Skins Poster Analysis (Michelle)

*Ripped/faded wall paper
Mature, older people must have lived there. Notice the wall paper has a sort of paisley print. This tells us that only adults would have used this for their bed room whereas teenagers would use plain simple colours and most probably use posters to decorate. Almost like they are rebelling against anyone older than them. Falling in to ruin. Decay and destruction.

*colours
There is a mixture of colours on the poster like green, black and white. I think that this is to show the youthfulness of all the characters even though the things that they are doing are things that not even most adults do i.e. sleeping with a mass of people and destroying room.

*Feathers
Ripped apart and falling from the pillows, like all the characters life. They are all tearing each other apart. I think that this shows the damage that they are causing to each other.

*Costume
The main character, Michelle, wearing nothing but black knickers, lacy green bra and a black lingerie bolero. It sort of implies that she has just has meaningless and possibly drunken sex with another character who is sitting nest to an old fashioned lampshade. But notice how on her bra, there is a little bow. I think this suggests that she is trying to retain her innocents even though her surroundings are of those who have been up all night partying.

*Surroundings
All night orgies gathering. One of the male characters, which are Asian, has a tattoo on his arm. It like they are going against everything. Every character in this image is doing what they want.

*Lightings
Natural and artificial lighting. The natural lighting is strewn across the back of the wall and Michelle. The light is shown on the main character so that she is your main focus in the image. It also shows you that they have been up all night and are still going on through to the day.
The source of the artificial light comes from the lampshade from across the room where another male character, Sid, is looking to the Michelle. I think he must have been the one to sleep with the main character as he is sitting alone on the bed whereas every one else is with somebody doing something they shouldn’t.

*camera shots
The camera shot for this poster is all over the main characters body. This is quite effective as you get to see the whole language her body is expressing.

Teenagers all over the world are being represented as rebellious and irresponsible, who march to their own drum. I think that in some ways this is realistic however not all teenagers are like this. It is very easy to believe that some teenagers do have all night parties and raves but I seriously doubt that they would try to demolish a house in the same night like it is shown in the poster. I feel that this image is mixture of both a negative and positive representation. This is because teenagers do some things like what the poster represents but at the same time I have never see any thing like this where they totally destroy an entire bed room and hold an orgy.

Most teenage audiences viewing the drama would think that it is an unfair representation. They are showing teenagers at their worst moments and casting them like this is what they always look like. I personally feel that the media has stereotyped teenagers like this so that they can get a reaction out of them. And the reaction that they get is usually like poster, unruly and rebellious.

I think that the main audience for viewing Skin’s is around the 16-21 age groups. This is because that is around the time when teenagers and young adults like to have fun and experience things while people would not normally do in their late 20’s or early teens. Also, if adults around their late 30’s saw this sort of poster they would immediately jump in to the wrong conclusion.
Parents find this kind of poster offensive as the media are representing that all teenagers, their sweet little angels, are in to raving, loud music, sex and drugs; which is not strictly true. The natural reaction from teens is rage; rage that they feel their parents do not understand the kind of life that they lead and the fact that they are practically calling them whore and drug addicts, thus causing controversy and an immediate rebellion against the parents.