How is age represented in the opening sequence of skins?

First the audience see, as the programme starts, is birds eye view which shows Tony's bed. Stereotypically, his duvet indicates he is obsessed with the opposite gender and sex in general as his duvet shows a naked man and woman. Following this extreme example of how age is represented, it is countered by the fact Tony’s room is extremely tidy and neat unlike his friend Sid, who is the opposite, and is a stereotype of a teenager's bedroom. Another example of Tony being a countertype for his age is being awake before his alarm goes off, which shows he is mature. Although Tony has many traits of being mature, he, stereotypically, shows a lack of respect for his father by purposely irritating him.


Tony is shown to be in control of all situations instead of his dad. For example, when he is occupying his dad to allow Effy through the door. The dad could very easily deal with the fact the stereo is broken. This is like their roles have been reversed. Tony is seen to be very mature, however his interest in his female neighbour shows how he is also a stereotypical teenage boy.

To Summarise, Tony is a realistic representation of a teenager as he has many different character traits.

Tony’s dad is shown from the very beginning to be more like a teenager than an adult man, therefore he is a countertype. We realise this through his dialect of shouting at Tony, and also through his immaturity of his language (constant swearing) and his lack of clothes. Although Tony’s dad is obviously a middle-aged man shown by the fact he is out of shape, scruffiness and his level of immaturity which can be seen as stereotypical. Also, in contrast between Tony and his dad, Tony has a much higher level of intelligence compared to his father. Whilst the dad is complaining and banging on the bathroom door, we see Tony sitting on the toilet doing the ‘thinker pose’ reading a philosophy book, which couldn’t be more of a counter type. To conclude, Tony’s father is an unrealistic representation of a middle-aged man due to his dialect and the way he is portrayed through his actions.

Another character we see is clear that Effy is a stereotypical teenage girl as she is seen to be coming home in the morning after a night out. The fact she is 14 shows that she is being rebellious. Her clothing is very unsuitable for a 14 year old to be wearing out due to the lack of modesty in her outfit. She also looks dirty because of her smudged makeup and messy hair. It is clear she has been out all night, not for work, but for, what we assume, partying.

Effy’s bedroom is completely different to her brothers. Whilst Tony’s room is full of light, tidy and well organised, Effy’s is in complete contrast due to the fact it is in almost complete darkness, which promotes the idea of mystery in her character.  There is also a clear juxtaposition of innocence and rebellion of he character due to her ‘night out’ outfit and her school uniform.

To conclude for Effy, she is very stereotypical due to her rebelliousness, which is not that different to Tony because of the mischief he sets upon his dad.

We only see a couple of seconds of Sid, but right away we can see a clear difference between Sid and Tony: one lives in a very untidy room, with plates, cigarette butts and provocative magazines scattered on the floor and the other in an extremely neat room, with what seems like everything that is unnecessary for Tony is not there. Sid is an extreme stereotype of his age because of what we see of his room