The representation of gendered roles within British cinema has changed drastically due to both the fight for women’s liberation and sexual freedoms. This however is contradicted by the adoption of the neoliberal doctrine since the Thatcher era. This was both an economic and ideological drive towards individual self-interest over that of working class solidarity. This essay will look at how the social and current economic context of British society has affected the film industry’s depiction of male and female identities. The analysis of key contemporary British films will assist in determining whether or not they can be considered progressive or reactionary to gender equality.
The fight for women’s liberation from the 1960s challenged the dominant ideas on traditional gendered roles. In the Women’s Liberation Movement they had gained particular achievements such as “equal pay legislation, abortion rights, greater rights to divorce, expanding of employment and education opportunities, and the right to political expression” (Orr, 2010, p33). The issue with this is Claire Monk argues in her article Men in the 90s is that “Thatcherism collided with the gains of feminism” which led the British film industry to produce “a strand of male-focused films whose gender politics were more masculinist than feminist” (Monk, 2000, p2). One particular example of this was the rise of the ‘new lad’ by marketing initiatives and the launch of magazines such as Loaded in 1994 that gave even more rise to new waves of misogyny, homophobia and sexism. Monk argues that “at best, the new lad stood for a humorous, hedonistic and above all regressive escape from the demands of maturity – and women” (2000, p7). The tendency for an escape from women can be found in the new wave Gangster films in Britain in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
One particular film that both marked the return of the Gangster film and the application of the new lad as a character trait is Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998) directed by Guy Richie. The story is situated around a group of male working class or ‘underclass’ individuals who try to raise their own economic circumstances through a gambling venture. When this venture fails the ‘lads’ are indebted to the local loan shark Harry ‘The Hatchet’ and have to group together to come up with the money to pay him off. Steve Chibnall argues in Britain’s Funk Soul Brothers that “Richie’s idea of the chosen family embraces the playful competitiveness that he accepts as vital to male solidarity. ‘You either sink or swim in this atmosphere’, he maintains” (2001, p41). There are many problems with this argument; the main one being that solidarity is predominantly a working class tradition showing respect and mutuality across oppressed groups. The term solidarity is not compatible with competitiveness and its restriction to a male grouping creates divisions within the working class, contradicting the very meaning of solidarity. In traditional terms of solidarity, the working class who start to “sink” are supported by those still “swimming” and are not pushed down by them. The “sink or swim” attitude of Richie seems to relate more to an approval of neoliberal individualism whereby only the strongest (male) and most competitive survive. There are contradictions with Richie’s “sink or swim” world in the film, as he seems to mock their attempts to survive and glorifies in their ‘antics’, always keeping the money and stability just out of reach. Indeed this portrayal of the working class as homosocial, competitive but helpless seems to suggest more about Richie’s own prejudices and also the prejudices of Chibnal for vehemently defending him.
Another Chibnal’s arguments on the film is that “prosaic reality is joyfully jettisoned in favour of a poetic use of vernacular idioms and mise-en-scene, and a celebration of a masculinity that is intentionally faux” (Chibnal, 2001, p41). The film might contain elements that mock misogynism but even if it is parodic, the ‘faux’ misogynism in the film still perpetuates dominate prejudices by the multitude of meanings that they can signify. Even with this taken into account, Vinnie Jone’s character Big Chris does not fit Chibnal’s critical narrative. In one scene Big Chris purposely crashes into another car on purpose to free his son Little Chris from the knife-wielding gangster Diamond Dog. A static bird’s eye view shows Big Chris pulling Diamond Dog out of the car before switching to a shot from Dog’s perspective. This shows slowed down images of Big Chris and slamming Dog’s head in the door repeatedly with a dramatic soundtrack that does not fit the film’s humorous tone. The focus on Big Chris’ masculinity, his very limited “chosen family” with just his son and lack of no mother can portray a desire for gaining back patriarchal control whereby the women literally have no place. This also has relations to the false ideologies of neoliberalism, such as meritocracy whereby Big Chris (the worker) who has stayed loyal and worked hard gets to inherit the rewards of wealth and success. The ‘new lads’ are left in limbo, it seems from Richie’s perspective, they were too immature, did not work hard and certainly weren’t masculine enough to take on Big Chris or takeover Harry’s business.
