and

Culture

Youth Culture On The Screen

Part 1 = Gang Culture

Youth Culture On The Screen Apart from living among a culture, there is

no better way to understand a culture than that mediated through ‘the screen’.

Movies, Television Programmes, Music Videos, and Documentaries, are all ways in that people have tried to represent and understand youth culture.

Sometimes these forms of media influence culture, are influenced by culture, or they exaggerate to prove a point.

The Dark-Side of Subcultres Youth gangs are either formed for protection

or for social and economic reasons. Youth gangs have been on the increase in both the UK and USA in recent years, mostly in urban areas. Gangs are associated with violent crime, drugs, theft and even in some cases murder.

The youth gangs are a popular subject for movie-makers. We will look at a brief history of gang related movies from both the USA and the UK.

American Movie Gang Culture

Blackboard Jungle (1955) Based on a 1954 novel by Evan

Hunter, the movie is about life in an inner-city high-school.

The large teen audiences at the screenings of the movie often erupted into violence. When shown at a London cinema in 1956 the ‘teddy boy’ audience began to riot, tearing up seats and dancing in the aisles. After that, riots took place around the country wherever the film was shown.

Movies – Young Rebel Cinema

‘Rebel Without A Cause’ was released in 1955, starring James Dean. Based on a 1944 book about teenage angst and delinquency by Robert M. Lindner.

‘The Wild One’ was the 1953 movie starring Marlon Brando, based on the short story, The Cyclists' Raid by Frank Rooney published in 1951.

The Warriors (1979) This has become a cult movie

based on Sol Yurick's 1965 novel. The story is set in a future, dystopian New York City where various ‘turf gangs’ rule the streets. Both novel and movie are based on the Greek story of Anabasis by Xenophon.

Entertainment Weekly called it the 16th-greatest cult film ever. They also ranked it 14th of the 25 Most

Controversial Movies Ever.

Musicals

Grease is a 1971 musical set in 1959, about a gang of ‘greasers’ the T-Birds and their girlfriends a girl gang called the Pink Ladies. It was made into a movie in 1978.

West Side Story is a 1957 musical set in 50s New York, based on Romeo and Juliet. It features the rivalry between two street gangs, the Sharks and the Jets. It was made into a movie in 1961.

The Outsiders of Suburbia A 1983 movie based on a 1967 novel by

S. E. Hinton. Story of greasers in suburban Tulsa OK. After the death of their parents, 3 young brothers and their friends survive on the fringes of society.

The 1984 movie about runaway suburban punks squatting in abandoned tract housing in small town California. Most of the cast were real street kids.

Boyz N The Hood (1991) The story of a group of

friends growing up in the LA ghetto of South Central.

In 1992 race riots broke out in South Central, after 4 police officers were

acquitted of the beating of Rodney King, an African-American man. The riots

lasted 6 days, 53 people were murdered and 1000s injured. The damage cost an estimated 1 billion dollars. Korean-

Americans were targeted by rioters, as they were hated by ‘black’ America, who

saw them as rude ignorant racists.

American History X (1998) Set LA, it tells the story of

2 brothers who join a ‘white power’ Neo-Nazi gang after their father is killed by a black drug dealer in South LA. The elder brother goes to prison after murdering a black gang member trying to break into his truck.

The movie contains a scene where the elder brother encourages his gang to attack a Korean owned supermarket.

British Movie Gang Culture

To Sir With Love (1967) A British movie about social

and racial issues in a London high school, based on a 1959 novel by E. R. Braithwaite. A popular movie at the time, it is often considered to be unrealistic in how it portrays the redemption of the young ‘hoodlums’.

The title song ‘To Sir, With Love’ by the singer Lulu, was a huge hit in

both the UK and the USA.

A Clockwork Orange - Novel A dystopian novella written

by Anthony Burgess and published in 1962. Set in a not-so-distant future society with a culture of extreme youth rebellion and violence it satirizes trends in youth culture that were prevalent in the 1960s in the West. The book is narrated by Alex, in a slang which Burgess invented for the book, called Nadsat.

The novel was made into a now infamous movie in 1971.

A Clockwork Orange - Movie A controversial adaptation of

the novella, written, directed and produced by Stanley Kubrick in 1971. In the UK the movie was withdrawn by Kubrick himself, due to fears of copycat violence, after a 1972 court case when the defendant referenced the movie as a reason for the manslaughter of a classmate.

The movie was banned in the UK for 27 years, and became an underground cult classic.

Quadrophenia The 1973 ‘rock opera’ by the band

The Who. The name is a play on the words ‘schizophrenia’ and ‘quadraphonic’, while at the same time the main character Jimmy represents all 4 members of the band.

The 1979 movie, based on the album. Ste in 1965 and based around London Mods and Rockers of, and their famous running street battle in the seaside town of Brighton.

Football Hooligans The Football Factory is a violent

2004 movie about 2 rival football ‘firms’. Loosely based on a novel by John King of the same name.

Green Street Hooligans is a 2005 movie about an American college student who gets involved with an English football firm.

English football hooligans are infamous around the world for their extreme

violence at matches.

This Is England (2006) The story of young

skinheads in England in 1983. The movie shows how their subculture, which has its roots in 1960s West Indian culture, became adopted by white nationalists, which led to divisions within the skinhead subculture. Two spin-offs movies were made in 2010 and 2011, continuing the story.

The movie used a mostly unknown cast, to depict the gritty reality of

life for British youth in the Thatcherite England

of the 1980s.

Conclusion Violent gang culture among youth in both the

UK and the USA maybe on the rise, but they do only represent a small minority of the youth population of both countries.

However they do represent they growing frustration of young people growing up without much hope of escape in two countries that are going through a long period of decline both socially and economically.