media diary week 1- review on the inbetweeners movie

13/9/14

Media diary week 1- Review on the Inbetweeners movie

　

The inbetweeners movie is about 4 college graduate males who go on holiday to another country in order to get drunk and meet girls as part of a stereotypical ‘lads holiday’. During their holiday they experience finding new lovers. An example of this is when Jay, one of the 4 males, finds a an over-weight girl called and eventually falls in love with her. Another experience of which they encounter is sheer embarrassment through drunken mistakes. The film is a comedy of which it has 3 series out before the movie.

The narrative is a linear narrative so the movie had a straightforward layout. This makes is grabbing because its not complicated and easy to understand. It is clear within the text that the audience isn’t for young people because the language is horrifyingly crude yet and as a result, very funny. This makes for a humorous adult film to watch on a night in with the lads. The text is clearly aimed at lads because the humour used is crude which is commonly associate with lads humour. Girls, however are associated with being polite and girly, not using bad language and pursuing a ‘goody-goody’ personality. Another reason why I believe it to be aimed at males is because they can relate to the characters. On the males only holiday they get up to action with girls and get drunk at bars, as a result doing the stupid things that a young lad would do on a holiday so it adds realism. The characters are recognisable as everyday males who want a fun time on holiday to meet their goals and desires.

The themes of which the text portrays are love, lust, youth and 4 males on a lads holiday which is what the story of the film is based around. The narrative surrounds these themes well as all are demonstrated by the males within the film. A lot of examples of these themes are prominent as they males get drunk on a boat surrounded by young people (mainly drunken females).

The language used by the males connotes youth and males because of how crude it is and the topics of which they discuss. Female body parts are a large part of the conversations of which the young males have whilst on the holiday. An example of a word used by Jay is ‘Clunge’ meaning ‘Boobs’ in their youth culture.

Within the text are a lot of half naked females. The females are commonly captured using close up or mid shot to flatter the features of which are being presented to the audience. As these are females, its aimed at mainly males (with the exception of homosexuals). This entices the male audience through the use of female parts on display and entertains the male audience through this. The camera work is a technical code of which is used in this instance to capture body parts.

The text represents male youths in negative way as it denotes excessive drinking, bad language and dirty minds. This connotes unruliness, bad manors and mischief. This tells us that when young males are out with their friends they get up to trouble and act in an inappropriate way which is not what all young males behave like- but it creates a negative stereotype.

The lighting is cleverly used in the text to capture the time of day of which the film is set in. An example is when the males go clubbing. It is dark which tells the audience that they are going clubbing at night time. This acts as a brilliant temporal marker. Enigma codes are also used when the beginning of a scene happens and there is no evidence to tell us where the males are or what’s going on/ what’s going to happen next. It leaves the audience waiting for a short while, pulling them in with wonder and excitement for the next hilarious act. The audience are left to guess. An example of this is when the beginning of the first club scene happens and we see a long-shot of the area around the males walking down the brightly illuminated road past all of the bars and clubs. This only tells us where the males are but not exactly what they’re going to do next. This acts as prime example of a geographical marker.

Music is played according to the scene of which the males are in at the time. For example, when the lads are clubbing music is played according to the club style (e.g. techno/ house music). The lights used in these scenes are low lighting as its meant to be dark to set the scene. Multi-coloured lighting adds realism to the scene as when you club its referred to as ‘partying’ meaning colours and good times. Colours connote to happiness and fun with relates to what getting drunk and going to a club connotes.

A good element of the film is the crude humour as mentioned previously. The crude humour is formed through the witty and rude comments made by the characters. As a young person myself, I can relate to this humour as the language used is that of modern day youth culture. This makes it more personal for young people to relate to and understand meaning it is appealing through the similarities aspect.

Another good element of the film is the order in which events occur as everything seems to have a domino effect. This is particularly funny as it demonstrates that each stage that they go through in the film has a cause/ effect logic. Cause and effect can play a part in the genre because as in this case, it can mean that as a result of a humorous element of the film, an even funnier event could occur after as so on.

What wasn’t good about the film was the over-the-top reference to females. It made females seem objectified by the males within the film. Objectifying has a negative effect on the thing that’s being objectified of because it makes them seem less like a person. When Neil exclaims ‘Its not cheating, only the tip went in’ to the other males, it shows his disinterest in his current girlfriend and lack of caring about morals. This makes woman appear like all they’re used for is their physical features and not for the emotional connection. In this case it demonstrates sexism.

　

The film in my opinion was very funny and as a comedy fan I believe it to have been a good film that can keep you laughing even after the film has ended. The shots were clear on what they wanted to audience to see meaning that if a close up shot was needed- it was included.

Some of the scenes in the film seemed unrealistic and over dramatized, however this made for an entertaining story overall therefore good has come from the bad. The scene were Simon ends up naked because he sold his clothes for money to pay for something is an example of one of the over-dramatized but equally funny scenes. Some of the scenes included behaviour of which people would be arrested for if it happened in real life such as the pink shirts with the writing on the back (paedophilic references- “MR. I fuck kids“).

The rating that I would give the film is a 4 star. The film is insanely funny and has a clear and concise target audience, however it does go over the top and as a 15 rated film it is too rude. It should be an 18 to make it more realistic, parents will not be happy with their 15 year old boys coming out with the knowledge and language learnt from this film. Too many incidents are coincidence, for example when Simon sees Carly- his ex lover- at every possible chance even though they are meant to be holidaying in another country with plenty of space to get away from her.

After watching the inbetweeners 2 shortly after, I would say that they are similar in the sense of crude language, however there is not as many objectifying references in the second movie. This could be because the purpose of the second one is secretly to find Jays lover- Jane. Another way in which the second movie relates to the first is that they contain the same characters and make the same amount of stupid mistakes that we all can laugh at, however the humour is more disgusting than crude. The inbetweeners 2 is a funnier movie as it takes the extremities of the first movie to the next level- targeting the more immature sector of males. Making references to excretion in the second movie, this backs up my point.

The inbetweeners is a will directed film, however it may have benefited from a few changes. If Carly- Simons ex lover- wasn’t brought into the film so much then more interesting things could have been covered in the film. The lads holiday part of the film could have been more widely emphasised. I felt that the Carly story dragged on too much through the episodes to carry on into the official movie.