Alfie and An Education questions

1) How typical is Jenny of a British teenager?

In many ways Jenny is a typical portrayal British teenager, she is argumentative and manipulative towards her parents, about certain situations of her life like quitting the youth orchestra and going to Oxford, and other adult authoritative figures such as her teachers. She is interested in getting out of education, travelling the world-mainly France, and growing up or at least to be seen as a grown woman by her peers. She does this by smoking and drinking whatever was put in front of her and with her relationship with David. She uses her relationship with an older man to gain more status from her school peers, it could also be seen as an attempt to rebel against the life both her parents and the school want for her.
Yet Jenny is not a typical portrayal of a British teenager today as she make is very clear that she wants to stay a virgin until she is seventeen whereas these days it is not something that girls, especially, talk about. Also her aspiration to travel to France is not one that is alive today for the same reasons. These day's teenagers want to travel the whole world whereas Jenny's aspirations were to go to the sophisticated land of Paris, these aspirations are also the cause of her seemingly random french outbursts in her conversations. To her is seems normal but teenagers today do not really do that kind of thing but to Jenny is makes her more sophisticated than her peers. Also her asking her teacher for help in getting back into school work would only occur in a small number of teenagers today, and no one would get into a total stranger's car, even one who claims to have a great love of the cello.

2) Draw similarities and comparisons between the Britain you see here and the Britain in Alfie.

There are alot of similarities between the Britain's in 'An Education' and 'Alfie', for example the theme of men and relationships. In both these films the male lead is in charge of the relationship and the idea of male authority over woman is also clear in both films as; Jenny is ordered about by David and her father, and pretty much all of Alfie's woman are under his command at some point. Both these films pick up on the society at this time with the men being the more dominating, Alfie chooses who he wants to see, when, if they will live with him and are they going to do jobs for him, and Jenny's life is decided by either her father or David. The films also picks up on characters wanting to improve their status within society. This is shown by Gilda getting married to Humphrey, and Jenny wanting to go to Oxford and Jenny's father being OK about marriage as David had a high status within society- or so he thought.
These films contrast in the fact that they show different prejudices. In 'Alfie' the idea that Ruby had a younger man on the go whilst seeing Alfie would have been scandalous but as Alfie did the exact same thing there was no sign of social prejudice against him. Whereas in 'An Education' the elements of social prejudice is shown not only against the same kind of thing but it includes comments against Jewish people, black people and other foreigners, like the French.