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

British Film Culture - Essay ExampleRife with nudging and guffawing, Peter Cattaneo s get hold of about steelworkers turned male strippers is somehow less raunchy, just now every bit as twit and as irreducibly English, as a Donald McGill seaside postcard. Populated by awkward, well-meaning lads who dont have it in them to clear 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 more else to obtrude upon them, and Gaz is likely to lose touch with his young son unless he can pay his debts. Then they travel to some women queuing to see a troupe of male strippers. Gaz, realising theres single one way left for a man to make a fast buck, assembles a rival crew - not so much beefcake as meatloaf and scrag end.Unemployed Northern men trying a nything to scrape a nutriment 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 hapless auditioner gauchely attempting to peel off his anorak. But this is light Loach and with a more focused preposterous 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 dangerous pal Lomper (Steve Huison) is living a dreary celibate life. Meanwhile, Sheffields women are still in work and judgement the roost. Theyve even taken over the working mens club for women-only nights. A mortified Gaz sneaks behind opposition lines to witness the ultimate horror - women not only invading the sanctity of the Gents, but pissing stand up up. The vision persuades him theres only one way for men to retaliate - reclaim their widgers. The Full Monty could have been do 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 happy to confess their inadequacies. The presence of women in the film seems a little cursory, largely restrict 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 outside - 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 along as disapproving chaperon. This is s omething you rarely see a film on comradery 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 truly learning a new skill that will alter their lives. The Full Monty feels celebratory because it isnt about