In many ways this could be considered as a 'Youth' film. Three of the four main characters are below the age of 18. In some ways this film can be considered as similar to the kind of irreverent and crude humour you would find in a typically American high school comedy like American Pie.
It also centres around many of the themes and interests that stereotypically concern teens. But what kind of deal do they get in regards to representation?
The following questions are designed to provoke discussion and debate, and hopefully even raise more questions. With such a variety of young characters in the film then this is probably the least straightforward representation to analyse...
- What kind of archetypes of young people are we used to seeing in movies?
- What stereotypical qualities or behaviours are the young characters shown doing in the film?
- Are these stereotypes a simple 'shortcut' to help us understand the story or are they more relevant than this?
- How do the young characters in this film challenge stereotypical behaviours?
- Are the representations of the young characters 'likable' or are they selfish?
- Do the characters have arcs and does this alter the representation of young people?
- Most of the young characters in this film get badly beaten or attacked in the film, is this problematic, does this film actually hate young people?
- Would you consider any of the representations of young people to be 'inappropriate'?
As aforementioned this may not be as cut and dry as the other representations so think carefully on where you stand with representations of youth.
Use the comments field below to write an opening or concluding paragraph of an essay that explores the representations of youth in the film...
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteDave is a generic/stereotypical male teenager, his interests are based around two things; sex and girls, he fantasises about both. As a teenager Dave represents how teenagers have nothing to do and spend their time reading comics or sitting behind a computer at home. Dave is also the stereotypical nerd/geek, his appearance, wearing glasses is generic of the nerd as glasses link directly to intelligence and stereotypically nerds are extremely intelligent.
ReplyDeleteYoung people are represented differently throughout the film, we see the generic stereotypical high school groups such as the nerds and the jocks but we also see hit girl who is unlike anything we would expect out a normal 11 year old girl. She is seen swearing excessively and both fights and kills older men. After Big Daddy she is the most dominant character out of 'the good guys' and especially in comparison to Dave who she saves a couple times. Dave is part of the nerdy group in high school along with his friends but he turns into Kickass showing a unselfish side to him were his sole goal is to help people. He still does normal high school things such as seeking relationships and social networking with his friends but his character grows up a lot when he puts on his kick ass costume. Young people are treated as adults throughout the film and other than going to school they age doesn't seem to affect them.
ReplyDeleteThe youth is represented in a negative way overall, this is due to the fact that they do not challenge the stereotypical ideology of a teenager or the "youth". I do not believe that the film hates the youth, but they do not exactly betray them In the best manor. This is due to the high level of violence and the amount of inappropriate texts referenced. There are diffrent types of youth, an example is Dave himself (Kick Ass) who is a average geeky teenager, then there is Mindy (Hit Girl) who is not like any other young girl, she has a side to her that has never been shown in a superhero film before, its very unconventional. So, this film does not surprise the audience, as it exactly meets the stereotype for the youth, the only thing that does go against the stereotype is Mindy, and also the fact Dave is the first person to properly become an actual superhero.
ReplyDeleteThe film uses certain archetypes of young people such as the popular kids, the love interest and the nerds. These types help the audience understand the characters better and relate to them. We see the young characters in this film doing things we typically associate with people of their age, such as social networking, going to school and looking for relationships. These stereotypes and archetypes are used to help emphasise the normality of the lives that the characters in this film lead prior to becoming superheroes. Our expectations our challenged by the fact that we see these characters we perceive as vulnerable fighting and getting seriously hurt, however this reminds us of how naive young people can be, fulfilling an expectation of the audience.
ReplyDeleteKick Ass uses both conventional and challenging representations of youth through characters Dave and Mindy. Archetypes are used in the film such as the geeks and the popular kids to help the audience identify with characters and develop a better understanding of them. Mindy (Hit Girl) is probably the character that challenges our expectations of youth the most as she is an 11 year old girl who is using dangerous weapons and killing people.
