Review of Fish Tank (2009)

Fish Tank (2009)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rAjyGtUNBQ

In the year 1999, Ann Gould identified the stereotypes of the media’s represented youth as rebellious, artificial tribes, nihilistic, sexual, violent and self-destructive. I will identify these stereotypes from the film Fish Tank (2009) which aimed to represent a stereotypical view of the broken youth of the UK. After being identified, I will judge if these represented stereotypes are fair, biased, positive or negative through my understanding and evidence of the film. Then finally conclude if this film was overall a fair portrayal of today’s youth within the UK.

Examples of being rebellious from this film are theft and trespassing. Theft being the main character stealing money from her mother’s partner (14:09) and trespassing onto a traveller’s site while also damaging their property (4:13). I believe the example of theft was negative however a fair stereotype only to a certain extent. The reason being is that there is a minority group of youths that are in negative and poorer living conditions which would influence them to become rebellious. This would then lead them to theft to sustain a feeling of satisfaction of their current living conditions. However this only goes to a certain extent since it in only a minority group of the youth, not the majority. I also believe that the trespassing was a negative and bias representation of the current average youth of the UK since the action of trespassing would immediately influence the audience with a negative viewpoint of today’s youth within the UK. Thus the viewers placing a mental stamp onto this community as trespassing and dangerous. The trespassing further reflects a bias representation of the youth community today since the majority of the youth community are aware of such consequences that would occur from trespassing. However, the film represents the youth as having no such care about these consequences which would further influence the audiences viewpoint of today’s youth as careless and disturbing.

Artificial tribes also play a role as a stereotype is this film such as the group of dancers towards the beginning of the film (2:14). This stereotype is greatly negative with a vastly bias representation. The aggressive and hostile body language and grouping of these youths alone immediately influence the audience to believe that they are a ‘gang’. The key term being ‘gang’ further stimulates the audience to make negative connotations towards the youth in this film by recalling real world crimes and situations involving such gangs. Therefore bringing about the stereotype of today’s youth groups to be aggressive and dangerous, causing a negative viewpoint. Furthermore this representation of youth is vastly biased due to the fact that only a small fraction of groupings of youths today do not intend to have an aggressive and hostile outlook towards the general public.

The nihilistic stereotype of this film is represented with the action of a drug deal between the main character and another individual (6:07) and theft being the main character stealing money from her mother’s partner. This nihilistic stereotype is represented from a negative however fair viewpoint justified by the fact that in today’s society, illegal actions such as drug dealing are rejected by the general public today. Therefore this film generally correlates with today’s public thus becoming a fair however negative representation.

The representation of the sexual stereotype of this film is fairly portrayed with elements of a positive and negative influence in this film. The sexual stereotype is more influenced onto the youth by the adults of this film such as the main characters mother having sexual interactions with her partner (19:38). I believe that the presentation of this stereotype is somewhat biased with a vastly negative influence that the audience is presented with. The reason being is that the parents presented in this film are only a part of the minority of today’s parents in the general public. Therefore this film contains the bias due to the fact that that this film has achieved to specifically present this group, influencing the audience to believe that many parents of the UK, in today’s society,  have this attitude while parenting which is not the case.

The stereotype of violence is frequently portrayed in this film such as the assault onto the main character from the group of dancers in the opening sequences of the film (2:52). This event of violence is negatively presented while also having a vast bias towards it due to the fact that the majority of youths in today’s general public do not have the hostility as presented in this film. Thus making it a biased portrayal since the audience of this film would be influenced to believe that youths of today’s modern society have this hostile, negative attitude. This therefore causes the audience to develop a negative prejudice towards youths in today’s general public.

The self-destructive attitude and stereotype of youths today is presented in this film such as the main character drinking out of depression and disturbance (21:23) after witnessing her mother making sexual interactions with her partner. I have the opinion that this is negatively presented however fair to a certain extent due to the fact that drinking out of depression is generally interpreted as a negative action from today’s general public. Furthermore, this does have a fair presentation to only a certain extent. This is because the majority of youths today in the general public would resort to such actions if they lived in such conditions to satisfy their emotional state at the present time.

This film generally has a negative interpretation and presentation of youths of the UK. Therefore this would influence the audience to believe that youths today do behave in such a manner which is not the case. However this film does contain both fair and bias interpretations of youths today since the minority of youths in the general public today are living in such conditions and would resort to illegal actions to satisfy their emotional wellbeing.