Harry Brown (2010) is another film that shows a similar conflict between alternating masculine identities. Monk argues that “the ambiguous or contradictory images of men in many 1990s British films can be read as a strategy of commercial and political pragmatism intended to multiply and maximise audience appeal rather than as mere incoherence” (Monk, 2000, p2). In this film it not only portrays the old fearing and enacting revenge over the young, but also a general fear of the underclass collective. The underclass male youths within the film are depicted as sexist and violent with one grabbing the throat of a young woman whilst kissing. It would be easy to assert that this film is a critique of ‘new laddism’ as sexually perverse and violent which therefore validates Harry’s (played by Gangster veteran Michael Caine) vengeance over his friend’s murder. There is however, something much more complicated here as the film tries to appear liberal in its use of a female character as a leading detective. Instead Harry is continuingly saving women within the film from harm, evening saving a drugged up young woman from two drug/arms dealers. This shows a tendency to adhere to old concepts of women being too physically and morally weak to care for themselves. Rather than considering the young underclass males depicted purely in the confines of ‘new laddism’ they also need to be understood as a current demonization of the working class, vilifying them within the stereotype of “chav” culture. Indeed the police cannot even contain the collective anger of this group within the film as they too are seen as too weak. Instead it is the individual Harry, ex-Royal Marines veteran and therefore representative of the old repressive state apparatus that takes events into his own hands, murders the various gang members and reasserts law and order in the community. If indeed the gang are representative of the ‘new lad’, Harry is representative of another form of regressive masculinity which could be called the ‘old dad’ – the apparent need for a repressive patriarchal parental figure to control young immature men and protect fragile women from them.
Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Harry Brown are representative of some of the more regressive and reactionary films that reassert old ideas of masculinity. There are however, some films that have been produced within mainstream British cinema that depict much more progressive gender roles. One film in particular is Bend it like Beckham (2002) directed by Gurinder Chadha which centralises on the Asian female protagonist Jess (played by Parminder Nagra) who is passionate about football and rejects the traditions of the predominantly male sport as well as the restrictions from her family. Charlotte Brunsdon argues in her article Not Having it All: Women and Film in the 1990s in reference to Chadha’s first film Bhaji on the Beach (1993), that she was “concerned to show the multiplicity of Asian female identities” (Brunsdon, 2000, p168). This can arguably be applied to Bend it like Beckham, as it shows the tension that Jess faces to conforming to contemporary and traditional forms of Asian female identity. Jess rejects her mother’s traditional notions of the Asian woman doing the cooking and trying to attract another Asian male. There is also a view that her sister Pinky conforms to a contemporary form of female identity in the over-consumption of aesthetic items to gain male attention. In her article Marxism and Feminism Today, Judith Orr argues that liberation has been “turned into its opposite: women feel the pressure to conform to ever more exaggerated caricatures of what is deemed to be sexy, while men are encouraged to see themselves as helpless prisoners of their testosterone: sexually aggressive and insatiable” (2010, p54). Jess rejects both sexualised and traditional female ideals in pursuit of her own football career where she is given confidence by her new team mate Jules and her coach Joe. These characters and Jess’ team mates could represent Chibnal’s argument of the “chosen family”, but Jess does not completely reject her own family’s views. Indeed the film tries to show the antagonisms between the natural family and the chosen family when by the end of the film they reach a stage of mutuality. This is represented by Joe and Jess’ father Mohaan playing cricket together at the end, which also shows mutuality between the different cultures within Britain. There are of course some regressive elements that contradict the films progressive elements. One of the main regressive elements is that the films sometimes portrays Jess’ own culture and female role models as the main cause for her lack of liberties. Another issue is that Jess’ rejection of both her natural and “chosen family” in pursuit (albeit reluctantly) of her career in America the film is partly complicit with the neoliberal tendency for individual self-interest and escape of working class conditions. The contradictory elements within the film show Monk’s argument on the pluralistic nature of the film industry due to the concentration of marketability and maximising audience appeal, thereby restricting a more radical narrative.
