UNIT G325 SECTION B MEDIA AND COLLECTIVE IDENTITY-REPRESENTATION OF YOUTH IN THE MEDIA

“BIG FAT GYPSY WEDDING” – CHANNEL 4

T.V SERIES 1 EPISODE 1-“BORN TO BE WED”

2011-

Use extracts from this to explore representation of

youth in TV Documentary (Channel 4)

Discuss these representations and apply

postmodern theories regarding the “truth”

“THIS IS ENGLAND”

–SHANE MEADOWS ,2006

Recap and define:

what is collective identity?

What is the collective identity of

this group?

STUDENT NAME:....................................................................................................................

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COLLECTIVE IDENTITY

IDENTITY

“Identity is complicated. Everyone thinks they’ve got one.” (Gauntlett 2007) “A focus on identity requires us to pay close attention to the diverse ways in which media and technologies are used in everyday life, and their consequences both for individuals and for social groups.” (Buckingham, 2008)

What is meant by collective identity? You have studied

“This Is England” (Shane Meadows) and have focused on

the representation of youth. Using “This is England” as

your starting point and source of examples, discuss the

collective identity of youth that is represented in this

film?

ACTIVITY: RECAP TASK. Watch the trailer for “This Is England” and look at posters provided.

Then answer the following questions on “This is England”:

1. WHAT GIVES THIS GROUP OF PEOPLE A COLLECTIVE IDENTITY?

2. WHAT DO THEY SHARE IN COMMON?

3. WHAT DIFFERENCES ARE THERE BETWEEN THEM?

4. HOW ARE YOUTHS REPRESENTED IN THIS FILM?

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FILM ANALYSIS SUMMARY

http://www.filmeducation.org/pdf/film/ThisIsEngland.pdf

This Is England (2006, Shane Meadows)

This Is England is the story of a summertime school holiday,.

It’s 1983 and school is out. Twelve-year-old Shaun is an isolated

lad growing up in a grim coastal town, whose father has died

fighting in the Falklands War. Over the course of the summer

holiday he finds fresh male role models when those in the local

skinhead scene take him in. With his new friends, Shaun

discovers a world of parties, first love and the joys of Dr

Marten boots. Here he meets Combo (Stephen Graham), an

older, racist skinhead who has recently got out of prison. As

Combo’s gang harass the local ethnic minorities, the course is

set for a rite of passage that will hurl Shaun from innocence to

experience. Combo creates conflict and division and Shaun is

torn between the 2 gangs. As Combo escalates out of control,

he turns his anger onto Milky who he almost kills whilst Shaun

watches on.

Shaun is seen back home with his mum, once more innocent. He

goes to the beach and throws the union jack into the sea.

THE GANG

The members of the skinhead gang area Woody, the

unofficial leader of the

skinheads, who befriends Shaun after he has been bullied

Milky is one of Woody’s close friends and Lol is Woody’s

girlfirend -Lol is the leader of the girls.

Combo (the racist thug) ironically is mixed race

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SKINHEAD CULTURE: Woody and Combo are similar in terms

of dress, however the way in

which they behave is very different. The subculture that unites

them is what it means to be a skinhead.

SKINHEADS

.The original skinheads hailed from the late sixties. The

skinhead culture was taken up by black and white working

class kids working in shipyards and on factory lines, who

bonded over a love of reggae and forging a particular kind of

English identity, with braces, suits, boots, and sometimes a

Cromby hat atop heads shaved, military style. There was no

peace and love for this lot, life was a series of hard knocks and

this tough, fighter’s appearance was how they chose to express

those truths.

The second wave of skinheads, in the early eighties, were in

one sense similar: just kids from council estates finding their

place by being different together, like teenagers

everywhere. Allegiance was now sworn to bands that

acknowledged the heritage of Ska music, like Madness or

The Specials. At the same time a new genre sprang up in punk

infused Oi! Music, romperstomper, screwdriver tunes, charged

for fighting. Dressed in Dr Martens and with heads shaved

military style, these kids would give the V to anyone foolish

enough to give them the eye.

These were teens who came from areas of high

unemployment looking for solidarity beyond

Thatcher’s ‘me’ culture. They were abandoned by society and

that, of course, made them

vulnerable to the advances of the National Front.

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Having analysed a range of representations of youth in Film, you must now analyse representations using a different media text. The chosen text here is a Channel 4 documentary series “Big Fat gypsy wedding” Series 1 Episode 1 entitled “Born To be Wed”

FROM CHANNEL 4’S WEBSITE - Series Summary -A visually

arresting portrait of the lives of gypsies and travellers in Britain today. Picking up where the hugely successful Cutting Edge film of the same title left off, the new series follows the extraordinary rite-of-passage events - including weddings, communions and christenings - to offer a window into the world of the gypsy and traveller community. Each stand-alone episode gives insights into the community's attitudes toward gender roles, education and outsiders. The series also explores the remarkable rituals, traditions and beliefs held by this minority group. Warm, intelligent, engrossing and funny, Big Fat Gypsy Weddings tells intimate stories on an epic scale, laying bare an exotic unseen Britain that exists right on our doorstep.

