 
• Individually they each have a role in the group which are; the geek, the idiot , the over confident guy, and normal guy. 
• Nearly every episode has all of the boys wanting to be noticed or trying to impress either girls or other class mates. Most of their attempts are unsuccessful which makes the show funny. Watching the boys make idiots of themselves, makes the audience laugh but at the same time we feel their embarrassment because we can relate to some of the situations they find themselves in. 
• Shows the constant strive teenagers have to be popular.
• the program shows the awkward reality of teenagers trying to become adults. 
• Over exaggeration of reality. 

In comparison the TV programme Skins which also features a group of teenagers doing the same type of activities but the characters in "Skins" seem to be  successful and they never make fools of themselves. This is because the teenagers in this show are depicted as cool. In Inbetweeners the audience are more likely to relate to the characters whereas in Skins teen life is glamorised.

This will help me when I come to film my main task, as I will decide weather to stick to conventions or develop them in terms of youth, in my own production.