Coming of age in This Is England

Shane Meadows 2007 film This Is England, which takes place during the
summer of 1983. The film begins with a montage of what was happening in 1983 with
clips of Margaret Thatcher, a soldier with his leg blown off in the Falklands War, Princess
Diana, the National Front and the arrival of the compact disc as reggae music plays in the
background.1 Twelve-year-old Shaun Field befriends a gang of skinheads led by Woody.
Woodys gang, who are apolitical and non-violent, make Shaun feel welcomed to the
gang. His problem with being bullied disappear as Woody makes light of them and
encourages Shaun to laugh at his own situation. When an older skinhead named Combo
returns after serving a prison sentence, he tries to push his English nationalist and white
supremacist views onto the gang, leading to a split between Woody and Combos gangs.
Shaun ends up joining with Combos gang.
Combo becomes a father figure to Shaun, as Shauns father died during the
Falklands War, and they both engage in racial intimidation of others. This all comes to a
breaking point when Combo snaps and beats up Milky. He is a black skinhead who helps
to deconstruct racial attitudes of being a skinhead and after realizing what he has done,
they both panic and try to get Milky to the hospital. In the end, Shaun throws the English
flag given to him by Combo into the sea symbolizing Shaun breaking away from his
father figure and his bigoted views. What this film shows is a quintessential example of
coming of age in film.

Byrne, Paul. "This Is England - Film Review." Sydney Morning Herald [Sydney] 17 05
2007, n. pag. Web. 9 May. 2012. <http://www.smh.com.au/news/film-reviews/this-isengland/2007/08/17/1186857747054.html?page=fullpage

Coming of age itself may be considered a genre because of the important

elements, which each text shares with others in its familiar tropes and stories. Most
coming of age films are set in the past from when they were actually made and center
around young people on the verge of some maturation process. Nearly all of them follow
around a small group of people between the ages of 10 and 20 as they go through the
experiences, which define them. Certain of these experiences, which are upheld as being
very important culturally by their repeated portrayals in film, can be classified together as
"coming of age, hence the name of the genre. These events, usually called rites of
passage, include losing one's virginity, graduating from high school, joining a gang, and
using alcohol or other drugs for the first time. Often times these adolescents and/or
teenagers are also faced with some sort of decision, the outcome of which will have a
significant shaping impact on the rest of their lives. Moreover, these decisions are often
made in such a way as to make one alternative more difficult but also a manifestation of
growing up, while the other is the "easy way out" that enables the decider to remain
within their youthful comfort zone.2
In This Is England, Shaun goes through these important changes in his life, as he
comes of age and learns important lessons along the way and encountering predicaments
of his own. The representation of Shaun becoming a skinhead is an outlet of gaining
acceptance as he is bullied in school. He fights a bully one day named Harvey, after he
makes fun of his dead father. The skinheads that Shaun associates himself with are goodhearted people who look out for him and each other. They lack the will to succeed in life
and live the skinhead lifestyle instead of trying to make something of themselves. In
2

. "History, Nostalgia, and Adolescence in American Film." . N.p., n.d. Web. 9 May

2012. <http://xroads.virginia.edu/~ug02/fox/intro.html>.

coming of age films, the skinheads represent people that the audience recognizes as bad
influences on Shaun even though Woody and other gang members are friendly with him.
Combo represents change, not just a change of ideals of the skinhead subculture in the
UK in the 1980s, but also a change in Shaun. Shaun looks up to Combo as a father figure
and starts to emulate him and his former relationship with his deceased father. This is
key to Shauns motivations of acceptance that in coming of age films is what drives the
protagonist in the process of maturation.
The theme of acceptance is used in coming of age films to establish these
motivations of the protagonist trying to fill a void in their life, because they feel as if they
do not fit in with the rest of society. This is tantamount to how the protagonists view of
life changes, once those not seen by the rest of society as good people do accept him.
Their mindset changes from a pessimistic to a positive outlook on life, which to the
audience is seen as being manipulated to accept that the introduction to vices that trigger
that change such as sex, drugs, alcohol, joining a gang are acceptable. This Is England
uses coming of age as a plot device to serve as a lesson of introducing these vices that
entice the protagonist to fall on the wrong path and learn to accept the consequences of
his actions and how society views these misdeeds. The protagonist takes a journey of
sorts, to navigate through the path trying to avoid and overcome these obstacles in order
to make it to adulthood alive and become free from the vices that plague that journey
along the way.
Much like the Brazilian film City of God, both films assimilate textual
conventions from mass media of the negative portrayal of the vices of violence, drugs,
alcohol, and gangs in the coming of age film, specifically their representations of