ACTIVITY: Watch the opening 10 minutes of the DVD and answer

the following questions:

1. What is a documentary? What is the purpose of a documentary? What do

you expect from a television documentary?

2. What actually happens in this opening sequence?

2. Describe the lives of female teenage travellers.

“BIG FAT GYPSY WEDDING” – CHANNEL 4 T.V SERIES 1 EPISODE 1-“BORN TO BE WED”

2011

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3. How do you feel they are represented?

4. Describe the lives of male teenage travellers represented?

5. What makes these representations believable?

6. What makes these representations seem less believable?

7. To what extent do you think these representations of traveller youths

have been “mediated”(created by the media)

8. What do you feel about these representations? Are they fair, accurate or

could they be damaging?

ACTIVITY: READ THE FOLLOWING NEWSPAPER EXTRACTS AND CHANNEL 4

COMMENTS AND answer the questions that follow –

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THE MAIL ONLINE 16 Feb 2012 - THE HIT Channel 4 show My Big Fat Gypsy

Wedding has been accused of stereotyping gypsies while an advertising campaign

featuring gypsy girls and the strap-line 'Bigger. Fatter. Gypsier' has been slammed as

offensive by The London Gypsy and Travellers Unit and potentially 'racist' by two

London Assembly members.The documentary, which features gypsy and traveller

brides in colossal wedding dresses, was also accused of stereotyping gypsies as

"menacing" young men and "alluring young girls".A number of gypsies had told the

unit they found the programme insulting and degrading and felt it was turning them into

something they are not. The unit has also complained to the Advertising Standards

Authority and asked Channel 4 to remove the adverts and apologise.

"Gypsies and travellers are [already] pretty close to being bottom of the heap in terms of

the abuse they receive. Channel 4 should show greater respect and restraint."

Programme-makers claim that they are throwing "an overdue light on a secretive,

marginalised and little-understood segment of our society". But Joe Cottrell-Boyce, the

traveller policy officer for the Irish Chaplaincy, writes on the Liberal Conspiracy website

that nothing could be further from the truth. He points out that many travellers live below

the poverty line, 20 per cent of Britain's caravan-dwelling travellers are statutorily

homeless and 62 per cent of adult gypsies and travellers are illiterate. "These statistics

paint a grim picture of the traveller experience in Britain," he says. "One that is a million

miles from the high jinks of MBFGW."

Meanwhile, a spokesman for C4 told The Week: “Big Fat Gypsy Weddings is an

observational documentary series that features a mix of Irish travellers, English

and Romany gypsies and makes a clear distinction between those different

communities. All the issues touched on in the series were meticulously

researched and are told through the eyes of the contributors themselves, talking

about their own experiences in their own words. “While some of the issues

touched on in the series are challenging, the programme is a fair and accurate

portrayal of what happened during filming and all children were filmed with

parental consent.”

THE MAIL ONLINE -The programmes reveal the eye-popping, extravagant nuptials that

appear to be the norm today among young traveller couples. Initially a one-off show, My

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Big Fat Gypsy Wedding has been developed into a six part, prime-time series. Eye-catching

and back-breaking: Dresses worn at gypsy weddings can cost up to £50,000, weigh 20 stone and

have a 20-foot train In a carefully sympathetic, scrupulously politically-correct way, viewers are

given an insight into the lives and times of the modern gypsy. Here we are shown that ceremony

and ritual are all-important, providing the travellers with crampons to cling on to the rubble of

their ‘diminishing’ way of life. So we have the lurid weddings, the gaudy parties and the

unsettling ritual of the first Holy Communions. Here, feisty little gypsy girls are primped, curled

and made up like showgirls by their mothers and grannies to receive the Holy Sacrament. These

tiny toughies in their Sunday-best frills are oddly affecting, yet there’s no escaping the fact that

in their high heels, tight dresses and false eyelashes, they look like the can-can chorus line from

a munchkin strip club. Not little girls about to embark on their spiritual journey to inner peace.

Josie explained that she had tanning-bed treatments every week before her wedding, determined

to get so brown that ‘all people will see are my eyes and teeth’. Meanwhile, when munchkin

Margarita stumped up to the church in her enormous crinoline Communion dress, all the other

little girls at the ceremony - all non-travellers in their plain white dresses and scrubbed faces —

pointed at painted Margarita and laughed.

