Youth Representation in Quadrophenia

The film Quadrophenia is a useful media text for looking at youth theories. It presents many of the theories of youth being delinquent as well as youth being fun.

The film opens to Jimmy, the protagonist, riding a scooter through the streets of London. This can been seen as support Hebdige’s theory of Youth being presented as either fun or troublemaking, as he looks very happy to be able to ride around freely, and he is not being presented as law breaking or delinquent. This is quickly contrasted by a group of rockers being shown, who approach him on their motorcycles and begin taunting him for riding a scooter and belonging to the mod culture. This supports Hebdige’s theory of youth being presented as trouble making. The music in this scene suggests rejecting hegemony, as the lyrics read “can you see the real me, mother?” which suggests being different and belonging to a subculture to reject the cultural norms.

A few minutes later in the film, his bedroom is shown, and it has sexual pictures of women on the walls. This means he fits into the youth stereotype of being sexual, which is one of the six youth stereotypes theorised in 1999 by Ann Gould. It is also shown when they go to a party that the men are referring to the women as objects, as one of the characters says to Jimmy “Anything you fancy?” which further puts the youth into the stereotype of being sexual. Some Marxist theorists like Althusser would say that this piece of media is an example of Ideological state apparatus, because it presents youth in a bad way to try and create a moral panic within the public about youth.

Jimmy is seen trampling the garden of the house he’s at for a party while his friend cheers him on. This makes Jimmy fit into the stereotype of Youth being rebellious, as theorised by Gould. When talking to his Rocker friend later, who says that mods and rockers are really not very different, Jimmy says that he doesn’t want to be the same as everybody else, which is why he’s a rocker. This supports Hebdige’s theory of Youth opposing Hegemony through style, as he is saying that through being a mod he can be different than what the norm is.

 A few minutes later, they are all in a cafe and are told to leave because they are causing too much noise. When they are told to leave the do but shout at the person who told them to leave while they do and cause more disruption. This shows that they are being presented as Gould’s Stereotype of being rebellious and Hebdige’s theory of youth being presented as trouble makers.

After one of the mods is attacked by rockers, they all go out to attack the rockers who did it which results in a street fight. This scene can be seen as supporting Hebdige and Gould’s theories. There are some more scenes in the next few minutes, which show conflict between mods and rockers and support these theories, as well as a scene when they break into a pharmacy to steal recreational drugs.

When all of the mods gather at Brighton, it shows support of Gould’s stereotype of Youth being an artificial tribe, as they are all united and sticking together. This is further shown when they begins to attack the rockers in the cafe, and after begin chanting “we are the mods”.

The whole scene of the mods fighting the rockers, chanting, destroying things and running from the police, supports Gould’s theory of youth being represented as Rebellious and Hebdige’s theory. Jimmy and Steph’s sexual encounter during the midst of this characterises the Youth as sexual as well as Rebellious. 

Jimmy is shown to get increasingly rebellious after this scene, as he leaves his job after shouting at his manager. At the end of the film, it is assumed that he drives a scooter, which he steals, off a cliff, which means he conforms to the stereotype of youth being self destructive.

I believe that the representation of youth in this media text is not fair, as these only centres around then mods and rockers scene, which was a very rebellious culture. However, there would have been lots of youth at the time when this film is set that were not involved in this scene at all. Additionally, this film can be seen as ideological state apparatus to trick the public into a moral panic surrounding youth.