The Inbetweeners Trailers- Deconstruction and Comparison

I have chosen to look at the trailer for series two of the highly acclaimed comedy drama series, ‘The Inbetweeners.’ I’ve chosen this one specifically because it is my favourite out of the three, for a number of reasons, which I am going to highlight in this post.

Firstly, I think the idea of categorising each of the character’s personality in a concise way, i.e ‘the Romantic, the Ladies Man, and the Hero’ is a good one as it gives a short insight into their temperament and endears the viewer to them even if they’ve never watched the show before. I also think the soundtrack plays a big part in making the show appeal to a teenage audience as ‘Teenage Kicks’ comes almost side-by-side with any teenage lifestyle. The trailer also has a certain degree of cheeky, almost childish, slapstick humour in it; such as the shot of Neil falling on his face in the mud and I think this helps in persuading a younger audience to tune in to the series. The trailer uses a variety of camera shots and none in particular is favoured, but a medium close-up is generally used when their written labels, as ‘The Romantic’ or ‘The Genius’ etc, are shown to introduce the characters to the audience.

In my view this trailer depicts young people as having a good sense of humour (shown by the prank played on Simon) and overall the representation of young people is quite a positive one. I think the trailer also tries to relate to the stereotypical teenage peer group by presenting the characters in a certain way, for example you immediately assume that Will is the nerd of the group and Neil is the more “mentally challenged” member of the group.

If you compare the trailers from all three series of ‘The Inbetweeners’, it is clear that the writers have chosen to use the trailers to show the how the characters progress socially as the show goes on. In the first trailer, the characters are actually presented in quite a negative and pessimistic way. This is mainly because the trailer is centered on Will- the main character and narrator of the show; who happens to be quite isolated after his parents split up and his mother moves him from private education into a state school. In addition, Will’s friends are also presented in a slightly negative light; we see Simon jumping on the bonnet of a car, and Neil exposing himself in front of his friends.

However, in the second and third trailers the characters are almost glorified- especially in the third trailer which combines the soundtrack and the use of slow motion shots of the characters walking, to give the impression that they are now iconic, popular members of the school. In particular, Will, who’s proud, smirking expression seems to indicate he has a new found popularity amongst his peers. But of course, in amusing circumstances, he is brought back to his nerdy reality by being hit on the head by a water balloon.