Adults with Attitude

Ive just finished watching a documentary on channel 4od about teenagers;

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/teen-trouble/4od

I fully agreed with the presenter, who looked like a younger, balding (?!) Danny Dyer, when it came to highlighting the fear that the media have instilled about teenagers, through articles like ASBO teens, teen riots, teens out of control and knife crime in school. While he was not denying that there were teenagers who were involved in serious misconduct, it was disproportionate to what was being represented in the media. It sold newspapers (the News of the World and The Sun yet again being the main culprits) while hoodies and the 'Vicky pollards' of the generation were shunned and feared as a result.

In a badly conducted convention during the documentary, some of the teenagers and the adults of one community were asked to 'discuss' some of the issues. One woman, who was bitter and obviously distressed, mainly due to the fact that her chrysanthemums were routinely dug up and tipex had been graffittied on her pristine front door, shouted "why cant you all just go somewhere where you are not in the way of houses, shops or playgrounds?!" after looks of confusion from the teens, one of them retorted (very politely I thought) that why should they be moved when all they were doing was standing around with their mates and chatting. Which is what the majority of teens want, and do. Just because it is intimidating for single adults to walk by a group of young, boisterous teens, they want them off the streets.

I found this interesting mainly because it stuck a cord with my street. I am definitely far from being a delinquent teen, but I am still a young adult, living what may be seem as an unconventional life in a small bedsit with my boyfriend and dog, and yes - we do have parties every now and then, we do play music and I do walk my dog down the road (with doggie bags of course, I'm not that much of a rebel) but I feel ostracised by the other families, especially the female women of the street. I feel looked down on, get dirty looks from the lady next door if my music is playing, and I get shouted at by the fat woman down the road for walking my dog. It has got to the point where I am nervous about walking Jack in case I get verbal abuse, and I turn the bass down so low on the speakers that barely a dribble of sound comes out. It's not me who has the attitude, its the people who don't like to see anyone under the age of 40 on the street, or living next door.

It was interesting when the presenter went to Brighton to interview an aged Mod, who had been involved in the Mods and Rockers Riots in the 60's. The term moral panic, was coined by the sociologist Stanley Cohaninwhich who examined media coverage of the mod and rocker riots. "Although Cohen admits that mods and rockers had some fights in the mid-1960s, he argues that they were no different to the evening brawls that occurred between youths throughout the 1950s and early 1960s, both at seaside resorts and after football games. He claims that the UK media turned the mod subculture into a negative symbol of delinquent and deviant status." (Wikipedia)

If its not the mods and the rockers, its hippies or skinheads. Or hoodies.

The conclusion to the documentary was a complete letdown however. The documentary wrapped up with the enlightening idea that the generation gap could be narrowed by the adults and the teens 'talking' more.....Trying to make a teenager talk about anything is like getting a blood out of a stone! Always has been, always will be - and that basically concludes my point, if there was one in the first place, that there will always be mistrust and friction between the generations. This is because we are constantly evolving to the point that every generation is different, and as we are also suspicious beings, we hate anything different and new. I can't understand the younger generation, and their new fads, and I don't relate to the older generation with their snide looks and their constant mutterings about loud music, hairstyles and flip flops.

We just have to take it as it comes and embrace the differences. I look forward to muttering about how loud the music is through my walls when I'm a 60 year old woman, while I try and listen to my tunes on the ancient ipod.