Essay- This Is England

This Is England This Is England is set back in 1983 and is about a young boy growing up in England but is going through a very rough time. On his way home back from school after a fight one day, the young boy comes across a group of people. They soon become really good friends but even more like family to him. Within this film British Youth Culture has been represented in many ways. We can see that a range of different ages have been used within this age and as an example we can see that due to one of the characters being extremely young it shows that British crime is something that is started young and once started it becomes a way of life. For example, things such as swearing and fighting. British people are also known to be as ‘chavs.’ A typical ‘chav’ is seen to be someone that fights, wears tracksuits, has a skinhead etc. We can see that this is therefore shown within this film, this can be seen as a typical British person. British people are also known to have an accent, there are always use a lot of slang. The settings that have been used within this film are typical place that chavs would hang out, alley ways, cars, isolated places that nobody would catch them. The characters that have been used are also actors that have never been recognised this helps the audience focus on the characters rather than be influenced by a famous actor’s stereotype. This is purely because if a famous actor was used the audience would look at both them and the film in completely different way. Tafjal & Turner: “Multiple Social Identities” As we can see in This Is England when we are looking at the friendship groups although some aspects are the same they all seem to have their own individual identities. We can see this simply through the way everyone is dressed. They all seem to have a certain interest in different clothes. Some individuals fit in with the usual stereotype of being British, which is dressing like a chav, but not everyone follows this trend. Sheldon Stryker: “Influenced from the people you hang around with” During this film we witness a lot of people that would be known as ‘Skinheads.’ We soon see due to the young lad within this film hanging around with a certain set of people he soon ends up living the same way of life as them. He also becomes a ‘skinhead’, dresses the same way, picks up their attitude just so he can therefore fit in with the crowd. Therefore it almost looks as though the identity of one person is being shared due to people following and wanting to be like the leader. Mikhali Bakhtin: “People Change” Again, at the start of the film we witness the young boy is getting bullied by a group of people within school and he has had enough. This therefore leads to a change as he simply learns how to start standing up for himself. This simply shows that identity can be changed quite easily within the way you act, dress etc. Identities tend to change due to things such as social groups, for example, the young boys identity changed as soon as he started hanging around with a different social group. Something having an impact on you can also cause an identity to change, like when the young boy was being bullied this caused him to change. Bakhtin’s quote is also very similar to Stryker, I personally think people changing and being influenced by other link together due to people changing under the influence of others. David Gauntlett: 1st Quote: “Having identity is a known requirement.” “Everyone wants to live their own life but this is at the same time an experimental life.” 2nd Quote: “Today you’re told to be yourself yet you’re influenced to try and fit in” (This leads to experimenting.) These quotes are simply saying that in life nobody ever seems to have a set identity, everyone seems to experiment and try new things until a certain style fits them best. For example, things will come in and out of fashion and if someone takes a liking to it they will experiment with it. Again everyone wants to be their own person yet they’re more bothered about following the crowd just to fit in. As we can see in the film the young boy seems to change everything about himself just to fit in with his new group of friends. His hair, personality, the way he dresses etc. This therefore means he has therefore changed his whole identity. Doing further research into this film I found out information about what happened at the box office. Here’s what I found out: Budget: £1,500,000 (estimated) Opening Weekend: $18,430 (USA, 27 July 2007) Gross: $327,919 (USA) (16 November 2007) I then went further to look at the critics review and over all from the reviews that I had read This Is England had made a huge impact due to it being said that it is ‘insightful and informative on the British way of life.’ This is telling us that this is how the public eye therefore sees the youth of Britain.