Theorist: Judith Butler

Judith Butler is a Professor of Comparative Literature and Rhetoric at the University of California. She is a well known theorist who talks about power, gender, sexuality and identity. 


I am going to study the theory concept she has of 'Performativity' and how identities are a performance which includes day to day life, and how identity is a fixed state in which is constantly changing, and flowing. So it's not about who you are its about what you do and how you perform.


For example every day is a performance - you act differently with your parents compared to your best friend: teachers act differently within class compared to what they would at home. So its that sense of not being just one person, but instead being one person who shows different sides of personalities and performs differently all the time depending on the surrounding and the identities around them. 


 The media over the years has constructed a stereotypical image of teenagers through the television we watch, in the newspapers we read, in the music we listen to, these stereotypical images are surrounding us. Relating to Butler's theory on performance, we can see that the majority of teenagers in this modern world are performing in a way they believe is expected of them; they are performing to societies expectations. 

So from this study it makes me think specifically to our case study of the Riots in 2011 and it makes me question is it all just a performance and are they just acting up to the expectations which the public have of British Teenagers? 
In a majority of the newspapers covering the riot stories, they featured shocking images entailing teenagers during the riots and the destruction in which they caused. They looked as if there were acting out scenes from 'Kidulthood'.