How far does Kidulthood offer a positive representation of British Youth?

There are some scenes of drug use where Alisa and Becky sniff ‘crack’ and drink alcohol for fun in Becky’s house whilst they are away. Also the ending scene with the house party included loads of alcohol and under age drinking. Both these are obviously portrayed as a negative representation.

As well as the violence through the film, it’s casual, like an everyday thing. In one particular scene where Jay tried to  buy alcohol, has no ID to prove his age and therefore walks out with the drinks whilst the shop keeper gets a bat, expecting this behaviour and Jay throws something at the shop keeper with aggression.

Another scene that shows violence is the burger joint – Mooney has onions in his burger and instead of negotiating for a new burger or money back, he gets up (with the gang) and throws the burger at one of the cooks’ face whilst she looks down and hangers her head as if there is nothing she can do.

The 2 most significant scenes in the film for violence are the beating of Sam, and the house party end scene. When Trife and the gang go to beat Sam up, we are positioned to feel euphoric at their revenge for what Sam’s done and they take a picture of Sam to show others of what they did, to show dominance. However, they gag and tie his little brother and push Sam’s mother over to the floor. At the party, Sam is very violent, carries a bat and with no thought, swings at all 3 of the boys and kills Trife. All of this is being represented as negatively, however, there is one positive representation which is towards the end, after Trife witnessed Curtis’ negative side.

The positive representation starts after the knife torture scene and Trife begins to realise violence is bad. This is the turning point from negative to positive, however, it is short. He tries to turn things around and says he will be a better man.

Therefore, Kidulthood does not offer much of a positive representation apart from this last spur of goodness towards the end. The final message is trying to say – family is good, violence is bad.