Quadrophenia
Details
· Made in 1979 and was produced by The Who,
whose music is features heavily in the song. Their song ‘My Generation’ is apt
for the song, as it shows the divide between the young people and their
parents.
· The main characters are Jimmy, Dave (Jimmy’s
Friend), Steph (Feminine Character in an androgynous group), Ace (The ‘Leader’
of the Mods) and Kevin (Jimmy’s friend, who turns out to be a rocker).
· It is mainly set in milkshake bars; clubs and
then the big scenes are in Brighton. These were the usual locations of these
groups of youths in the 60s.
Ideologies in the Film
· The Mods vs. Society. You can see this when
they are in Brighton and they are smashing up the milkshake bar and fighting
with the rockers. They are going against the social norms and this would be why
the real mods and rockers were the focal points of Cohen’s Folk Devils theory.
· There is a divide between Youths and Parents.
You can see this when Jimmy is shrinking his Levis jeans and his father asks
him why he is wearing wet jeans. This shows that at the time they didn’t
understand each other. Another instance of this is when Jimmy is watching The
Who on TV and his father says that Pete Townshend is playing his guitar wrong.
This shows the divide between what the parents believe in, and the sub-cultures
they are a part of, and the way that Jimmy is.
· Jimmy wants to be an individual. Jimmy thinks
that being part of this gang is the most important thing, and that if he sticks
to it then he will be alternative. However he takes it too far and ends up
giving up his job and becoming estranged with his family, which comes as a
consequence of a mass use of amphetamines.
Clockwork Orange
· Made in 1971 by Stanley Kubrick and was an
adaptation of the Anthony Burgess Book.
· It was meant to show a utopian future of
Britain and the way that people would act at this point.
· The main characters are Alex and his
‘Droogs’, who are the gang who he takes around with him, giving out his
‘ultra-violence’.
Ideologies in/ from the film
· Young people in these environments are
vicious and will lash out, unprovoked to demonstrate their power. They were
given a very negative press in the film and this meant that the film was
frowned upon and many people believed that it should have been banned, as it
could promote this sort of behaviour in real life situations.
· In the years after the film was produced,
newspapers used the term ‘Clockwork Orange’ as a way of describing the attacks
that were similar to those in the film e.g. when two girls beat a 62 year old
gay man to death, for no real reason.
Applicable Theory
· STANLEY COHEN – He said that FOLK DEVILS (people who go
against societies norms) are shown in the media so that people we see them and
judge against them. This would create a MORAL PANIC, through DEVIANCE
AMPLIFICATION, which usually sensationalises an issue and makes it bigger than
it ordinarily would be.
· GRAMSCI – The Broadsheet Newspapers all display young people as folk
devils (Cohen) and always gives them bad press. This was evident in the times
that Jimmy lived in, with the newspapers telling the adults that these Mods and
Rockers would ruin communities and cause trouble, putting their ideologies into
others.
· GAUNTLETT – He
said that IDENTITIES AREN’T GIVEN, BUT NEGOTIATED by the things around them.
You can see this in Quadrophenia, where the clothes that they wore, the music
they listened to and the social norms and attitudes that their friends and
peers held influenced their own ideologies.
· HEBDIGE – He
said that SUB-CULTURES WOULD CHALLENGE THE HEGEMONIC TIMES that we live in. The
Mods and Rockers challenged this, with them amplifying what the papers were
saying about them, behaving in the way that people were expecting them to and
not challenging it.
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