Chavs

CHAVS

Chav is a stereotype and negative description commonly used, mainly in the UK. The stereotype was popularised in the Britian to refer to working-class youth subculture in England.

They are known to wear sportswear such as Adidas, and designer clothes such as Burberry. They usually wear various bits of gold jewellery, hats and hoodies.

CHAVS

STEREOTYPES

Shows a group of young boys wearing hoodies covering there faces and making hand gestures. seeing this group could be quite threatening and would be avoidedby most people.

Shows young girls wearing different bits of sportswear and jewellery, making hand gestures and holding bottles of alcohol.

1990 – 1999. The nineties saw the chav epidemic reach massive proportions. Clothing made by fashion brands such as Naf Naf and Eclipse, Footwear was made by Reebok, British Knights and LA gear.

When chavs came about in the 90’s people started going to clubs more as it became a big business. These clubs became a hang out area for chavs and drinking became popular. However getting drunk was a new thing for them so the effects such as violence occurred on a regular basis and saw them getting banned from clubs. This led to them hanging on the streets, outside of shops, bustops and take away places.

WHEN ‘CHAVS’ FIRST CAME ABOUT

Articles in the Sun and Daily Mirror from the 1980s about the riots taking place in the UK.

These articles focused on the riots in Brixton which started as a confrontation between the Metropolitan Police and protesters in Lambeth, South London.

And in Tottenham where tension between local youths and Metropolitan Police was already high due to a combination of local issues and the aftermath of the riot in the Brixton.

The people involved in the riots were youths and young adults that were seen as rebellious, rude and disrespectful.

RIOTS 80’S

In august 2011 a protest in Tottenham, following the death of Mark Duggan, who was shot dead by police turned into one of the biggest riots England has ever seen and travelled to Hackney, Brixton, Ealing East Ham and various other places which had no relevance to the fi rst riot but was just an event for young people to cause trouble, act violent and commit crimes such as vandalism and theft.

After these riots the media focused on the people involved who were mainly working class male ‘chavs’ and the police worked on arresting people involved.

These riots were the main stories for newspapers, magazines and news broadcasts.

The Sun called the scenes shameful and said our reputation is being damaged and it presents a serious threat to life and property. The Guardian ‘the worst disturbance of their kind since the 1981 Brixton riots’

RIOTS

An example of representation of chavs in the media is British drama fi lm Kidulthood.

Produced by Damian JonesKidulthood is about the life of several teenagers in inner

West London. Characters behave in a violent and lawless manner,they are portrayed as being reckless and antisocial young chavs who commit crimes such as theft, drug dealing and talk in the ‘chav accent’ http://youtu.be/Xo031kByArA

KIDULTHOOD

SIMILARITIES AND CHANGES

Still dress, act and talk in the same way.View of chavs is still seen as negative and not shown

in a good way.They have seen to become more violent, lawless,

rude and disrespectful over the years.Number of crimes committed by chavs has risen.Mentioned in the media even more than in the past.