Fish Tank stereotypes/representation

‘Fish Tank’ Stereotypes

In the film ‘Fish Tank’ stereotypes from the Ann Gould research paper about the media’s representation of youth can be seen. These are; rebellious; artificial tribe; sexual; nihilistic; violent and self-destructive.

In the extract you can see the main character rebelling violently against her mother as she tries to stop her from going out. This creates a negative and rather unfair representation of youth as it implies that they are uncontrollable and troublemakers.

Within this ‘rebellious’ stereotype of the youth another stereotype arises that they are all foul mouthed. Inthe extract you can see a young girl (no older than 6 or 7) swearing at her sister and mother calling them  ‘cunt face’ and ‘bitch’. This again is a negative representation of the youth as it is showing them as rude. This is yet another unfair representation as a small percentage of young people who behave in this way.

Another stereotype that is ‘brought to light’ in this extract is artificial tribes within the youth community. For example there are a group of teens in a gang who are drinking, smoking and dancing. This is yet againanother way in which the youth are represented negatively as they are shown to be involved with dangerous groups and are seen to be up to no good. This stereotype is taken further due to the location in which it is set, a sink estate. These are stereotypically ‘rough areas’ as shown by the extract and other TV shows e.g. ‘Top Boy’. This shows a negative representation of the youth, and a rather biased one, as it implies that they grow up in ‘rough areas’ and so are drawn towards gangs.

A sexual stereotype can be seen within the film when the young girls are dancing in a group. They can be seen to be wearing very little and dancing in quite a sexual manner. This is a very negative representation of young women as it suggests that they are only sexual beings, which is not the case.

A fourth stereotype than can be observed is that young people are nihilistic. This is shown when the young girl steals the money from a wallet and then when she tries to steal the horse.  This is a negative and biased stereotype as people are led to assume that this behaviour is common with all young people,which is not the case.

A fifth stereotype that can be seen within the film is violence. The main character proceeds to head butt one of the dancing girls after she sees something she does not like. This can be seen as a negative stereotype for the youth as it shows them to use force to get what they want. However, the parenting of the main character in this clip could possibly be linked to her violent nature. In the film you can see the mother take hold of her child and force her to her room. So in theory the violenceexerted by the main character could be as a result of her parenting. This therefore, does not show as a negative representation for the youth but a negative representation of parenting.  This is not a fair representation of parenting as most if not all parents have control over their children and bring them up to be passive people, with love and affection.

The last stereotype that can be seen in this clip is the self-destructive nature of youth. The film shows the main character, and even her younger sister, smoking and drinking frequently. For example when the small girl is chain smoking with her friend. This, yet again, is a negative stereotype of the youth as it suggests that they all get into bad habits, which are dangerous to their health. On the other hand, this could be due to the way she has been brought up and so is another negative representation on the way people are parented.