OCR GCSE Media Studies

Pleasures in The Inbetweeners

From The Inbetweeners, Series 1, Episodes 1, 2 and 3

 

Pleasure 1: Identification with teenage life (akin to observational comedy)

• Theme song – Gone Up in Flames by Morning Runner – Indie genre, typical of British music scene – links to target audience. Sets tone of teenage life.

• “school nutter”

• Urinal / cubicle embarrassment (photos)

• The new kids or as they’re otherwise known: “the freaks”

• Mr Gilbert – the sarcastic teacher but with the unfamiliar, exaggerated inappropriateness

• Being the new kid, First day at school – I’m Will, shaking hands attempt with class 6b

• Trying to fit in – mocks Gilbert but Gilbert is behind him – “That Gilbert, what a tosser!"

• Simon having to put up with looking after the ‘new kid’

• Gilbert, the gloomy, pessimistic headmaster: "Life isn’t fair."

• Fancying a girl who is ‘out of your league’

• Slang terms: boner, hard on, stalk, spunk, tits, fit girl

• Bullying

• Mocking each other’s deficiencies

• Fit girls always getting served in pubs/bars

• Borrowing money from your parents

  • All four of them need to ask to borrow £20, in very different ways:

    • Jay absurdly polite given how rude he usually is

    • Will frank - typical of his honest, quite mature relationship with his mum

    • Neil stupidly honestt. Neil's dad: "Promise me you won't spend it on the fruit machine" to which Neil replies, "I can't do that."

    • Simon asks grumpily having just got bizarrely angry at mum’s comments on his hair

• Trying to get served: Jay tries to act grown-up and cool: “Alright, bruv.”

• Shortfalls of ID – Jay has to pretend he’s Australian: "G'day, mate."

• Staring at girls

• Acting like an adult to get served in off license - Will wearing dad's suit and ridiculous hat

• Parents getting angry when catching them up to no good: "What the hell is going on?"

• Annoying smarter brother - Simon: “That’s a hattrick: f@ck off!” “F@ck, sh!t!”

• Catchphrases and nicknames built around derogatory epithets (labels/terms for each other)

  • ooh, friend, ooh briefcase

  • Wanker, Boner, Bumder

 

Pleasure 2: Narrative – traditional 5-part structure

 

The following is a traditional narrative structure. Think about how it applies to the show.

• Equilibrium: the boys just going about their business being teenage boys – another day at school, a trip to the park to play Frisbee

• Disruption of the equilibrium: usually there is some goal the boys wish to achieve, usually to prove themselves: they want to go the first day of school pub night, but the arrival of the geek Will threatens their chances of this

• Recognition of the disruption: this usually takes the form of the boys recognizing that they are losers – e.g. they realize they’re in the wrong pub, they have had to order food in order to get served…

• Attempt to repair the disruption: they make one last attempt at achieving the status of ‘cool’ – they go to the right pub and try and get served, Simon attempts to ‘seduce’ Carly (but throws up on her and her brother)

• Resolution: the equilibrium is restored: amusingly, in The Inbetweeners, the resolution is often negative. Equilibrium has usually been restored but it is an equilibrium of the boys being back to what they were: a bunch of losers! Simon has thrown up and made a fool of himself in front of Carly, Will has completely blown the pub night having told the barman that everyone in there is under-aged.

 

Having the above structure in most episodes means that there is a pleasure of originality within repetition – i.e. a different story each episode but told within the same structure.

 

More details narrative points (try and fit the events with the structure outlined above):

Episode 1

• Set-up – Gilbert introduces the first day of term drink down the pub, makes point of it being illegal.

• Then they discuss the goal, taking note of the hurdles to achieving their quest. The age (Jay’s licencse – he fails, only works for him), needing money (borrowing from parents – Neil fails, goes straight for fruit machine and loses his £10), the need to avoid embarrassing themselves (especially Simon because of Carli – fails because of Tom, the older boyfriend who can drive), the need to fit in (Will, sort of succeeds, using his redeeming quality: his intelligence)

• The plan: we go in, buy some drinks and wait for the girls to form a queue

• The obstacle – wrong pub (Neil’s fault) – The Black Bull instead of The Black Horse

• Finally they get there and then Will blows it, getting so stressed that he reveals how everyone is underage – so not only fails to win friends but further cements his lack of friends

• Rubbed in by the school pyscho and mum’s ironic response of “I’m glad you’re making friends”

• Ends with failure – at least things can only get better, or stay the same – or they could get worse

• Task/goal – plan – problems with the plan – failure but sort of success

 

Episode 2

• Plan: bunk off

• First hurdle: lying to parents

• Second hurdle: lying to school

• Third: dress

• Again falls to Will – as did getting served in episode 1

• Will blows it again, self-destructing as he shouts abuse at Neil’s dad

• This develops his respect (“bumder”)

• Subplot of Carli and Simon: tells Carli he loves her

• Obstacle: he’s drunk, we’re pretty sure she doesn’t like him

• Fails: is sick

• Caught by parents (like they were ultimately caught by Gilbert)

• Snowballing:

• Makes things worse – with paedophile doll joke

• Then Will suggests they are alcoholics

• Ultimately, like Eipsode 1, it really doesn’t matter. Gilbert made a joke out of it before just getting a pint himself and their parents ended up laughing at how “pathetic they are”

• Both episodes have a twist though: they get in trouble at the very end for fraud

• All’s well that end’s well – hang on, this didn’t even end well compares with the or it could just get worse ending of episode 1.

 

Episode 3:

• The attempt to have a fun – and cool – day out at theme park

• Simon’s car lacks any trace of street cred

• Will loses it again at the theme park ride – only to discover he has been ranting against mentally disabled people

 

Pleasure 3: Dry humour, irony and use of punchlines:

• Polio joke: Will: “But they say what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger… Except polio.”

• Will: “I know I’m social death to hang around, but I didn’t think they’d work it out so quick”

• Mum’s unintentionally ironic comment about him making friends when he says he met the school pyscho

• Will’s final comment of getting better, staying the same – or it could get worse.

• Dramatic irony of audience seeing the name of the pub (telling us they’re in the wrong place) before the boys work it out (episode 1)

• Dramatic irony of seeing Mr Gilbert making phonecalls and seeing Neil’s dad come home before they realize (episode 2)

 

Pleasure 4: Recognizable characters:

• Gilbert - typical moody, sarcastic teacher

• The ‘hot girl’ - Carly

• The dumb one – Neil – doesn’t get the point of fake ID

• The foul-mouthed, crude,  pseudo-intelligent, pseudo-experienced one – Jay

• The attractive, normal one – Simon

• The nerdy one – Will

• The school nutter, Donovan – “I will get you”

 

Pleasure 5: Transgressive humour (everyone's favourite)

• Swearing: all within first five minutes: tosser, wanker, suck the headmaster’s balls, gay, d!ckhead, spacka badge, sh!t, shagging, bollocks, bullsh!t, f@#ked, porking vag, cock, f#ck off – after 5 mins: posh twat, hard on, stalk

• Under-age drinking

• Masturbation

• Erection embarrassment

• Would you f@#k your mum?

• You fancy 8 year olds

• Hitting disabled person with Frisbee

• Homosexuality – bender

• Fitness of Will’s mum

• “Gypo”

• Throwing up – on a child

• Telling a 7-year-old about terrorism

• Pedophilia