Theorist: Judith Butler
Judith Butler is a Professor of Comparative Literature and Rhetoric at the University of California. She is a well known theorist who talks about power, gender, sexuality and identity.
'Performativity' is her theory as to how identities are a performance of day to day life, and that identity is not a fixed state but one which is constantly changing. In her theory it is not so much who we are but what we do, our performance, that defines us
You act differently with your parents compared to your best friend: teachers act differently within class compared to what they would at home. So we have the clear sense of not being just one person, but instead being one person who shows different sides of personalities and performs differently all the time depending on the context and the identities around them.
The media over the years has constructed a stereotypical image of teenagers through the television they watch, in the newspapers they read, in the music listened to - these stereotypical images surround us. Relating to Butler's theory on performance, we can see that the majority of teenagers in this modern world are performing in a way they believe is expected of them; they are performing to societies expectations.
So from this studywe might ask of such events as the 2011 riots: is it all just a performancewith youth acting to the expectations which the public have of British Teenagers?
In a majority of the newspapers covering the riot stories, they featured shocking images entailing teenagers during the riots and the destruction in which they caused. for many, they looked as if there were acting out scenes from 'Kidulthood' or Skins or any other modern youth drama
'Performativity' is her theory as to how identities are a performance of day to day life, and that identity is not a fixed state but one which is constantly changing. In her theory it is not so much who we are but what we do, our performance, that defines us
You act differently with your parents compared to your best friend: teachers act differently within class compared to what they would at home. So we have the clear sense of not being just one person, but instead being one person who shows different sides of personalities and performs differently all the time depending on the context and the identities around them.
The media over the years has constructed a stereotypical image of teenagers through the television they watch, in the newspapers they read, in the music listened to - these stereotypical images surround us. Relating to Butler's theory on performance, we can see that the majority of teenagers in this modern world are performing in a way they believe is expected of them; they are performing to societies expectations.
In a majority of the newspapers covering the riot stories, they featured shocking images entailing teenagers during the riots and the destruction in which they caused. for many, they looked as if there were acting out scenes from 'Kidulthood' or Skins or any other modern youth drama
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