How Hollyoaks Reflects Teenagers.

Hollyoaks is a long-running British TV Drama. It set in a fictional suburb of Chester called Hollyoaks; the cast is mainly featured of people aged between 16 and 35. It had developed a fan base and has been credited as a vibrant, modern and young person's soap. The programme centralizes around real life story-lines. Some of these story-lines are drug addiction, murder, arson, homosexuality, bullying, homophobia and many more. As you can see, Hollyoaks has a diverse range of topics. I have chosen this particular programme as it includes the teenage group and reveals situations which most teenagers go through. It opens the eyes to the audience of the programme, as some people may not realise that some of these things are actually happening.

The Hollyoaks 'Logo' is a red colour, we can connote that this programme is filled with danger, passion, anger and many more. The colours in the background are interweaved with blue (boy colour, matches with the male sign), pink (girls, matches with the female sign) and purple (possibly to represent the different people within the show). Also, there sparkly dots scattered around to show that the show has a playful edge to it.  Normally, this would appear after the theme tune, if the storyline is of the norm.


However, when there is a hard hitting topic, this background will be used. It is very different to the original background colour. The colour of the font,  is a misty, ghostly colour which could connote to the fact that something out of the ordinary may happen. Also, the background is black, which suggests that the topic will be dark, scary, mysterious and hard hitting. The reason they do this, is to portray are more serious and life changing topic. By doing this, it becomes more memorable due to the change in colour. You can probably feel a more sympathetic, frightening and dark feeling when you see this colour. It is completely opposite to the first picture. The illumination around 'Hollyoaks' suggests that something memorable will happen in this episode or within the week.

This picture is from an episode where there was a party at the local club. This shows the stereotypical representation of the fact that teenagers go out drinking and get drunk. This picture is just a typical party, with people in the background gathering around the bar looking at the girl with amusement on their faces. They are probably laughing at her. The people in the background look older, so they might be laughing at how young she is.

You can see that the girl with the American hat on, is being sick due to the intoxication of alcohol. The facial expressions on the peoples faces shows the different kind of people in the youth society nowadays. The one in the orange shirt, has an 'oooo' expression, as if he's laughing at her and taking the mick. His costume, compared to the other two boys is more messier. His shirt is untucked and he is wearing informal clothes. This could connote to him building a rebellious and troublemaker character. The other two seem more sympathetic towards the girl being sick as we can tell from their body language. The overall costumes are that of which teenagers would wear, a shirt and jeans for the male and a tight/short dress for the female.
The lighting is mainly focused on the people in the foreground. This is to highlight the stereotypical views that society has on teenagers. All of the stereotypes' that society has on teenagers are all being put to play here, representing teenagers and our view on them.

Hollyoaks just shows that although, the teenagers (like in the picture above) may go out and be rebellious and troublemaking, they all have a problem at home to go back to; once all the partying is put to bed. Hollyoaks shows how the bullying, racism, homophobia will all be a root from. That's the reason why I have chosen this show as it represents all of the above.