How are youth cultures represented in Quadrophenia?

Youth culture is when young adults (teenagers) are represented as a class or subculture. It also refers to a group who follow a way of life that is different from others, who follow the same practices and share the same values, such as music, dress and manners, they have a collective identity. Teenagers became a common term used by advertisers and merchandisers in the 1940s so they could sell products to this specific age group (13-19) and class. The two youth cultures represented in the 1979 film Quadrophenia were the Mods and the Rockers.

The film itself is about these two youth cultures that were around in the mid sixties, the film leads up to the roits in 1964 on May bank holiday between the two groups in Brighton, that caused a major uproar at the time. The story follows the life of a boy called Jimmy who was part of the Mod's collective identity. The story itself comes from the album Quadrophenia written by The Who, of which the story line is based around each song in chronological order.

The dvd's cover shows jimmy in the foreground of the cover, he looks lost and as if he has no sense of place. He is separated from the rest of the Mod group who are in the standing confident in background in blue who are together as if a union also representing this 'collective identity', whereas jimmy is seen in black also showing a lack of 'fitting in'. The colour theme of the cover is red, white and blue which resembles the British flag, at the time the group were patriotic and the film shows a very British way of life. A slogan on the cover reads 'A way of Life' suggesting that this culture wasn't a hobby or something to be taken lightly, it was a way of living and each belief represented who you were, you were either a Mod or a Rocker. " I don't wanna be the same as everybody else. That's why i'm a Mod, see? I mean, you gotta be somebody, aint ya, or you might as well jump in the sea and drown." This was said by the character Jimmy in the film and correlates to how these two youth cultures were the way teenagers lived, you were either one or the other there wasn't another choice. The title of the film is split into two parts 'Quad' means four and shows the four personalities that Jimmy represents in the film for someone of his age and time, Jimmy was part of a family, he had a job, he was part of the Mod's and his life before becoming part of this culture.

I looked at the first few minutes of the film in detail from 1:00-3:00 minutes. This sequence shows the character Jimmy riding his scooter through the streets at night on his way to a dance where he meets his other friends. The camera starts with a tracking shot in front of the bike showing his surroundings, the camera is tracking his way of life and the way he thinks, acts and behaves. The camera moves in to a close up shot of his face, he is shown to appear extremely happy with life and where he's headed. This goes hand in hand with the lyrics of the song, preaching to the doctor saying 'Can you see the real me, doctor?' suggesting that this is the way he is and the rest of society can't understand and think he's going crazy. The rockers soon appear from behind Jimmy in the darkness, leaving only lighting from the headlights of their motor bikes, Jimmy's shows two front headlights which could represent the two youth cultures.

 Society believes that bad things happen at night, in the dark and as the rockers came out from the darkness this shows that Jimmy see's them as a bad thing and shows the first signs of this rivalry that carry's through the film. The only lighting while the shots of Jimmy happen are from the street lights and light from the headlights of cars and motor bikes. Whereas the lighting in the dance club is set up, representing a sense of security for Jimmy when he arrives, that this is where the Mods are and is where he belongs. This also shows that he is unsafe alone in the dark against the rockers.When Jimmy arrives at the club he buys drugs of a friend, they are expensive showing that there was money around at this time for young people, and that drugs weren't hard to get hold of, that anyone in this group could gain access to them.

Youth Culture has been represented negatively throughout the film showing youths to be aggressive, loud and follow bad values such as drugs and smoking. Although i feel that the audience can sympathies with the character Jimmy as he feels he has no other choice than to be part of this Mod culture and follows only what has been left for him to believe in. As his home life falls apart, his job and everything else he is left only with this culture and being part of it makes him have a sense of self worth and that he has a family to belong to. The film does show both the Rockers and Mods to have 'terrorised' the communities at the time with their way of life but shows the audience that there were no other options for the teens as they grew up and this is how society had portrayed them to appear. I feel that although all opinions lead to a negative representation of youth culture throughout the film, that because of the character Jimmy it shows how other aspects of these teens lives were affecting the way they were seen in the media, tainting the way we also see them in the film.