ReplyDeleteThe film appears to represent youth in a very stereotypical manner. In school there seems to be a very stereotypical divide between groups of young people, such as geeks and nerds who like comic books and computers, such as Dave and his two friends, and the more popular people, such as Katie, who has no real quirks and appears to be rather basic and plain. However, young people are also represented to fearless and impulsive, such as Dave and Hit Girl, who never come across as scared of the situations that arise, for example Hit Girl, fights numerous bad characters and succeeds in beating them all, despite being half their size and still almost a child, and she shows no fear when being shot at by her dad. Nevertheless, the youth in the film are represented to be good at heart, Hit Girl, Big Daddy and Dave all fight crime, and Dave also fights crime on the streets, and Katie has a job that benefits society and the health of people by working in a needle exchange. Generally the youth are not represented to be selfish, however Mindy represents little girls to be manipulative, by acting all sweet and innocent to get what she wants, such as in the hotel where she pretends to have lost her parents.
ReplyDeleteThe film Kick-Ass shows two quite different representations of youth. Character such as Hit Girl (Mindy) is used to explore an impulsive and fearless youth that has an incredible confidence and fears no action. This is a very challenging representation of youth as she is only an 11 year old killing machine that swears enormously and is extremely manipulative with her language and appearance. Dave is a very stereotyped representation of youth, he is the cliched teenager that is only interested in his sexual desires, which is the trigger to him becoming a super hero to solely impress the girl and not to save the world from tyranny. Other young characters such as Dave's friends Todd and Marty are the 'nerds' of the film that spend their time reading comic books and dreaming of girls, however these also bring out the normality and highlights that Dave is only a teenager. Also, Katie which is the popular high school girl that seems to be very plain and is extremely passive throughout the film and its only function was to lead Dave to be Kick-Ass in order to impress her. These 3 characters are archetypes, that are extremely common in films with adolescents. The only character that breaks conventions of representation of youth is Mindy (Hit-Girl).
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI think youth in this film are presented in many different ways. You have the geeks/nerds, who spend their days reading comic books, or daydreaming, you have the populace of Dave's high school, who are presented as popular, stereotypical teenagers. Youth are also represented as being socially inept, the main case being Dave, Todd and Marty. Who just dont fit in properly with the status quo, they are usually found hanging around a comic book store, which is stereotypical of this archetype. They are also represented as being weak and invisible to women, again a stereotypical convention of the "nerd". Finally we have the representation of Chris D'amico, he is represented as being a selfish, rich kid brat, who seeks the approval of his father, he initially starts off with the intention of capturing Kick-ass for his father, but later befriends Kick-ass in order to capture Big Daddy and Hit-Girl.
ReplyDeleteI think that certain characters/ groups in Kick Ass are represented as a bit generic and stereotypical, especially in Dave's school, as we see the typical 'gangs' , such as the popular kids (e.g: Katie) or the geeks (e.g: Dave). Youth are also represented as being heroic and brave, though this is usually through a hero persona such as Kickass and Hitgirl, as Dave is seen to be relatively cowardly and weak compared to when he is Kickass. An example could be when Dave gets mugged the first time, he is shown to be a bit scared and timid, while when he encounters the gangsters as Kickass, he is a lot more confident and proud, though he does end up getting stabbed. Dave and Mindy are shown to take quite a beating during the course of the movie, such as being tortured and being shot several times, which shows that as well as being brave, they are tough and resilient.
ReplyDeleteIn the movie Kick-Ass both conventional and challenging representations are used to portray youth, for example they show teenagers in a very stereotypical archetype way as there is an obvious divide between the 'geeks' and the 'popular' kids. This is shown through Dave and his friends who are the typical geeks who love to read comic books, he still does normal high school things such as seeking relationships and using social networking. whereas Katie is the typical popular girl who is quite bland and dull would never go for anyone like Dave. However, Kick-Ass also breaks stereotypes and ideologies when it comes to Mindy (Hit Girl) as she is like no other 12 year old girl that we usually see in comedy films. We usually see young girls being very sweet but also vulnerable but in Kick-Ass Mindy is anything but that when Hit-Girl is in play, she is seen violently killing grown men. Along with the violence Hit-Girl also uses vulgar swearing which would never be used by many adults causing her break all stereotypical norms. Throughout the youth of the film are treated as adults rather than the teenagers that they are.
