Representation In Kidulthood

Representation of teenagers in Kidulthood (movie)
I am going to be analysing the representation of teenagers in the movie Kidulthood. The movie is about teens in an urban area of London and how their lives are; the storyline is based around a day off school because a fellow student committed suicide. From the beginning of the film we get a strong sense of how the writer wanted teenagers to be portrayed in this film. The opening scene is set in the school, with flyers being handed around about a house party. Instantly we get a sense that these teenagers are irresponsible and cannot be trusted on their own when their parents leave the house. When the school bell rings, the students are very hesitant about going back to class and seem in no hurry to do so. This shows their lack of interest in their education and future prospects.
The second scene shows two relatively normal looking girls, just standing and minding their own business which in a normal would be fine; but in this school seems to get them more negative attention from the rougher girls. They assume the normal girls are ‘cutting them evils’, this to them is enough
incentive to beat the other girls up. There stereotypes of rough teenage girls is pushed to the limit in this film as they beat a girl up violently in the classroom. In my opinion the director has gone to extreme lengths to broadcast these stereotypes and how serious they could potentially be.
There is a lot of violence shown in this film, mostly revolving around guns and knives.
The teenagers use their violence to get what they want and do not seem to know another way of going about it. The events in Kidulthood seem to focus around drinking, drug taking and promiscuous sex. This is a very typical stereotype of teenagers today as they are portrayed in the media as all being alcoholics and drug addicts and being very promiscuous. However it is a very general statement to make that all teenagers are like that, when in reality it is only a select few that give all of them a bad name. It is shown in the film because the characters are going through the time in their lives where they are experimenting and experiencing new things. They are approaching adulthood; a link to the title of the film; which means they want to act
older.
The clothes they are wearing at the beginning of the movie are their school clothes, but they are personalised with other clothing such as hoodies, caps, sunglasses and other items. The girls are wearing big hooped earrings, which are commonly associated with slightly ‘chavvier’ girls. Once they are out of school, the clothes change to a more relaxed tracksuit bottoms and hoodies for the boys and tighter, more revealing clothes for the girls as they are going to this party. This adds to the promiscuous persona that these girls are represented with.