"In many ways Attack the Block reflects the hegemonic representations of youth identity, namely that young people and teenagers are defined as belonging to gangs, with lives dominated by crime, violence, anti-social behaviour, and conflict with adult society and the police. These mediated representations of youth identity can be read in many different ways, with the complex anti hero character of Moses who begins the film by mugging an innocent woman, but ends it by renouncing his criminal past and his desires to be a drug dealer. Whilst reinforcing the dominant reading of youth in the media, as the urban street gang, uneducated, using slang, alienated and disaffected, the film ends with the youth characters 'saving the world'. As David Gauntlett states, this "Identity is complex" and the collective identity of the youth characters in the film can be read in many different ways, as both a deviant threat and in a more compassionated preferred reading, one where young people and adults are forced to work together as seen when....."
One example of how this dominant reading of the deviant alientaed youth identity can be seen to be mediated is in The Daily Telegraph's article about Attack the Block's star, John Boyega who plays Moses.
Leading to this rebuttal from the actor himself. https://twitter.com/johnboyega/status/591738915733798912
- How does The Daily Telegraph chose to present John Boyega (And therefore youth) ?
- What aspects of his identity do they chose to focus on and selectively amplify?
- What does this show us about how hegemonic (dominant) cultural values and identities are mediated (presented by the media)?
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