ReplyDeleteThe representation of youth in this movie is both a negative and positive representation. The youth in this film are represented as passive and immature, we clearly see this in the scene were Todd, Marty and Erika are watching the unmasking of Kick-ass (which is really a public execution) and when Erika tries to console in Marty because she is afraid, Todd and Marty have an immature high five moment as Marty is hugging a girl.
ReplyDeleteNot all the youth in the movie are represented as passive and immature, the two main youths, Kick-ass and Hit-Girl represent the youth as violent and reckless, as both fight crime, but Hit-Girl kills people. speaking of Hit-Girl, she also represents the youth as being underestimated, as a little girl kills a vast amount of people, and is a complete juxtaposition of the stereotypes of a little girl.
Kick Ass represents the youth of the film in a particularly stereotypical way; this is through conventional archetypes creating a division in their high school, for example the popular students such as Katie who seems pretty bland and the geeks which would be Dave (Kick Ass) and his best friends who have a love for comics. Only until Dave appears as Kick Ass does his character become unconventional as he is now to the seen audience as fearless and challenges the their expectations especially when he fights actual criminals and gets seriously injured, but this reinforces the stereotype that teenagers are particularly naive which could be the explanation to him becoming a superhero. Mindy (Hit Girl) is the most unorthodox character of all as she is the complete opposite to what an audience would expect of a 12 year old girl, Mindy seems like an average 12 year old wearing pink clothing and her hair tied back until she is first revealed shooting with her father. Her alter ego Hit Girl is then revealed who is manipulative, impulsive and violently kills men seeking revenge with her father.
ReplyDeleteKick-Ass uses archetypes to represent youth and this is by either meeting or subverting our expectations with them. Dave and his friends at the beginning of the film are the stereotypical geeks used in films; they read comic books, they can't talk to girls, and they get mugged frequently - this meets our expectations as we are used to seeing such a cliche role in American cinema.
ReplyDeleteHowever, a way the use of archetypes is used to subvert our expectations is with the character of Hit Girl. She is an eleven year old girl who uses the most swear words, uses the most brutal weapons, and kills the most people. By juxtaposing her actions with her appearance (typical school-girl look, even her costume is based around a school uniform) our expectations for her character are subverted and the audience end up viewing her more as an adult than the eleven year old girl that she is.
Dave and his friends are stereotypical 'nerds', this is easy to recognise from their apperance, what they talk about and were they choose to hang out. This allows for the audience to identify the characters and make assumptions about their archetype. For example the first time we see Dave and his friends is in the comic book store, where they are talking about super hero's. Hit Girl, however challengers the audiences view of youth in the film.Hit Girl is a young girl who follows in her fathers footsteps of violence and crime. Hit Girl is as much involved in violence and killing as Kick-Ass but does it ten times better. She doesn't fit the stereotypes of a young girl in super hero movies, typically its the young girl that needs saving. In Kick-Ass, however, it is Hit Girl who is saving the hero's.
ReplyDeleteKick-Ass shows the youth characters in the film to be quite nerdy at the beginning of the movie. We see how they hang around comic book stores and are invisible to girls. This is a stereotype used in cinema to portray the geek character but over the course of the film we see ow this makes them cool in a way. Everyone sees Kick-Ass and are suddenly gripped by superheroes and the girls who wouldn't even acknowledge them are now their girlfriends. The character of Hit Girl is very different however. She is the youngest character in the film but she is also one of the strongest characters. She has all the weapons and is brilliant at fighting and killing the bad guys. We are made to think of her as someone to be feared and see her as older than she actually is. When she is in the school uniform wee see how she looks very young but when she pulls out a gun we see how she can change into this machine whenever and she acts a lot older than she is. This is also shown at the death of Big Daddy because of how she copes with his death and then says she will look after herself like she is grown up.
ReplyDeleteKick Ass both challenges and meets our expectations of youth, using archetypes often associated with the high school drama, from the nerds (Dave and his friends) to the popular girls (Katie and Katie's friend). One of the more original character types is that of hit girl. Young girls are usually represented one of to ways, either as the victim or the 'annoying brat' type of character. It is clear that Kick Ass is very aware of this challenging sereotype as it even presents a more generic version of the young girl in a almost self referential style, as she tries to convince Frank Dimiko's security guards that she has lost her Mum and Dad acting as the victim. This makes the audience distance themselves from the story just for a moment, allowing them to think about Hit Girls representation, re-emphasising just how shocking her violent behaviour is, which has almost become sort of normalised over the course of the film.
