This is England

I am picking ‘This is England’ as my contemporary media text, this is because it is based around a lot of issues such as British youth culture which I already know quite a bit about, the film has also gained critical acclaim and has won 3 awards and has had 5 nominations for awards.

In my media coursework I will be looking at how youth culture is represented in the media and in ‘This is England’ as a focus point. I will be evaluating how the media saw youth culture in the 1980s (mods, skinheads, rude bois etc) and how it represents contemporary youth culture (chavs, skaters etc). There is also the aspect of how ‘This is England’ shows youth culture as being important (in the scene where Shaun is at school with all the kids in non-school uniform).

Skinhead representation is also a key aspect and I will be looking at how skinheads are portrayed in the past, from 1960s (original skins) to 1980s (skinhead revival), focusing on skinhead representation in the 1980s, as this is more relevant to the film. Another factor is looking at present day skinhead representation in the media, showing the general perception of skinheads by the public today. This will mean I’ll be looking at allegations of racism and their majority support for the National Front and see how this affects their portrayal in the media.

Racism crops up in ‘This is England’ quite a lot throughout the second half of the film, this shows that skinheads are perceived to be racist thugs. I’ll be looking at how racism is shown in the media, showing what sort of person usually commits these crimes in broadcast fiction. There is also the factor of how ‘This is England’ portrays racism.

‘This is England’ presents skinheads in a negative and a positive light, I will investigate why Shane Meadows has done this and highlight how he perceived the film to show Skinhead culture. Half way through the film there is a split between the gang when racist ex-gang leader Combo comes out of prison; I will look at how this gang split represents the skinhead movement and look at S.H.A.R.P (SkinHeads Against Racial Prejudice). Within skinhead culture there are a lot of intertwining links between Black culture, through music such as Reggae and Ska music, This will be interesting to look at how this aspect of semi-black culture is explored in the film.