In this episode of skins the teenagers are represented in many contrasting ways. One of the characters I have chosen to focus on is Tony who is the main character in this episode. Tony is a guy from a middle class family. He is clean, neat and tidy. In the stating scenes of the episode they show the bedroom of Tony which is really neat and tidy. His shirts are all folded and kept it in a particular order in the wardrobe. In the beginning of the episode there are some shots in which he is just wearing under wares. When he wakes up he does some exercises and after that he looks at the naked lady who lives in the opposite house. He also plays the ipod in the loudspeaker in a high volume to distract his dad so that his sister can get into the house without his dad noticing. His sister shows the media’s representation of teenagers who goes to late night parties and doesn’t come back home. He uses swearing words when he is talking to his friends. When he is on his way to college he gives call to every one of his friends which shows the close relationship between him and his friends. When he calls his girlfriend he talks dirty. He is wearing clean and casual clothes and the colours are black and red. When he met his girlfriend he kisses her. When he is with his friends he smokes, drinks, takes drugs, goes to wild parties, immoral. He behaves like the leader of the group. In the beginning he is shown as a bad teenage guy but at the same time he is a good guy who gets good grades, sings in the choir and shows respect to others. He is different from other characters in the episode. In the show it shows how Tony behaves when he is not around his friends as he is a calm and well behaved boy and when he is with them he shows his other face.
The second character I have chosen is Syd. He is the second main character in this episode. He is entirely different from Tony. He is really lazy and untidy. His room is all disorganized. Everything in his room is here and there. When Tony calls him in the morning on the way to school, Syd is still sleeping on his bed and also shows all his clothes are on the floor and chair and his mobile phone was vibrating on the plate on which he had the dinner yesterday, which clearly shows that he is not organised. He doesn’t have any close relationship with anyone. He is the one who goes to get the drugs. He always does what Tony says, which again shows that Tony is the leader. Syd seems a bit nervous when Tony’s girlfriend is around. He also looks like he fancy her. He also drinks, smokes, takes drugs, looking at porn magazine, uses bad language. He is wearing over sized jogging bottoms and jumper which is green and black and also he wear a black beanie hat. He wears glasses which is not very fashionable.
The first story line is about sex. Syd is crazy about sex and Tony is helping him to lose his virginity. The second story line is about buying drugs so that they can go to a wild party. In this episode both the characters are involved in storylines about smoking, drinking, drugs, fights, sex, virginity and sexuality. The storyline shows the lifestyle of the teenagers and also about their behaviour. Even though all of the characters are shown in a negative way, they have shown a different character who also have the same bad habits as others who is Tony. He is shown as a good, clam, neat and responsible guy who gets good marks. This shows that not all teenagers are the same and not everyone adopts the bad behaviour of their friends. The drama shows the typical stereotype of teenagers who dresses scruffy and also their way of life.
The settings used in this episode of the drama are parks, bedrooms, the roads, cafe, house, dance studio, bus, classroom, church and school grounds. When they are in the school they looks like the normal teenagers. These locations are seen as the typical place to hangout for the teenagers. They also talk about sex and drugs openly without showing any confidentiality or disgrace. We can see and entire different face of all of them when they go to the wild party at night. All of them seems having a quite close relationship with each other. Even though they are in the same group and hang around with each other, not everyone has the same hobbies or area of interest. For e.g. Tony is interested in singing, someone else is interested in dancing etc. They behave and talks like adults.
Although Syd and Tony are good friends they don’t act the same. Tony uses good and proper language to use, he doesn’t use swearing words all the time, whereas Syd always uses slangs and uses just common words and phrases. Through the way Tony is dressed and behaved he looks like he is from a middle class family where as Syd is from a working class family. I think they have represented different class through these different characters. Throughout the episode they (not only Tony and Syd) have used slangs, swearing and bad language. Tony’s and Syd’s dad seems using swearing words and really aggressive so there is no surprise if the children behave the same as they learn and adopts from the parents.
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