1960s British Youth : An Alternative Representation

Let's go back in time to 1961, just 3 years before the media in Britain represented its youth as being violence driven hooligans who were a threat to the very fabric of society.

1961 saw the release of the film 'The Young Ones' starring, amongst others, Cliff Richard.

The story is about the youth club member and aspiring singer Nicky (Cliff Richard)  and his friends, who try to save their club in western London from the unscrupulous millionaire property developer Hamilton Black, who plans to tear it down to make room for a large office block. 

The members decide to put on a show to raise the money needed to buy a lease renewal. The twist in the story is that Nicky in reality is Hamilton Black's son, something he keeps keeps secret from his friends until some of them try to kidnap Black senior to prevent him from stopping the show. 

Although he is fighting his father over the future of the youth club, Nicky can't allow them to harm him, so he attacks the attackers and frees his father. In the meantime, Black senior has realised that his son is the mystery singer that all of London is talking about, after the youth club members have done some pirate broadcasts to promote their show. 

So, although he's just bought the theatre where the show is to take place, in order to be able to stop it, the proud father decides that the show must go one. At the end, he joins the youth club members on stage, dancing and singing, after having promised to build them a new youth club.

Here is the trailer for the film.

How is the representation of British Youth different here to what you have previously seen? 

The representation of youths within 'The Young Ones' (1961) expresses them as kind-hearted and friendly, a direct antithesis to how teenagers were portrayed three years later as the uprise of Mods and Rockers created a moral panic; they were depicted as a threat to society. Within this film, the youths are conveyed in a positive light: The fact that they are performing for crowds, full of a variety of ages, promotes their good intentions to please the audience. By creating performances for the public in order to retain their youth club, they aren't creating trouble resulting in a homogenous social status placed on the teenagers, comparing them to the rest of society and making them equals.  Moreover, the teenagers act in a sociable, warm manner by the ways that they interact with each other and other members of society, which again supports their un-threatening persona; there are no sub-cultures between them, they all get along well and are just enjoying life, whereas the Mods and Rockers were divided into groups causing an ongoing conflict within the teenagers.   

However, it is still evident that there are some similarities between the way that youths are represented within 'The Young Ones' and the Mods and Rockers in 1964. In 1961, it is clear that older generations still had a negative view on teenagers, often associating them with being rebellious. This is presented through Nicky's father, a middle aged man, Hamilton Black, who is seen in dialogue with his son in which they are discussing youth clubs - He states that 'They're just places they can go and plot some more mischief' reinforcing the association of teenagers and trouble.