Sket Evaluation Questions

3. How are the girls represented in the film? Complete a brief character analysis for Kayla, Danielle and Shaks.

Kayla is a 16 year old girl from Newcastle who has moved to London after her mother died with her sister Tanya. She has left all her friends behind and really wants to feel a part of something in order to get on with her life as she already feels like she has been dragged away from normality. After her sister is brutally murdered she then finds herself looking for comfort and a 'maternal' figure from an all female gang that she came across while on a bus ride who protected her as a group of males were trying to 'hit on her'. However I do believe that the gang were genuinely just hitting these males as they don't appreciate the thought of males having authority over women, but Kayla got the feeling that they were protecting her. Throughout the film she takes part in 'tasks' they want her to complete such as; stealing from a local shop and helping the girls beat up a man who 'forced' one of the girls to have sex with him. After she has done this the girls do accept her as 'one of them' and she then changes the way she looks at life as a whole because she starts to become very violent and changes her identity to impress the girls. For example when Kayla found out it was Trey that killed her sister she was determined to kill him even though the girls told her that she wouldn't have a chance because he has killed so many people before. So when she takes it up on herself to invade the rooftop of the office where a party is taking place to 'end he's life' the girls are all unsure but are there to help her, in the end you see Kayla chicken out of killing him which shows her softer and immature side come back and it means she has to rely on Danielle to hit him with a hammer and take a 'shank' while protecting her which makes her then realise this is not the life she wants to be a part of and at the end of the film she finally goes to meet up with her 'long lost dad' because that part of her identity was not her 'real self' and she wants to continue on the right tracks.

Danielle is the strongest member of the group and each one of the girls look up to her as some sort of 'role model' because of her confident and forward approach to situations that occur throughout the film. From the first scene she is included in on the bus you can see that she is the 'leader' as she is the first one to walk onto the screen with the other 3 girls following, the way she leans back on the chair and plays with the gold chains around her neck suggest she has a masculine side. Throughout the rest of the film she is the girl who 'encourages' Kayla to join in with various attacks that the girls usually do in order to get revenge but also cash. The first instance is robbing a shop, in which Danielle tells Kayla "if you do this, I may let you hang with us" she says it in quite a persuasive way, to the other girls annoyance because they think Kayla is too young and fragile to be a part of this girl gang however Danielle completely stands by her through the film and begins to open up about her private life - this is something she has never done with the other girls but because she finds out Kayla has also lost her mother she feels like she can talk about how loosing her own mother affected her, it made her the person she is today because we find out that Danielle's mum was traumatically attacked by her dad on various occasions and didn't fight back and it made her realise she didn't want to be a 'pussy' who lets men beat her which is the answer to why she is the most violent in the film. For example when Kayla pretends two men have tried to 'hit on her' in a bid to get their attention Danielle runs at them to beat them with fist punches and kicks before spitting at them and when she finds out one of her 'girls' was forced into having sex with a male she goes around to he's house and all of the girls beat him up and leave him in a worthless state after hitting with bricks and crow bars while Danielle watched on from the side lines proudly as much as to say that she has brought these girls up to act on serious situations in the best way. The final scenes of the film show Kayla trying to get her own back on Trey for killing her sister, she goes it alone upstairs to he's office while the party is in full swing downstairs. But Danielle cannot bear the fact that she is with him alone and her and the rest of the girls invade and take action before Trey exclaims that she had sex with him; Danielle's reply was ' you fucking raped me' to the shock of her friends who she had never told because she was too scared to, I believe this is because having someone rape you to Danielle is letting them win because she didn't want it to happen. This led her to hit Trey over the head before giving Kayla the chance to cut he's neck, however because she hesitated Trey came round and stabbed Danielle who was left shocked and fighting for her life.

Shaks is one of the less important characters in the film. She is Trey's 'wing girl' who helps him catch and attack people who we uses to collect money for him. I think she believes their to be an actual relationship going on compared to just a friendship in the eyes of Trey, she is seen in small parts at the beginning of the film in he's office where she is given various orders from him, however when she sees one of the clients in the street she begins to show her softer side and doesn't lay a finger on her and lets her go because all she is really wanting is for Trey to stop this business; them to take the cash and move away. However he doesn't see it like that and on the night of Tanya's killing (which only happened because she intervened in Trey shouting at Shaks for not getting the money from the young homeless girl who she let go) Shaks just stood and watched as Trey strangled Tanya to death and when he was finished he told her "that was all your fault" when really it was actually he's because he started to shout at her in a public place which quite an aggressive tone which in any scenario would catch someone's attention. The next major time she is seen is in the hospital where she asks Kayla if the police know who killed her sister, which then sparked up ideas that she had something to do with it which is when Shaks replies "revenge gets you nowhere" because she knows how much of a violent man Trey is and if Kayla tries to get any revenge onto him she will be killed instantly. As the film goes on Shaks reveals her vulnerable side when she seems to tell Trey to go agaisnt fighting and being negative; this is when we later find out she is pregnant. Which explains why she really is determined to start a new life however when she lets Trey know he says "get rid of it" and I think this is the first time in the film when Shaks realizes they both don't want the same things. The next most important scene is in the cafe when Kayla and 'the girls' turn up for a chat and Kayla is convinced Shaks will help get revenge because of he's past, her and Danielle exchange a few nasty comments to each other which indicates to me they have both been sexually involved with Trey and that hurts Shaks. At the end of this meeting she lets the girls know where they can catch Trey alone and says she will put tablets in he's drink to make him feel drowsy, I think this came over her because of what he said about the baby because she feels so much love for it. However in the final club scene, she corners away from adding the tablets to he's drink and leaves the stair gates open for the girls to enter before making her way outside to see Trey's 'wing man' to ask for some cash as she has 'some things she needs to sort out' but really I think she was planing on running away with her baby as getting rid of it to her wasn't an option, this is the only part of the film where she looked really scared and upset about what had happened but I am glad she realised just how horrible Trey can be.

