Skins is a British program series, targeting a youth audience which premiered on E4 in January of 2007. Trainspotting is a movie, directed by well renouned Danny Boyle which released eleven years earlier. Even though they are two different forms of media, one being a television series and the other being a movie, both are similar and very contreversial with a similar ideology and audience. Both products are about youth in Britain and the life they lead, portraying youth very negatively. The two products are similar but also have differences which may be due to the different times that they were made.
Both Skins and Trainspotting represent youth in Britain as doing a lot of drugs. In Skins, the teenagers are seen casually doing a range of drugs from smoking weed at school, to doing amphetamines at raves. The characters in Trainspotting however take much harder drugs, mainly heroin and on a much more frequent basis, scoring as much as possible, putting their whole life into getting their next "hit". Drugs are a big part in both productions, however they are one of the main themes in Trainspotting, making the representation of youths worse in the 1990's which was when Trainspotting was set. However, this more frequent use of harder drugs may be more specific to region, as Trainspotting is set in Scottland, whereas Skins is set in a more whealthy area of England where heroin is not as commonly used.
Another similarity between the too productions is the representation that youth have no hope. In a scene at the beginning of trainspotting, Renton is helping Spud before a job interview, making sure he doesn't get the job so that he can claim unemployment money. Similarly, in Skins, the teenagers are shown not going to college much and skipping lessons to go and do drugs and other illegal activieties. The youth in both, are shown as not having any hope or future, and worst of all, not caring that they don't have a future.
Even though Skins and Trainspotting have a lot of similarities, there are some differences which may be due to the time difference between the two productions. For instance I think that the representation of friendship is very difference. In Skins the frienship group is shown to fall out a lot but then make up. This is one of the only positive representations in Skins of Youth; that friendship is valued. Whereas in Trainspotting the group are not portrayed as being friends, but more of a group of people they help each other get high. Renton, the main character, frequently says how he doesnt like members of the group, and even steals a lot of money from them which they made through a drug deal.
Both represent that youths have a miserable outlook on life, however in Trainspotting, the main character, Renton, is much more phillisophical about how depressing life is. For example, Renton's speech at the beginning sequence shows his depressing outlook on life about how society wants you to be and how he is far from it. But in Skins, the characters are not portrayed to think much, but are just depressed, taking a lot of drugs to ease the pain, making them seem less intelligent.
Another difference would be that there seems to be a vast gap in wealth between the two products. This is due to the different locations; Edinburgh has a much higher level of poverty than Southern England, the location of Skins. The gap in time between the two may be a reason for this also as the economy has dramatically changed in the 11 years separating the two.
Overall, the two products, the contemporary Skins and Trainspotting of the 90's, are relatively similar; both portraying youth as doing a lot of drugs, not caring about anything and having no hope in life. However friendship is portrayed in a more positive way in the contemporary product, which might show a realisation of the value of friendship to modern-day youth. The older product, Trainspotting does show youth of being more phillosophical about their depressing outlook on life, making modern day youths seem less intelligent. Both represent Youth in a very negative way, despite the time gap in production.
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