Do Kidulthood and Fishtank provide an realistic representation of youth?

In a society where the media has the power to completely govern peoples opinions as it can be their only source of news and information, representations from the media can often be taken as fact. Issues of youth culture and behaviour are constantly the focus of the media's attention and are often at the forefront of social debate where the contemporary portrayal of young people in the media is negative, and it is this representation that is seen in the films 'Kidulthood' and 'Fishtank'. 


The two films are both Y2K productions that portray a contemporary view of youth culture and are set in urban deprived areas of South London, areas that are associated with crime and anti social behaviour. Which are prominent features of both films; from the beginnings violence, drug use, bullying, anti-social and a disregard for social norms by young people are highlighted as the main themes and in these two films are for the most part shown to be the only way the characters know how to interact.Tim O'Sullivan's theory suggests that "the media produces a set of ideas which produces a partial and selective view of reality."  this theory insinuates that the ideologies presented by the media in this case it is youth culture are distorted and are displaying an unrealistic version of young people that doesn't apply to the majority of young people but that becomes naturalised. For people from other social groups these representations are often the only experience of young people they get and this exposure to such negative portrayals can lead to moral panic, the Sun a newspaper backed campaigners who claimed 'Kidulthood' "glamorises violence" and the Times accused it of "indulging in middle class voyeurism" this often blows the representation out of proportion because people believe it is a threat further constructing a distorted but ideal of young people. I do agree that these films provide a negative portrayal that doesn't apply to a large portion of young people even in these areas however they are still accurate portrayals of a section of young people as the issues highlighted in the films are the same issues that are often reported on in real life. These films also show the positive side of young people in 'Kidulthood' through all the crime and violence we can see the emotional progression of the protagonist from a teenager to a responsible young man touching on real life issues of teen pregnancy and conversely in 'Fishtank' we see a young girl feels trapped who is taken advantage not making use of the opportunities she has an issue very close to home in the UK. 


Noel Clarke said in an interview that "This film couldn't exist if these things weren't happening in society, I don't think it's controversial it's touching the nerve of a culture that's out there at the minute"  Noel grew up in a similar environment to the one depicted in his film and is confident that it is hitting the centre of issues that are not only happening in real life but are very important and are in fact the reality that is not shown in the media and I agree with this opinion in that the images and ideologies from these two films are very realistic and mirror the actions of many young people in the real life I believe these films bring to the limelight issues that people try to push away from creative media and taboo. Stuart hall said " Identity is complex, not straightforward" this ideal is what we can see from these two films because of course the representation shown in the two films could said to be sensationalised or glamorising social issues however what they really portray is the complicated construction of identity in places where these are real issues it won't apply to every young person but it is definitely a real representation of youth.