Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Notes on the Contributors
- 1 Introduction: Shane's World
- 2 Structure and Agency: Shane Meadows and the New Regional Production Sectors
- 3 Twenty-first-Century Social Realism: Shane Meadows and New British Realism
- 4 ‘Al fresco? That's up yer anus, innit?’ Shane Meadows and the Politics of Abjection
- 5 No More Heroes: The Politics of Marginality and Disenchantment in TwentyFourSeven and This is England
- 6 ‘Now I'm the monster’: Remembering, Repeating and Working Through in Dead Man's Shoes and TwentyFourSeven
- 7 ‘An object of indecipherable bastardry – a true monster’: Homosociality, Homoeroticism and Generic Hybridity in Dead Man's Shoes
- 8 A Message to You, Maggie: 1980s Skinhead Subculture and Music in This is England
- 9 Changing Spaces of ‘Englishness’: Psychogeography and Spatial Practices in This is England and Somers Town
- 10 ‘Shane, don't film this bit’: Comedy and Performance in Le Donk and Scor-zay-zee
- 11 ‘Them over there’: Motherhood and Marginality in Shane Meadows' Films
- 12 ‘What do you think makes a bad dad?’ Shane Meadows and Fatherhood
- 13 Is This England '86 and '88? Memory, Haunting and Return through Television Seriality
- 14 After Laughter Comes Tears: Passion and Redemption in This is England '88
- Index
5 - No More Heroes: The Politics of Marginality and Disenchantment in TwentyFourSeven and This is England
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 October 2013
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Notes on the Contributors
- 1 Introduction: Shane's World
- 2 Structure and Agency: Shane Meadows and the New Regional Production Sectors
- 3 Twenty-first-Century Social Realism: Shane Meadows and New British Realism
- 4 ‘Al fresco? That's up yer anus, innit?’ Shane Meadows and the Politics of Abjection
- 5 No More Heroes: The Politics of Marginality and Disenchantment in TwentyFourSeven and This is England
- 6 ‘Now I'm the monster’: Remembering, Repeating and Working Through in Dead Man's Shoes and TwentyFourSeven
- 7 ‘An object of indecipherable bastardry – a true monster’: Homosociality, Homoeroticism and Generic Hybridity in Dead Man's Shoes
- 8 A Message to You, Maggie: 1980s Skinhead Subculture and Music in This is England
- 9 Changing Spaces of ‘Englishness’: Psychogeography and Spatial Practices in This is England and Somers Town
- 10 ‘Shane, don't film this bit’: Comedy and Performance in Le Donk and Scor-zay-zee
- 11 ‘Them over there’: Motherhood and Marginality in Shane Meadows' Films
- 12 ‘What do you think makes a bad dad?’ Shane Meadows and Fatherhood
- 13 Is This England '86 and '88? Memory, Haunting and Return through Television Seriality
- 14 After Laughter Comes Tears: Passion and Redemption in This is England '88
- Index
Summary
In an interview in Indie London (2006), Shane Meadows referred to This is England as ‘probably the closest thing I'll ever make to a political film’. In this chapter I argue that both This is England (2006) and his late-'90s debut feature TwentyFourSeven (1997) speak to the political Zeitgeist of time and place. TwentyFourSeven does not engage with political themes in an overt way, and, indeed, the youths who occupy the world of the film are entirely disengaged from mainstream politics. However, it does not follow that it is a non-political film. As Martin Fradley observes: ‘although never directly mentioned, the spectre of Thatcherism haunts every frame of Twenty Four Seven (Fradley 2013). In This is England the story centres on the main protagonist's brush with the extremist fringe of British politics. This preoccupation with the margins of British political life has everything to do with the marginality of the social group who are the main focus of Meadows' work: young, working-class men/youths in the forgotten towns of England's former industrial heartlands (Fradley 2010).
I further argue that in both films, political themes are also explored in a more subtle way. Both films are infused with a deep sense of disenchantment with politics. Instead, the protagonists look to charismatic local heroes to infuse their lives with a sense of meaning – something to believe in – and invest a collective sense of pride in their communities at a time when ‘everybody thought the working class was fucked’ (Meadows quoted in Indie London 2006). But ultimately, those heroes disappoint.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Shane MeadowsCritical Essays, pp. 68 - 82Publisher: Edinburgh University PressPrint publication year: 2013