Made in Dagenham (2010) is another recent film that can be considered progressive in its depiction of working class women fighting for equal pay. It is rare to find within mainstream cinema a depiction of not only a successful strike, but the fight working class women undertook themselves to gain equal pay and challenge the cultural division of gender roles. The film is set in 1968 at a Ford sewing machine factory and shows the lengths that the working women have to go through to obtain equal pay increase. One particular scene where a Ford worker Rita (played by Sally Hawkins) is in the meeting with Ford management shows the bureaucracy within the women’s union. as the male union leader Monty tries to sell out the strike action. Rita reacts against the attempt to delay and sell out the strike by confirming to both the union leaders and the Ford management that they will continue with industrial action. When their proposal for pay increases is still rejected they increase their demands to equal pay with men for all women. Another attempt by Ford is shown later in the film when an executive Richard Bailey threatens the Employment Secretary Barbara Castle that they will take industry elsewhere if they met the women’s demands. This shows the limitations that the reformist governments can have with meeting the demands of the working class. Eventually the working women gain major concessions and the equal pay act which was eventually passed in 1970. In The Revolutuionary Ideas of Karl Marx, Alex Callinicos argues that “capitalism socialises the labour process, vastly increasing the size of the means of production, making them dependent on the combined labour of the collective work” (2010, p184). This film shows the power that the women workers had in the collective removal of their own labour. It was this tactic that stopped/delayed Ford’s production and their ability to make profit, due to their reliance on combined labour. This was not a given as opposed to Chibnal’s idea of the “chosen family”, workers themselves have little or no choice with who they work with and possibly for. However, workers share the oppression of their commodified labour and therefore can gain a mutual understanding with one another. The film shows a period prior to neoliberalism where this mutuality and solidarity within the working class was understood and being actively used to improve equality and living conditions.
The regressive films such as Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels show a tendency to re-establish divisions such as gender within the working class. The critical narrative of Chibnal’s seems to support such masculinist dominated films through the safety of a postmodern perspective. His support of Richie’s “competitive male solidarity” is something that can be dismantled through Monk’s critical perspective and comparative analysis of films such as Made in Dagenham which portray a traditional working class solidarity. It is a contemporary form of diverse working class solidarity that is needed currently to both continue the fight for equality for all oppressed peoples, but also in the fight against the very ideals of the neoliberal agenda – the system of the oppressor.
Bibliography
Brunsdon, C. (2000). ‘Not Having it All: Women and Film in the 1990s’. In: Murphy, R. British Cinema in the 90s. BFI: London
Callinicos, A. (1995) The Revolutionary Ideas of Karl Marx. Bookmarks: London
Chibnal, S. (2001) ‘Britain’s Funk Soul Brothers: Gender, Family and Nation in the New Brit Pics’. In: Cineaste Fall 2001, Issue 4
Monk, C. (2000). ‘Men in the 90s’. In: Murphy, R. British Cinema in the 90s. BFI: London
Orr, J. (2011) ‘Marxism and Feminism Today’. In: International Socialism, Summer 2010
Filmography
Bend it Like Beckham (2002) Directed by Gurinder Chadha. Redbus Film
Bhaji on the Beach (1993) Directed by Gurinder Chadha. First Look Pictures
Harry Brown (2010) Directed by Daniel Barber. Lionsgate UK
Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998) Directed by Guy Richie. Polygram Filmed Entertainment
Made in Dagenham (2010) Directed by Nigel Cole. Paramount Pictures
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