'Skins'- Naomi Campbell

The UK TV show ‘Skins’ portrays many different teenage female characters with different representations and one of the more notable is the character Naomi Campbell. Naomi is represented as an idealist teen and is both passionate and political.

She is often always talking about how she wants the world to be a ‘better place’ with equality and freedom, etc. She is quite witty and independent as well as being very opinionated. The TV series stresses her independence as a teenager living on her own in the UK, drinking and partying whenever she desires and attending school at her own free will. Throughout the series we see a lot of character growth with all the characters and with Naomi particularly it becomes clear that she ‘puts on a front’ by always being the tough, strong-minded young woman and is in fact ‘afraid of being close to others’ at the risk of being hurt. The series also reveals Naomi’s true character by showing her insecurities and confusion mainly about her sexual orientation and whether she is in love with one of her best friends, Emily Fitch or her other friend, James Cook.

The character of Naomi is somewhat of a counter-stereotype as at the time that this show was made, the idealistic teenage girl who is also interested in politics and opinionated, strong-willed, etc was not a common character in the media. I believe, however, that women characters more often portray the common ‘idealist character’ and the ‘realist character’ is usually a male character. So although Naomi is not a stereotypical character it is still a representation that is quite common in the media, mainly film and television.

This is a representation that I believe has been formed by the media through mediums like film and television and is more common now days then in previous years. The politically passionate aspect of Naomi’s character representation is particularly recent with women being able to vote equally with men in the late 1920’s and most teenage men and women in the 2000s especially now are more interested in politics than past generations.