ReplyDeleteKick Ass represents youth mostly in a stereotypical way. Nearly all young characters are stereotypical teenagers we usually see in film. Dave, Todd and Marty are all stereotypical nerds in high school that are "invisible to girls" and get bullied. Another way they are stereotypically nerdy is that they read comic books. Chris also falls into this stereotype as he likes reading comic books too and in the end of the film becomes a villain and quotes the Joker from Batman (1989). Katie is also stereotypical. She is the popular girl in school that everyone wants, she is also Dave's prize for being the hero of the film. However, Hitgirl is not a stereotypical child. She challenges our expectations of youth in film. The stereotypical child in films is sweet and innocent but Hitgirl is the most violent person in the film, kills the most people in the film and swears the most in the film.
ReplyDeleteThe way youth is represented in Kick Ass is very stereotypical. I would say this, because of the way characters like Dave and Katie are represented, conforming to traditional stereotypes that we see in films that are set in high school environments. Dave can be identified as the archetype of a 'nerd' or 'geek', who is socially awkward and enjoys reading comic books, playing video games and hanging around with just 2 people with similarities often in a comic book store. Katie is shown to be this very stereotypical popular girl, due to her quirky personality and good looks, and naivety when it comes to Dave. Although Dave and Katie are a very stereotypical representation of youth, I think that Hit Girl is different. We see two sides to her; Hit Girl and Mindy. They are like two different people, behaviour wise and the way they are treated. Again, Mindy is what we would imagine a young girl to be, she dresses in pink, wears in hair in ponies, does her homework and Big Daddy often refers to her as 'Baby girl' reminding us of her youth as we often forget due to this alter ego of hers. Hit Girl is the only representation of youth in the film that I would say deviates from our expectations. She is violent, and her language is quite inappropriate and controversial especially for a young girl.
ReplyDeleteThere is a variety of representations of youth in the film. The representation of youth for the most part is stereotypical in the way of using high school geeks like Dave and his friends but when an audience expects youth to be represented generically as innocent, vulnerable and naive, the character of Hit girl juxtaposes this by being the complete opposite of these attributes; she is brave, violent and independent especially which becomes evidently more clear when her father dies and she has to fend for herself therefore an audiences expectations are challenged.
ReplyDeleteKick ass attempts to challenge representation of youth as well as also conforming to some stereotypes of teenagers and young people. Dave and his s=friends conform to the stereotypical nerds in highs school who are very unpopular and are geeky and into superheroes and comics. Then characters such as Katie and her friends are represented as your stereotypical popular girls who believe they're better than everyone one else and look down on people like Dave. however despite this conformity with this selection of characters kick ass attempts to break the conventions and representation of youth especially with Hit girls character. she breaks conventions by using rather vulgar and crude language and being almost too familiar with her use of violent weapons. the stereotypical young girl is very sweet and kind, whereas hit girl completely juxtaposes this by being extremely violent and aggressive in her mannerisms as well as her behaviour.
ReplyDeleteIn Kick-ass there are two ways that youth is represented, the first one is the stereotypical view most people have of youth, the nerdy good for nothing type of youth. This representation is mainly shown at the start of the film with Dave and his friends. However, as the film goes on this stereotypical view disappears. The second representation of youth is that they're courageous and can often outsmart the adults in the film. For example, near the end of the film in the big fight scene with Hitgirl, Frank and Dave they outsmart both him and the people working for him and they, together, end up killing all of them. Arguably hitgirl is the smartest one in the film as while some of the heroes are men, she is constantly getting them out of trouble and saving them, also a lot of the people she outsmarts are adults and considering her age thats rather impressive.
