New Critical Investigation & Linked Production

Critical Investigation . . .

For my Critical Investigation, "I am going to be looking at the representation of teenagers in Hollywood productions, exploring how and why this representation has changed over the years." For this, I will be analyzing contemporary media texts such as Step Up (Anne Fletcher, 2006), Mean Girls (Mark Waters, 2004) and Juno (Jason Reitman, 2007), referring back to representations in slightly older movies such as The Hole (Nick Hamm, 2001), She’s All That (Robert Iscove, 1999) and 10 Things I Hate About You (Gil Junger, 1999).

Linked Production . . .

As a Linked Production to this investigation, my partners (Aqeel Ali and Gurpreet Sihat) and I will "be creating a front cover of a magzine, a contents page and features for a teen magazine." This will look at teenagers and how they are being represented.

MIGRAIN Analysis . . .

* Media Language:
- I will be analyzing the different types of camera angles used throughout teenage movies in order to see who in the world of teenagers is superior and who is inferior. This will perhaps allow me to create some sort of hierarchy in schools and will help me to understand stereotypes of teenagers in schools.
- Lighting is also going to be analyzed in each of the movies I watch. High key lighting or low key lighting on specific people or objects will show which ones have importance and which don’t.
Sound is also an important aspect to be considered when looking at movies such as High School Musical (Kenny Ortega, 2006) as the lyrics used in certain songs will help me to understand the characters and their position in schools and/or life.

* Institution:
- I will be looking into which institution produces each movie to see if I find a pattern in their work. I believe that institutions such as Walt Disney will produce more positive images of teenagers, whereas other institutions may produce a rather negative view of teenagers.

* Genre:
- As part of both my critical investigation and linked production, I will be looking at school movies such as 17 Again (Burr Steers, 2009), St. Trinian’s (Parker and Thompson, 2007) and Van Wilder (Walt Becker, 2002).
I will also be looking at drama/action movies such as Kidulthood (Menhaj Huda, 2006), Adulthood (Noel Clarke, 2008) and Bullet Boy (Saul Dibb, 2004).
Another genre I would look into is chick flicks. For this genre I would look at movies such as Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging (Gurinder Chadha, 2008), Step Up (Anne Fletcher, 2006) and She’s All That (Robert Iscove, 1999).

* Representation:
- I will be looking at how stereotypes in teenage movies are shown to see whether teenagers are all represented the same or if (like adults) they are stereotyped by their ethnicity, culture and social status.
I will be looking at whether teenage females are represented as stereotypical sexual objects, and if males are represented as stereotypical thugs and whether this is the same in other aspects of the media or if it’s just in Hollywood productions.

* Audience:
- For our linked production, we will have an active audience view, which means that as an institution, we will become passive in the relationship between audience and institution. Although we will be giving information to the audience, we will have little to no control over how the audience reads the meaning from the text.
- In my critical investigation, I will be looking from the mass audience’s point of view. Teenagers may have view of Hollywood productions, and adults a very different view. The linked production will also be aimed at a mass audience as both adults will want to see whether or not stereotypes have been found true or false and teenagers will want to watch it as they are the centre of attention in this particular documentary.
- People of all social backgrounds and economic classes will be interested in our linked production as we will be exploring ALL stereotypes whether the teenager in the movie is wealthy or poor.

* Ideology:
- I will be looking into the explicit and implicit ideologies of the institution as part of my critical investigation. Newspapers may have a particular political affiliation which will make some of their articles biased to a particular view of teenagers, making their ideology explicit. However, visual representations of stereotypes of teenagers in a typical Hollywood film will be implicit.
- Patriarchy is a dominant ideology which could be promoted through Hollywood films and is therefore something I will be looking into as it’s an influence structure of practices and ideologies which favour masculine over feminine.

* Narrative:
- Throughout both my critical investigation and linked production, I will be looking into Rolande Barthe’s enigma code theory. Some movies use loads of unanswered enigma codes in order to show that a certain group of people are enigmas to society. I will be looking into whether enigma codes in Hollywood movies about teenagers are unanswered or answered and whether this has an impact on the moral panics involved with teenagers.
- I will also be looking at whether characters in teen movies follow the roles of Propp’s Spheres of Action (the hero, villain, donor, dispatcher, false hero, helper, princess and father). Deconstructing a text in this way may help lead to the discussion of ideology in the text or to think about the audience’s relationship with the text and its characters.
- Lévi-Strauss’ theory of binary oppositions will also be something I will look into when analyzing movies. The ideas of friend or foe, rich or poor and innocence or ‘experience’ are all stereotypical binary oppositions connected to teenagers. Are these true or false?

Current Issues and Debates . . .

As part of both my critical investigation and linked production, I will be looking into Staley Cohen’s concept of moral panics as teenagers are stereotypically associated with gangs, violence and crime. Moral panics usually an act or problem which is widely reported on in the media. Studying the representation of teenagers in movies along with making a documentary will show why these moral panics occur and whether or not teenagers are truly an issue to create moral panic.

My critical investigation will be looking into representation of teenagers and will look into whether the representation is reflective (a true reflection of society) or constructionist (a construction of the media).

Gultung and Ruge’s news values will also be a current issue/debate which I will be looking into. Certain stories have importance over others as they are more negative, personal or have shock value etc. This is important when thinking about whether or not the representations in movies are true as I will mainly be focusing on the news to find society’s representation of teenagers.

Media Theories . . .

Audience Theory is key when looking into the representation of teenagers in movies for my critical investigation. I will be looking into all types of audience theory including the Uses and Gratifications theory, Reception theory, Hypodermic Needle Model and the Two-Step Flow Theory. One of the main things to look at will be whether the audience of each movie I analyze is active or passive.

Semiotics is also a theory that I will be looking into as it involves me looking into the deeper meanings in teenage movies to really understand each character. A passive audience will only notice the denotations in the movie, but if the audience is active, the connotations in the movie will play a very influential part.

Gender theory will also play a crucial part in both my critical investigation and linked production as it involves looking into male gaze, feminism and post-feminism and queer theories. I predict that although teenage girls are shown to be objects of male gaze, their role in society will be the complete opposite.

This study fits into the contemporary media landscape as it covers an issue which is important in both society and the media. Looking into the representations of teenagers in movies and how they truly are will either help us to understand that moral panics are correct or that they aren’t.