Discuss how the film Fish Tank represents and explores youth culture in contemporary Britain.

My initial impressions of Fish Tank were that it featured a very pessimistic representation of youth culture. While Mia's lack of respect for authority is admirable, her relationship with her family appeared to be based on a constant stream of insults and abuse.

Mia's mother, Joanne, is described by Jonathan Romney of the Independent as 'sexually competitive', I think this is an adequate description which also goes some way to explain the tension between both characters. The two characters are also portrayed as opposites, Joanne is often shown with a cigarette and garish makeup, whereas Mia is athletic, and her makeup is subtle. The cigarette is a key index, but while it signifies bad health and insecurity, it's also a reminder of Joanne's adult position.

In some ways Fish Tank can be seen as a coming of age story, many rites of passage into adulthood are covered in the film: leaving education and seeking a job, losing virginity and leaving home. Fish Tank deals harshly with Mia's loss of 'innocence' and then redefines what it is to be innocent. Later on we see Mia's sister, Tyler, smoking with her friend, this scene hammers home the loss of innocence. However, the act of smoking by Tyler is not glorified, nor is it used as a tactic to shock the audience, instead the film presents it accurately and without bias. The audience is invited to judge the scene within the context of the wider social conditions, and this leads them to greater understanding of the situation.
Unlike earlier 'kitchen sink' social dramas, this 'new realism' refuses to implicitly make the link between working class oppression and anti-social youth culture in deprived areas. This could make the film appear as a piece of bourgeois pretentiousness which makes a patronising sneer at the oppressed youth. On the other hand because there is no 'dominant reading', the audience has the freedom to come up with their own conclusions.
At the end of the film Billy becomes the saviour, the 'knight in shining armour who frees the damsel from her captivity in the fortress'. In some ways this traditional 'happily ever after' ending breaks from realist convention, but it also subverts the traditional ending in a post-modern way. For example Billy is a traveller, and his lifestye is one which the audience would normally reject, and then it is glorified as an escape from the estate.
The horse is important as a theme to understand the travellers. Mia's recurring visits to the traveller camp are encouraged by the horse, and when it dies Mia is forced to turn to Billy as the only remaining character who she can trust. The horse is out of place in the urban environment, Mia is drawn to it as it's her link to nature, she tries to set the horse free because her situation and the horse's situation are very much the same. They are both uncomfortable in their environment.
The moment of freedom comes when Mia kidnaps Conor's child, Keira, she runs through the fields near Tilbury and long establishing shots describe the beauty of the natural environment. Despite this the audience knows that the scene will not end well, as Keira has been removed from her natural environment. The shaky camera shots and increasingly louder noise of the wind creates a tension which indicates that equilibrium will soon be restored.

There comes an earlier moment of freedom, when the family go fishing. Conor anchors his position as a patriarchal role model for Mia, he takes her out of the urban environment and we are shown her first experience of nature. His position is later destroyed as his middle-class lifestyle is revealed. Mia comes to hate what he becomes, she reacts to this by attacking Conor's house, weeing on his floor and kidnapping Keira. This attack is made worse by both the jealousy Mia feels for Keira, and her anger at his unfaithfulness.

The audience expects something to emerge from Mia's dancing talent. Initially this was what made me unhappy about the film, it seemed to present dance as a method for escape. Thankfully later on the realism kicks in and the view of dance changes from a means of expression to something dirty and crass, in effect it's another means of exploiting Mia. So she rejects it. This is important because dance forms a large part of youth culture in the film. There's much meaning involved in the clash between Mia's preferred
dance music and Conor's older music. Mia choses to use Conor's music in her audition, so she accepts it as her own.
There's also the scene at the beginning where Mia attacks the other youths dancing as a group. She rejects their form of dance as too sleazy, perhaps she is uncomfortable when dancing in a group.
Lastly it could be argued that Fish Tank doesn't even try to represent or explore youth culture at all, because it only focuses on a small section of society. Rather than holding up a mirror to society it hands us a magnifying glass instead. It does nothing to deliberately exaggerate or even subvert youth culture, it simply ignores the overwhelming majority of young people who don't live near the poverty line in smashed-up 1970s council estates.