Tuesday, 10 February 2015

Representation of West London through 'Kidulthood' (2006)






Kidulthood is a British drama film about the life of several teenagers in the West London area. It is directed by Menhaj Huda and written by Noal Clarke, who also stars in the film. This film follows 2 days in the life of 15 year olds from a mixed income area in West London. After one girl had been bullied by some of her 'peers' and her father doesn't notice she seems to have had enough of it and ended up hanging herself. The school was then given the day off the next day to supposedly 'grieve' for the girl although some of them show they don't have any sorrow for what happened. Throughout the day a series of events unfold within their lives showing graphic scenes of violence, drug taking, casual sex and organized crime also including some other extreme activities.

Marx’s makes a good point that I wanted to start with he believed that all cultures are produced by ‘social conditions’ and these depend upon social class and age is also a contributor. Young people want to be separate from there parents and be individual, if you have watched this film you see most of the youths go out and take the day to day life on their own, with only a few times there parents being in the scene. Life for these lower class youths in London seems to be full of drugs, race, crime and sex. The teenage boys are represented as violent but some males have modeled there behavior from such films as this leading to a rise in gang culture within London, especially within the middle and lower class society’s.

There is a lot of slang used within this film and even walking around London you can here the youths of today using the words ‘Fam’, ‘Blud’ and many more. CAT defines language as a reflection of both a speaker or groups need for social interaction with others and as a reflection of ‘the desire for social approval’. (Giles,N. Coupland and J. Coupland, 1991:18). This couldn’t be truer for this film, image one of the lads talking with a ‘posh’ accent speaking proper English instead of interpreting it; he wouldn’t have been accepted within the crowd and the social norm of a typical hoodie. London is shown within this film to have these ‘hoodies’ everywhere and they get demoralized wherever they go.







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Chloe O'Brien



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