Film Essay (Representations of British Youth in Quadrophenia and This is England)

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Haci Suleyman

‘Quadrophenia’ and ‘This is England’ is both movies based on real life experiences and also stereotypes of the British youth. ‘Quadrophenia’ is a film which was directed by the famous ‘Franc Roddam’, which was made in 1979, but focused and based around the year 1973. The focus of ‘Quadrophenia’ is to show how the youth of Britain were acting. In 1973, there was a conflict between two British subcultures which were the Mods & Rockers. The two conflicting subcultures rose doubts to the future of Youth, which is where Moral panic started. The director of this movie shows us how the Moral Panic started, and that there could’ve not been a moral panic if the media hadn’t interfered with everything. The focus of ‘Quadrophenia’ was to show the point of view from the British youth’s side, how they felt about everything, how they worked with life, and how the youth acted as individuals. Franc Roddam wanted to show a point of view from the British youths, so that not everyone would stereotype them because of their behaviour, Roddam wanted to show what the cause of their behaviour was. The issues that ‘Quadrophenia’ raised was that it showed that the media was the reason behind the moral panic, it showed the public that the media took a small portion of violence (by the youth), and made it as big as they can in order to create this Moral Panic. ‘This is England’ is another British movie directed by Shane Meadows, which is made in 2006, but based on early 1980’s. The focus of this film is to show how the skinhead subculture in England became adopted by white nationalists, which leads to separations within the skinhead scenes. The director of this movie wanted to show the story behind the skinhead culture, what made them different, why most groups of them were violent, and why some groups of them were humble.

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In the movie ‘This is England’, respect for elders is represented as very openly. In This is England, we see lots and lots of young, angry, violent British youth. However, what the director has showed us is the respect that they have for their elders. In the British society, we see that the elderly don’t respect their youth, reasons why is because they automatically assume, and stereotype them because of the way they look. For example, if an elderly was to see a young teen in some baggy clothing, they’d assume violence and not show any respect. The director of ...

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