It was an uncomfortable moment. But are viewers slyly being invited and encouraged to do

exactly the same? Perhaps the freak show that is My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding has more in

common with Big Brother than just high ratings. Certainly, the weddings are spectacular. Girls

stagger into church in enormous dresses that sometimes weigh more than they do, watched by a

community that lives alongside, but detached from, mainstream society.

CHANNEL 4 CLAIMS ;The Cutting Edge viewpoint in the programmes is strictly non-

critical and non-judgmental. No difficult questions are asked of the travellers and very few

men from the community allow themselves to be filmed or interviewed.

ACTIVITY: having read the articles above answer the questions below:

1. List the criticisms of the programme:

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2. List the comments in support of the programme:

3. The travelling community clearly feel very strongly about the ways in which they feel

their youth has been misrepresented. Why do you think Channel 4 would create this

mediated view of travellers?

Academic theory –postmodernism Jean –Francois Lyotard and Jean Baudrillard offered different definitions

of postmodernism or post modernity but what they share is a belief that the

idea of truth needs to be “deconstructed” so that we can challenge

dominant ideas that people claim as the truth, which Lyotard(1984)

described as “grand narratives”.

Baudrillard (1988) said: He who hangs on to truth has lost.”

Postmodernism cannot wish to remove one version of the truth and

replace it with another supposedly ”correct version”. They would argue

that all notions of the truth must be viewed with suspicion. TASK:

Apply postmodern theory to “Big Fat Gypsy Wedding”

In what ways could you say that this a truthful

representation?

In what ways could you agree with the postmodernists and

say this is an untru representation?In what ways could the

representation of traveller youths be damaging

/harmful/negative

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The opening 8 Minutes storyboard of Big Fat Gypsy Wedding

“Born to Be Wed”

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VOICEOVER: “For hundreds of years the

traveller way of life was one of ancient

traditions and simple tastes,”

V.O :Then their world collided with the 21st

century

Do you want some beef?

(lively folk dance music –upbeat mood)

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With unprecedented access to some of the world’s most

secretive communities

Thelma the dressmaker: “They dont’like peole knowing

anything about them at all. They even have their own

language.”

VOICEOVER: This series will take you to the very heart

Of gypsy life through the biggest celebrations to

important events in the traveller calendar

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From the most extravagant children’s parties to the

biggest weddings on earth.

“It’s the most important day of a travelling girl’s

life.”

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VOICEOVER: Over 5 episodes this series will

explore..

Unique aspects of gypsy and traveller life.

In a world where a man is a man..

A woman knows her place..

And courtship blossoms in an unusual way

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“if a girl don’t give you a kiss straightaway, you got

to beat them.”

VOICEOVER: “From the day a traveller day is born

the preparations begin for the biggest day of her life..

her Wedding day.”

Thelma: from the day these girls are born all they are

thinking about is their wedding dress..the bigger the

better.

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Thelma: “But when you get to know them...their

morals are so high...definitely, definitely no sex

before marriage.”

VOICEOVER: “Marriage for these girls tend to

happen at a young age. 16 year old Irish traveller,

Josie, met her 19 year old fiancé, Swanley, just 4

months ago. The wedding is in just 5 weeks time.

Josie: “We first met on Facebook. We started

chatting and I thought... mmm Nice guy!”

Traveller girls must be chaperoned even when they

are engaged to be married. Swanley’s mum,

Christine has accompanied the couple..

Christine: “Girls start very young looking after the

kids. I was 10 when I started.” Homemakers...we’re

bought up to be homemakers-we’re bred into it.”

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But for the single traveller girls the place to meet boys

is in this West London carpark. Gypsy cousins,

Cheyanna and Montana, can be found here most

weekends dressed to impress.”

I’m 15,I’d like to get married at 16-defintely by 17..

VOICEOVER: traveller girls have to follow the strict

rules of courtship imposed on them by the community.

Girls aren’t allowed to approach boys, they must wait

to be chosen-sometimes through a ritual known as

grabbing.

INTERVIEWER So why do you come here then boys

Boys:”To get some good looking girls like these”

Upto 8 minutes

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JOSIE AND SWANLEYS WEDDING ( 37 MINS TO 45

MINS)

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V.O :As the guests await the bride, Swanley has gone

down the pub.

Swanley arrives at church still gulping down beer and

spills some on his suit!

The bride in her “classy dress” and her dad

The wedding vows. Josie dissolves into laughter as she

says “ Swanley I give you this ring....

Swanley joins in the laughter in the middle of the vows!

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Cousins preparing for the reception.

VO: Girls will have to be on guard from boys wanting

grabs.

The cake fight!

The dancing-younger generation arrive...

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