. 4.Discuss the themes within the film and consider how these contribute to the collective identity of young people.

Every theme shown through the film links directly to how the

'normal/average' teenager is seen in the media today, which is why I believe so many people can watch the film and link to it in some way; the teenagers will have maybe been in some of the similar circumstances as the girls (mainly females) and the adults or any other people e.g news reporters/parents can also watch the film and realise the meanings behind the way these girls act to show that not ALL young people resort to being violent without having a valid reason. The usual themes that are associated with 'youths' and that are also included in the film is the excessive amounts of alcohol and drugs consumed, which could be another reason why the situations and violence get so out of hand in the real world because they can both make you feel more confident and determined especially if you already have a direct person you want to get revenge with using these two elements can encourage you to ' do your best ' which is certainly the idea of the girls in the film. Kayla drinks in a scene alone, this is for comfort after finding out her sister has died and she is now alone with no one to go too, but you see her struggling to stomach the vodka by her facial expressions. I think this is a common factor for youngsters who think they can drink a lot but when it comes down to it they really cant handle the drink. The whole group are then shown smoking drugs in a house which is where the scene Danielle says to Kayla "back out on us and we will kill you" this statement is then followed by laughter to try and ease the moment but because of Danielle's confident character you can tell she is actually being serious. Another theme is the meaning of a SKET, which in turn means 'CHAV' and this is a name usually associated with this age group because of the negative press they receive about various situations that occur through the teenage years, the main reason they will have nicknamed these girls is to show again the realistic views of how much the film actually links in with society today and how every teenager is targeted and seen in a negative light without being given the chance to speak their minds and explain what their background is because not everyone is part of a gang, but for the film they did create one. The use of urban settings and violence in the film is also a common theme to use in the 'grime neighborhood' because it shows that this is were the girls are from so it will make people assume they have a violent background because many of the gangs; especially in London as its the norm in this 'urban safari' All of these themes have been added in the correct way to make the whole film as realistic as possible for every teenager out there to consider and then know if they do actually act like one of these people or they don't which will then determine the idea of weather they should believe what the papers say or accept that they are who they are and it's not the type of person that the media describes.

5. Overall, does this film fuel or challenge negative representation of identity?

6. Consider links with other case studies we have studied and also link understanding ofSket with any relevant theory.

I think SKET challenges the usual representation of young people in society because the film actually shows a background and a valid reason for all of the trouble that goes on throughout, so if some of the parents/newspaper journalists or any other person who looks down on these people watched SKET I think they would have a better understanding about what actually goes on in young people's minds and how they seem to deal with situations which would be completely different for them. Because not many girl gangs are around today it's a quite surreal time line of events that happen because it's usually male members you see attacking vulnerable people on the streets and smoking illegal drugs e.t.c but having the characters be female it gives people an insight into what goes through their heads as individuals to actually complete some of these horrible crimes; as this film is concerned the problems are usually fueled by other people and the girls are just reacting, this is the main reason why I think the film challenges the representation because if they just showed the girls beating people up, attacking personal belongings and disobeying the rules of the law then they would be 'living up' to the name they already have from most members of the public due to recent events such as the London Riots as it was mainly the younger generation involved in the looting and attacking of the police force, however it wasn't mainly girls I would say males dominated that type of event but they do both have a similar link because for example the girls in SKET fought with the males because of things they had done eg flirting with various gang members or killing someone's loved one and it was the same sort of scenario for the London Riots as most of the youths involved only became involved because of the killing of Mark Duggan which happened suddenly because of a police officer so they all wanted to protest and say it was wrong which they did by attacking shops/business but the girls in SKET attacked people. Singer/songwriter Plan B's idea for Ill Manors was to show the exact representation of young people that are perceived by the society of today in he's music video and show that most of them tend to live up to this name of being a Yob or a member of a Gang just because they are labelled as one of them in so many ways, this does link back to SKET because the girls in the film are not necessarily labelled but in some ways they want the feeling of being 'labelled' as bad girls for their behavior to show they are dominant over the male race. However they are being labelled for various reasons; plan B is showing the "actual" idea behind these young people from society whereas the girls in SKET "want" to be thought of as bad people.
David Gauntlett's theory would link in perfectly with SKET because he talks about no identity is given, it's constructed and negotiated and that's exactly what happens with the girls in the film especially Kayla. At the beginning you see her as a shy and quiet person who keeps away from everyone because she is very timid, however when these "SKETS" stick up for her on a bus journey she instantly follows them and her whole personality and aura changes because she wants to be a part of that group, this shows her start to think in a more viscous way about people and violence will always be the answer if she wants to be apart of them. I think the rest of the girls will have been different too before the met Danielle because they all seem to look up to her in some way so I think when they were younger their identities will have been totally different and no sort of negative thoughts would have ever went through their heads whereas Danielle had a past which lead her to live like this.
David Buckingham also explains that identity is complicated and complex in a way because a person doesn't always seem distinct in the person that they are and their qualities and personality can change very quickly depending on the trends/ideas of others that they make look up to. This again would link back to mainly Kayla because in the film you can see that she does want to be the best person she can for her sister, however when she is around the girls she wants to be just like them, however I don't think in herself she believes she is one of the girls because of her previous past and how timid and shy she has always been, however due to the tragic death of her sister she has no one else to turn too so this type of identity does stick throughout the rest of the film, this is due to how complex Kayla's outlook on life actually is I don't think she knows what is going to happen so she looks to different people and gets their opinions and by say for example what Danielle believes is going to happen, Kayla follows her same intentions because her identity to me is 'unknown' most of the time.