1960s Youth Identity - A Different Representation

Let's go back in time to 1961, just 3 years before the media in Britain represented its youth as being violence driven hooligans who were a threat to the very fabric of society.

1961 saw the release of the film 'The Young Ones' starring, amongst others, Cliff Richard.

The story is about the youth club member and aspiring singer Nicky (Cliff Richard)  and his friends, who try to save their club in western London from the unscrupulous millionaire property developer Hamilton Black, who plans to tear it down to make room for a large office block. 

The members decide to put on a show to raise the money needed to buy a lease renewal. The twist in the story is that Nicky in reality is Hamilton Black's son, something he keeps keeps secret from his friends until some of them try to kidnap Black senior to prevent him from stopping the show. 

Although he is fighting his father over the future of the youth club, Nicky can't allow them to harm him, so he attacks the attackers and frees his father. In the meantime, Black senior has realised that his son is the mystery singer that all of London is talking about, after the youth club members have done some pirate broadcasts to promote their show. 

So, although he's just bought the theatre where the show is to take place, in order to be able to stop it, the proud father decides that the show must go one. At the end, he joins the youth club members on stage, dancing and singing, after having promised to build them a new youth club.

TASK

Here is the trailer for the film - how is the representation of British Youth different here to what you have previously seen? 

Answer:

The difference between the representation of British youth in 'The Young Ones' and a film like 'Quodrophenia' is to do with various aspects. One of them being with the way it was shot, the way the colour and lights create a very positive and overly joyful attitude that transcends across the whole film. The way that the story is told through song and dance also gives a child-like over exaggeration of what youth back then thought was 'cool', whereas with 'Quodrophenia', behaving badly and causing violence was the media's representation of the mods and rockers, creating a different kind of 'cool' for a different generation. The environments' that the characters interact in are also very different, where 'The Young Ones' use extravagant stages, large spaces, and beaches, Quodrophenia uses small spaces, dirty rooms and colourless locations.
Copy and paste this post to your blog and answer the question above by making reference to the film's trailer.