ReplyDeleteThe way the Youth is represented in Kick-Ass is in someway stereotypical, however in others, particularly one character, it challenges he stereotypes of the youth. The way that Dave and Katie are represented is very stereotypical of the youth, only because their relationship seems to contain a lot of sexual activity, one scene in particular is when Katie and Dave are sitting with their friends, and Katie says one thing, and suddenly they are outside having sex, this stereotype is only prominent in the Youth. Dave specifically is represented to be a Geek, or a Nerd, quite socially awkward and even says "My only superpower is being invisible to girls". Katie on the other hand has the archetype of "Popular Girl", everyone seems to be aware of Katie, and typically in films, the girl the protagonist is after is usually the most popular girl in school. Mindy and Hit-Girl, however, completely deviate from the stereotypes of youth, and challenge our expectations of little girls. Despite Mindy dressing in pink, doing homework and regularly being polite to her father, her constant swearing and violence completely challenges what we expect, the audience would not expect a little girl, who cant be more than 12, to be swearing so much, and the words she uses are extremely harsh, such as c*nt, which even some adults are afraid to say. Big-Daddy doesn't swear that often, possibly only once, which makes it even more unexpected, because usually children pick up swear words from their parents, however Big-Daddy is very formal when speaking to his daughter. Red-Mist doesn't have many stereotypes, however the fact he is so desperate to try and work with father is possibly a stereotype, children always want to work with their fathers and spend some time, however his role is not about being a child. He doesn't look too distressed about his father being killed too.
ReplyDeleteYouth in this film is the core feature to it that its charcters and stories revolve around. Similar to something like Spiderman the main character fits into the geek archetype whereas the love interest fits into the 'popular girl' archetype. Young people get injured quite a lot in this film however its not because the film hates young people but is more related to how young people are naive and don't really know what they're getting themselves into. Big Daddy is a lot more careful when making decisions whereas Kick Ass just does it without thinking of consequences. Hit Girl on the other hand isn't really naive because of her involvement with her father. She understands how violence works and doesn't really feel for others when she's inflicting pain. In some cases the charcters have arcs as Dave becomes a superhero, has his showdown with Frank and then 'hangs up his cape' as he no longer has a purpose to be a superhero whereas Hit Girl carries on because she doesnt want anything similar to like what happened to her Dad to happen to anyone else
ReplyDeleteAll in all, I believe that youth is represented negatively in Kick-Ass. The females are presented as preppy princesses who are naive to all around them. For example, Katie is obviously manipulated by Dave and she forgives him instantly, showing no back bone or the strength to stand up for herself. Where as, the males are represented as geeky teenagers causing trouble whilst trying to fulfil their childhood superhero fantasy. Kick-Ass is constantly seen slaughtering many criminals and although they have done wrong, they are still human. However, Kick-Ass never seems to have to face any consequences of his actions, playing up the the stereotypical rebel teen. This is trying to show us that teenagers in this film are often just immature troublemakers.
ReplyDeleteWithin Kick-Ass, we see both stereotypical and unconventional representations of youth. Dave begins as the stereotypical, nerdy teenage boy. This is shown through his appearance as he wears glasses which is a signifier of nerds due to their connotations of intelligence and the link between nerds and intelligence. As well as this, he is driven by sex and girls which is typical of male teenagers. The fact that there is a rumour that Dave is gay supports the ideology that he is stereotyped as a nerdy teenage boy, as this is a very common high school drama - the nerds are being somewhat picked on and taken advantage of by the popular kids, although Dave does find a way to use this to his own advantage. This stereotype is broken when Dave becomes a superhero; he is no longer defined by his appearance and can no longer be considered a nerd, alongside this, he enters a relationship with Katie - a popular girl at school, shown through her being attractive and not associating with nerds like Dave initially. This also takes away his stereotype of a nerd as nerds do not usually have girlfriends. However, as a superhero, his main drive remained as sex and girls, proving that he is still a typical teenage boy. HitGirl differs greatly from the typical stereotype of an eleven year old girl, the only time we see her as a typical young girl is when she enters Frank's apartment complex dressed in a uniform - but she uses this to gain access to the apartment in order to murder people. This is why she goes against the stereotype; it is very unconventional for an eleven year old girl to be violent and often use bad language. The audience will expect her to be sweet and innocent, which she is the opposite of.
ReplyDelete