Explore how young people are represented in teen-orientated comedies, how does this representation set a “social norm” for teenagers in the real world? Teen comedies, such as “Superbad” and “Not Another Teen Movie”, present the audience with a stereotypical representation of characters that exist within the “teen world”. The representation of these characters is usually extreme, meaning that the viewer instantly recognises the stereotype before the character is formally introduced.
While these stereotypes provide comedic value to a film produced for a mainstream audience, it also makes the audience think about themselves and how their personality fits into the stereotypes presented. Using research from key audience theories and textual analyses of films from this genre, this essay aims to explore how American teen-comedy movies are affecting young people in the real world. To begin understanding how the audience are affected by the genre, we need to understand why people use the media and what they aim get out of it.
This is the question that uses and gratification theory aims to answer. The theory sees how the media functions in an “open way”, allowing individual personalities within the audience to fulfil certain needs via the media. As the audience are actively seeking to fulfil their needs, the theory considers the audience as “active”. Active audiences consume media whilst decoding the message of the text and applying it to their own social or personal context, this decoding is often done unconsciously.
Uses defined by the theory can be grouped into 4 categories : surveillance (gathering information on current events, seeking advice on practical issues or self-learning); diversion (escaping the real world through entertainment, can also include relaxation and sexual arousal); personal identity (identifying with on screen characters, gaining reinforcement for behaviours and personal values); and personal relationships (gaining a sense of belonging through an insight into the social circumstances of others or finding a basis for conversation and social interaction).
Superbad”, a film following two high school seniors on a quest to supply alcohol to a party of their peers and by doing so hope to win the love of their crushes, presents the audience with 3 main characters (Seth, Evan and Fogell) who are quickly identified to be of the “outsider” teen stereotype. The names play an important task in defining the social status of the characters; the three “outsider” teens are given unusual names in order to highlight their unusual personalities. The stereotype is also built through their appearance.
For example the character Fogell is presented to the audience wearing a black tshirt, black backpack and blue jeans, the clothes are loosely fitting and “dull”; this choice of clothing connotes lack of care when compared to other characters within the scene. Beyond clothing, the character is shown to be lesser than others by having a physical disability (wearing glasses) and a lack of personal styling (shown by the un-styled hair and stereotypical “nerd” glasses). This use of clothing and styling instantly causes the audience him to be viewed as an “outcast”.
The personalities of the characters are also used to represent them as “outsiders”. In the scene outside the liquor store, the characters argue about sending Fogell in to purchase the alcohol with the use of his fake ID. The characters stand outside shouting everything that could go wrong. “Everyone in the store sees them kicking me out. What if they make me put all the liquor back on the shelf? That’s embarrassing! ” This shows that the characters have no selfconfidence which is used to separate them from the “normal” teens that are depicted within the film. The body language of the characters adds to this representation.
The characters are shown as panicked, this is achieved through constant looks outside of the group during the scene. The characters also become agitated quickly, which adds to the paranoia the characters experiencing. Through just this one scene the audience are able to see the stereotype and instantly recognise the characters as “outsiders”. The film incorporates a range of elements from other texts. For example, the opening credits are 70s themed, this created a retro feel to the film and introduces the main characters (although silhouettes at this point) as unpopular as it connotes that they are living in the past.
It could also be said that the clothing described above is reminiscent of this time period as well as the appearance of other characters such as Seth’s afro hair style. The target audience, typically 13-23 year old males who would relate to the “outsider” characters portrayed within the film, could actively choose to watch this film as it fulfils their need to justify their personal identity. The audience would actively compare themselves to the characters in an effort to reinforce their personality or to gain a feeling of superiority over the characters.
By doing this, the film also takes on the role of a “surrogate parent”, as Kidd (a professor at the University of Florida) has observed. This “surrogate parent” role is described to be providing the audience with information and offering advice in certain social or personal situations. In contrast to the use of an active audience seen within uses and gratification theory, cultivation theory views the audience as passive. A passive audience are easily manipulated by the media, allowing the media to change their views without the audience realising.
In its simplest form, Gerbner’s cultivation theory (1968) states that “the more time people spend “living” in the television world, the more likely they are to believe social reality portrayed on television”, meaning that those who spend more time using the media, the more likely they are to see the real world as that depicted within the media. The theory relies upon the concept of “mainstreaming”; the process by which different groups of media users form a common outlook on the world through the constant exposure of the same images and labels within the media 10.
A prime example of this process is the film “Not Another Teen Movie”“. The film uses the typical teen stereotypes (outsider, slut, jock, etc. ) in order to gain comedic value by presenting the genre in an extreme way. The scene in which the characters are introduced depicts the role of each stereotype within the school environment. Following the same codes used within “Superbad”, the “outsider” teen stereotype is easily recognisable by the audience.
“Jesus we’re pathetic, how are we ever gonna lose our virginity by graduation? As the film is a parody, the stereotypes are presented to the extreme, however this quest that the characters present is present throughout a large proportion of films within the teen-comedy genre. The “jock” stereotype is presented through the iconic jacket that is worn by the characters in this group. In contrast to the “outsider” stereotype, characters represented as jocks are often well groomed, wearing expensive clothing and feature a more confident personality. This is shown as the jock characters are often seen with a more relaxed body language often begin conversations.
Similarly, the “slut” stereotype presents female characters in a way that almost objectifies them. For example, within this film loud music is used as a low angle shot tracks the character from the front. The character is wearing a low cut shirt along with a short skirt in order to be portrayed as “sexy”. The character walks with a determined stance, making eye contact with her “target” whilst those around her turn to admire her. The editing in this scene is slowed in order to highlight the significance of the character.
On one hand, “Not Another Teen Movie” could be seen as entertainment for the audience and nothing more. On the other, through representing the school like this, the film has mainstreamed this extreme stereotypical situation and the audience are more likely to view this new world as “normal”. While it is Uses and Gratifications theory that expects audience to compare themselves with the representations shown in the media, cultivation theory is responsible for defining “normal” within the real world.
Audience look towards the media for guidance, passively accepting the society depicted within the texts, then actively apply this version of society to real world scenarios. This has a negative effect upon real world teenagers who would begin to identify themselves and their peers as “outsiders”, “jocks”, “sluts”, etc. , due to the effects of mainstreaming. As with “Superbad”, an active audience would apply their own personal context to the film in order to find which stereotype they belong to.
Teenagers within the real world aim to become a stereotypical character in order to improve their personal relationships and form a group of people with similar traits. In conclusion, teenagers in the real world are affected by the teen-comedy genre. By applying cultivation theory, real world teenagers are effected through the mainstreaming of the extreme stereotypical society depicted within the genre. The audience expect to fit into one of the easily identifiable stereotypes and are able to recognise the stereotypes that exist within the real world.
This version of society that teenagers accept as normal is then used by the audience as a basis for uses and gratifications purposes; those who have been -affected in the real world actively change their personal identify in order to better fit one of these stereotypes. Teenagers look towards the media in order to gather information about their personal identity and personal relationships. The genre of teen-comedy presents teenagers with stereotypical personalities which through the media are passively changing the viewpoints of the audience and actively making the audience fit themselves into these stereotypes.