How are young people represented in the Ill Manors music video?
In my opinion, youth are represented as violently reactionary. The stereotypes which are imposed upon them by the media, are what they have learned to perpetuate, to “feed the fear, that’s what we’ve learned, fuel the fire, let them burn”. ‘Stereotype threat’ is the fear of fulfilling a negative stereotype about ones social group; the youth in ‘Ill Manors’ do the opposite by deliberately complying with the generalisations.
This is done in multiple ways throughout the video. The first shot opens with a view of a sprawling London council estate - smoke rises from some of the buildings, connoting an image of the riots. The fact that the smoke is rising from the council estate implies that this area was the epicentre of the anarchy. Another similar shot shows Plan B smoking a cigarette in front of a similar backdrop - to me represents how he contributed to the riots, and shows his consumption and participation in said violent activities.
The smoking council estate acts as a macrocosm for the rest of London - the smoke is billowing only from the poorer areas, whereas the richer areas in the distance are immaculate; showing how the class divide only negatively effects the less fortunate people.
The audience positioning is interesting, for the most part we are on the side of the youth / rioters etc. but there are moments where we are on the other side, for example, around 2:22, a group of people throw bricks at a piece of glass which we are behind. To me this is a threat, that unless you’re on their side, you’re in their way, and you don’t want that.
Another stereotype that the media imposes upon that particular social is that they all are hoodies. This is also deliberately perpetuated by the youth in the video - the majority of them have their heads covered; either by hoodies, snapbacks or beanies. A lot of them also wear balaclavas. Balaclavas are associated with violence and terrorism, this is overall how youth are presented in this video.
Michel Maffesoli coined the term urban tribe; “urban tribes are micro groups of people who share common interests in urban areas. The members of these relatively small groups tend to have similar world views, dress styles and behavioural patterns.” The fact that such a large population of the youth of London act like this shows that it is not simply a violent minority anomaly which is sparking the unrest in the lower classes; it is the class divide and how poorly they are treated by and perceived by the well-off people.
Dick Hebdige argued that a subculture is a subversion to normalcy, and this theory may be applied to hoodie culture’s perpetuation of their own media perpetrated stereotype. For example; people which consume the kind of media which may slander the lower classes (likely the richer people) are likely to consume more of said media, if hoodies are acting like the media says they will.
I believe that the video challenges the ideology of capitalism; it is documenting how radical the effect of poverty has become upon youth in London, and blaming the rich, conservative politicians such as David Cameron for putting them in said position. The video indirectly is promoting socialism, by saying that everyone should be on the same level, and politicians should not be being payed as much as they are for doing equal, if not less work than some poorer people.
