Thursday, June 13, 2019

British Film Culture Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

British Film Culture - Essay ExampleRife with nudging and guffawing, Peter Cattaneo s film about steelworkers bay windowcelled male strippers is somehow less raunchy, only every bit as jolly and as irreducibly English, as a Donald McGill seaside postcard. Populated by awkward, unthreatening lads who dont have it in them to behave too badly, its Sheffield is apparently the one part of Britain that Loaded never reached.What The Full Monty is, though, is political, in the gentlest, Ealing-comedy way. It starts with a brassy, breathlessly chipper documentary clip, a spot-on parody of the old Pathe Films. The men have nothing much else to occupy them, and Gaz is likely to lose touch with his young son unless he can pay his debts. Then they see some women queuing to see a troupe of male strippers. Gaz, realising theres plainly one way left for a man to subscribe to a fast buck, assembles a rival crew - not so much beefcake as meatloaf and scrag end.Unemployed Northern men nerve-wrac king anything to scrape a live and uphold their dignity sure enough, The Full Monty pays its respects to Ken Loach. Theres a cameo by Bruce Jones from Loachs Raining Stones, as a unworthy auditioner gauchely attempting to peel off his anorak. But this is light Loach and with a more focused comic touch.What makes the story compelling is that theres more at stake than just the few bob and laughs the lads stand to make. Its dignity they hope to regain, and more fundamentally, masculinity. Fatigued and disenfranchised, they all wonder if theyre still men. Dave worries about losing his wife (Lesley Sharp), Gaz is already divorced, and their suicidal pal Lomper (Steve Huison) is living a dreary celibate life. Meanwhile, Sheffields women are still in work and ruling the roost. Theyve even taken over the working mens club for women-only nights. A mortified Gaz sneaks behind enemy lines to witness the ultimate horror - women not only invading the sanctity of the Gents, but pissing standing up. The vision persuades him theres only one way for men to retaliate - reclaim their widgers. The Full Monty could have been made as course material for film-studies seminars on Marxism and the Phallus. Cattaneo and Beaufoy could have gone for a harsher lampooning of male sexual attitudes, but their approach yields subtler, more tender returns. Their heroes are adolescents who dont understand women but wish they did, and eventually are only too halcyon to confess their inadequacies. The presence of women in the film seems a little cursory, largely restricted to Lesley Sharp, Emily Woof, a few mouthy passers-by, and the crowds of the club scenes. But thats because the men see women from the exterior - through the toilet window, as it were. Excluded from the female world of adulthood, they form their own society, a Just William club of eternal schoolboys with Gazs young son Nathan (the engagingly sour-faced William Shape) tagging on as disapproving chaperon. This is something you rarely see a film on camaraderie among straight men (mostly), that doesnt indulge in slobbishness or Californian hugs, but celebrates the virtues of solidarity. Widgers United. The joke is that the men arent really learning a new skill that will alter their lives. The Full Monty feels celebratory because it isnt about

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