Top Boy - oh so predictable, but realistic?

I was informed yesterday that as a charity worker aiming to help disadvantaged young people in Hackney I MUST watch the final episode of Channel 4’s Top Boy last night. With no time to catch up on previous episodes I whizzed through the video clips on the C4 website to get up to speed and the first thing that struck me was how much Ra'Nell and Gem, the unfortunate and gullible 13 year old school boys, reminded me of some of the children at the ReachOut! Academy - they looked like them, behaved like them and even talked like them – no one could fault the actors for being unrealistic.

The storyline was fairly predictable for a TV drama (Dushane, a disillusioned 20-something feels his only chance at a decent life is to deal drugs, he takes advantage of vulnerable teenagers, draws them into trouble, deal goes bad and someone gets shot) –that’s just good TV, but I'm not trying to belittle it. The stark reality is that young people in Hackney are exposed to gang culture, violence and drugs on a regular basis through the news, playground and estate gossip, older siblings and perhaps even directly themselves, with the scary effect that they have become desensitized to it all and perhaps even accepted it as just another part of life.

Perhaps for me, the saddest moment of the series was at the start, when Dushane convinces himself that he has no hope of a future that doesn’t involve crime. It echoed comments from some of our ReachOut! kids who often don't expect to do well at school, land a good (or any) job and struggle to see the point of working hard because it won’t change anything anyway; they’ve grown up in Hackney and feel that Hackney is what has determined their identity.

Top Boy should raise the question for all of us – how can we (yes you too) convince our young people that they can break the trends of unemployment and crime and not choose (yes, as they say in Dangerous Minds – you always have a choice) a life where violence and drugs are all too prevalent? What are we doing to help?

Drama and actors aside, Top Boy is a representation of a youth culture that has become famously associated with the area of Hackney. While we need to acknowledge the existence of such a culture, it is crucial that we address it too. Our work at ReachOut! strives to do just that….

Frances Blackwell