The Representation of the Working Class in the Films Brassed Off and The Full Monty E-Book

Alena Friedrich

• Herausgeber: GRIN Verlag
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2003

Beschreibung

Seminar paper from the year 2003 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Culture and Applied Geography, grade: 1,7 (A-), University of Leipzig (Anglistics), course: Screening Britain: British History and Society in Recent Films, language: English, abstract: Ziel dieser Arbeit ist es, die Darstellung der britischen Arbeiterklasse in den beiden Filmen 'Brassed Off' (Mark Herman, 1996) und 'The Full Monty' (Peter Cattaneo, 1997) zu analysieren. Insbesondere soll dabei auf die sozio-ökonomische Situation der Charaktere, deren soziale Beziehungen untereinander, den 'Working Class Pride and Traditionalism', die männliche Identifikation der Figuren und ihre regionale Verwurzelung eingegangen werden. Die zentralen Fragen, die sich dahingehend stellen, sind: Wie werden diese Aspekte in den Filmen dargestellt? Und inwiefern werden sie stereotypisiert dargestellt? Diese Arbeit beruht auf der Annahme, dass die meisten Stereotype auf das traditionelle Bild der 'working class' des beginnenden 20. Jahrhunderts zurückgreifen. Aus diesem Grund wird diese Ära und ihr Einfluss auf das Leben der Arbeiter näher betrachtet, um dann Rückschlüsse auf die Repräsentation der Arbeiterklasse in 'Brassed Off' und 'The Full Monty' ziehen zu können. This essay, which is going to analyse the representation of class in 'Brassed Off' and 'The Full Monty', will particularly focus on the typicality of the representations. It will analyse the characters' socio-economic situation, their social bonds, the 'working class pride and traditionalism', the workers' male identity and their regional identity. The central question will be, in which ways the films can be seen as "typical" working class motion pictures. In this respect, the stereotyping of the social classes in these two films will particularly be focused on. This essay is based on the assumption that most stereotypes refer back to the traditional image of the working class as it existed at the beginning of the 20th century. In this context, it shall be analysed if the makers of 'Brassed Off' and 'The Full Monty' also used such stereotypes to produce an image of "the good old working class". In order to gain an understanding of these working class stereotypes, the first chapter of this paper will deal with the "old" working class as it existed at the turn of the 20th century and its main characteristics.

Leseprobe

Table of Content

1. The "Old" Working Class

2. The "New" Working Class

3. Summary

1. The Characters' Socio-Economic Situation

2. The Social Bonds

3. Working class Pride and Traditionalism

4. The Workers' Male Identity

Page 1

Universität Leipzig

Institut für Anglistik

Hauptseminar

Screening Britain: British History and Society in Recent Films

Wintersemester 2002/2003

The Representation of the Working

Class in the FilmsBrassed Off

andThe Full Monty

Eingereicht am: 05.01.2003

Page 3

Introduction

Social class has always been a basic topic of British film-makers. Especially the New Wave films of the 1950s and 1960s represented class, and particularly the working class, as one of their main issues. At a time of increasing consumerism, Americanisation, commercialisation and growing affluence the lower ranks of society feared a demise of their class identity, as they were traditionally associated with a lower socio-economic status (Hill 2000a: 178; Eley 1995: 19). Later, in the 1980s, Margaret Thatcher's politics of de-industrialisation and individualism destroyed not only a huge part of the workers' traditional working places and, thus, of their social basis, but also of their class identity (Eley 1995: 40; Monk 2000: 275). Now the stress of the films' narrative lay on the social effects of mass unemployment and poverty rather than on the consequences of growing working class affluence andembourgoisement(Hill 2000a: 178). As the socio-economic effects of Thatcherism were still noticeable in the 1990s, that decade's films' narrative was also centred around unemployment and social disadvantage of the lower classes. Two of these films which focus on the lives of working class people in the 1990s areBrassed Off(Mark Herman, 1996) andThe Full Monty(Peter Cattaneo, 1997). Both films take unemployment in traditional working class industries and its social and psychic effects on the people involved as their themes. The main focus of these motion pictures is on working class people and their way to manage their lives without work and financial means.

In this respect, it is particularly interesting to analyse the representations of class, and especially of the working class, in these two films. As films always convey certain ideas and images, and, thus, re-presentations of the "real world", it is of particular significance to filter out these recorded images to understand what 'sense of the world' (Cooke 1996: 298-9) the film is making, i.e. how the film-maker interprets and presents the "world outside" to the viewer. According to Richard Dyer (quoted in Cooke 1996: 299), four different aspects of representation can be considered: First, theconceptof representation, i.e. the sense of the world the film is making, second, thetypicalityof the representations, i.e. the question of what the film considers to be typical in society, third, theproducersof the representations, i.e.