Me and kadisha have come up with the idea that our trailer should be based on gang culture within girls, this is so that dominant stereo-types are not being represented because youth gang culture films mostly have boys as the main characters.
write a synopsis for trailler.
get character info and back story on character – where he lives what he does for a living and where his path has lead him to.
treatement/story board a step by step guide on how trailer is going to be.
shoot schedual ( on ms ashby’s blog front page)
“This original drama is an honest and gripping rendition of inner-city urban drug and gang culture. Top Boy looks at the heart of life in a world we think we know but rarely see or understand”. (Channel4.com)
Does ‘Top boy’ use problematic stereotypes of urban youth culture, or does it challenge them to construct a more accurate representation of London youth?
“Yet whether or not Top Boy is an entirely accurate or indeed responsible representation of the sub-culture it depicts is ultimately of little consequence. For as a work of art, albeit a grueling one, Bennett’s drama ticks all the boxes. Fiction, by definition, owes very little to fact, and Top Boy presents a narrative, which captures the essence of a slice of London life in a manner rarely achieved by documentary” (Hackney citizen)
There is an issue that many people are not represented through ‘TOP BOY’ and see very little representation of anyone outside the web of crime and violence, lots of people live in council estates e.g. old people and community workers. Also the fact that there are issues of predominantly negative representation and no depiction of positivity, but it may be argued that there is a demonstration of positivity where Dushane is show to be loyal to Sully and other youth from the block, also Ranel stays loyal to his mother and family friend by helping her grow cannabis.
Marxist theory seems relevant because the basic concept of the text boy ‘TOP BOY’ as suggested by the title is about the competition to the top. The program seems to make it clear that the flight of these young people is the fault of an unfair prejudice system where the elite are corrupt and the workers are left alienated and disempowered, the flight of survival is forced upon them by a capitalist system which ghettoizes them and leaves then as an underclass. It’s also very symbolic that the top dealers are white and middle aged men.
In a world that doesn’t care for them where the system is unfair and prejudice, the youths are shown to be strong and resourceful. They create clever plans to ‘BEAT THE SYSTEM’ this is shown by Dushane’s passion to becoming the top boy by taking action against the ones in higher authority that they are being exploited by “THIS IS ALL ILL EVER BE” this shows that he is not willing to back down and give up the street life as he believes its all he knows and also gives an indication that he is not willing to make different life choices however through out “TOP BOY” Dushane regularly attends church with his mum showing he knows he has other life choices but is refusing to take them and he knows the right from wrong and the actions he is taking him is leading him in a bad path showing a lack of ambition and being uneducated.
The labeling theory helps us understand how parts of society can become responsible for socializing some people into identities that have a negative consequence, making them follow a bad path in life. ‘HOWARD BECKER’ mentioned that labels have a power of ‘MASTER STATUS’ in the case of top boy the master status is crime and violence which can take over all other statues e.g. father. Criminal labels can change a person’s social identity, e.g. people being labeled as a criminal can find it difficult to be accepted in society, the may find it hard to find a job which leads them to committing more crimes. A self-fulfilling prophecy is then an outcome of being constantly labeled as a criminal.
Key characters are represented as truant and uneducated, the lack life skills and sexual health knowledge e.g. conversations about AIDS and BOCATS without understanding the meaning. The youth underclass is shown to be vulnerable and ignorant, especially in relation to sex drugs and social relationships, school is shown to be ineffectual and unsafe. Older boys recruit directly from school and assault teachers, when one of the boys from the block come to the school to find Ranels friend and doesn’t find him so he then decides to attack a teacher. There is no attempt to positively represent institutions like youth centers, schools or social workers.
Young people are constantly represented as hard with lack of compassion; they are depicted as ‘SURVIVING’ where only the strong survive. This is very animalistic like ‘DOG EAT DOG’. As seen in the London riots where the media depicted youth as thugs,
Sully and shown to be very naive by being very careless and bulging. The accidently kill and innocent person, thy also cut the wrong finger off a rival drug dealer and they only discover the ‘SNITCH’ by accident after torturing the wrong suspect, shows that the street life has no mercy for anyone, gives an idea that sully and dushane don’t really think through before they take action against someone they don’t look at the negative outcomes.
But there are also many positives about top boy the fact that ranel is shown to be responsible cleans and paints the flat and also takes care of him self in his mothers absence, also the fact that there’s someone there to take care of him shows that there are people that actually care, ……. Bring Ranel food and attempts to care for him and keep him out of gang related trouble and ends up getting killed him self.
something that breaks the dominant steoro-type of london youth that live on council estates. someone acting a certain way when they are at home but when they go out out the act completely different,
Feminism and post-feminism.
Men controlled the action and were responosible for moving the narrative along.
Women were represented as passive objects of the male gaze.
Pleasure in viewing comes from voyeursim, narcissism, fetishism, scopophillia and female objectication.
Limitation’s of Mulvey’s theory (THE FEMALE GAZE)
Gammon and marshment (1988 ‘The Female Gaze’)
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