sexuality and death that the film reproduces or transforms them, to tell a different story
with a different subject.3 This means that the film takes that portrayal and shows it in a
glorifying light, in order to show audiences the consequences of its negativity and learn
from the mistakes of the protagonist who engages in these actions. City of God is a
similar film set in the same time period as This Is England where the life of living in a
working class, impoverished area is portrayed in a negative but glorifying light and tells a
story of the protagonists journey of living in that area and the vices they deal with on a
daily basis. Rocket, much like Shaun, is involved with a gang although not as a member,
but still plays a significant role as a photographer in order to boost Lil Zes reputation as
a gangster much like Shaun does as a part of Combos gang when they involve
themselves in racially intimidating others.
A good example of glorifying those vices is the violence aspect of it is the scene
where Combo, Shaun and their gang confront Mr. Sandhu, a convenience store owner
who at the beginning of the film banned Shaun from his store for shoplifting. Combo
enters the store and plays innocent and agrees with Mr. Sandhu about Shauns bad
behavior, which shows the audience Combos manipulative ways. What can be noticed in
this scene is the emphasis on the close up and off-center shots first shown when Combo
pulls out a knife on Mr. Sandhu and calls him a Paki. The audience then sees a close up
shot of Combos facial expression that reinforces his racist values and shows the hate and
anger he feels for someone of a different skin color. When the gang vandalizes and steals
from the store, no faces are shown during the act with their backs towards the cameras, to
show that their acts are shameful and wrong to the audience. As Combo leaves the store,
3

Velvet Light Trap. (Fall 1996): p14. From Literature Resource Center.

he makes a veiled threat telling Mr. Sandhu that they can come whenever they want with
a close up of the shopkeeper who is visibly shaken making no effort to fight back,
showing that he is powerless to fight against the racism that he endures. Ultimately this
scene establishes that in Combo and Shauns minds, racism is normal and acceptable and
that they are doing the right thing by retaliating against those who Combo feels contribute
to the high unemployment rate of working class citizens in the area and a danger to the
purity of the English people. This threat and intimidation of violence glorified by Combo
in this scene rubs off onto Shaun but when contrasting that with the actual act of violence
itself when Combo beats up Milky is where Shaun and Combo realize that violence does
not solve anything in changing peoples views about race nor does it help Shaun in
coming of age by learning that the use of violence is justified in any situation and
acceptable by society.
In coming of age sex plays a role in how Shaun, going through adolescence,
develops feelings of the opposite sex. In the film, Shaun becomes involved in
romantically with an older girl named Smell and she teaches him how to love her and
how to become a man. Matthews is able to fetishize this through the theme of
masculinity. Masculinity plays into how losing ones virginity is often seeing as a rite of
passage when one comes of age. Scholars studying teenage sexuality suggest that
virginity loss, socially dened as rst sex, is marked as a meaningful event in which adult
sexuality is achieved. The scholars demonstrate that teenagers experiences of virginity
loss are shaped by the socially constructed meanings of virginity and virginity loss; these

different and often conicting ways of understanding virginity are part of sexual
socialization by family, peers, religion, education, and the media.4
In This Is England, while Shaun does not lose his virginity, what he gains is
masculinity because that relationship with Smell form part of his skinhead identity and
how the relationships with his father, various members of the gang, and vice versa
manifests itself in terms of a sense of confidence that Shaun needs in order to make it to
adulthood alive and become free from the vices that plague his journey to adulthood.5
Masculinity is also fetishized in the tattoos and apparel that the male skinheads wear,
most notably Woody and Combo. While Woody and Combos ideologies of what being a
skinhead means is different from one another, their tattoos and clothes, especially the Doc
Marten boots, they wear are one in the same as they represent the skinhead lifestyle that
they each live by and gives them their own identity of masculinity veiled by tattoos and
boots to show that they as skinheads are tough and are not to be messed with.
As Shaun also gets inked with a tattoo, his head shaved, and new clothes in order
to fit in, this rite of passage as is tradition in many gangs is a representation of Shauns
loyalty and solidarity with the gang and skinhead culture as a whole. This scene of the
initiation when Shaun is getting his head shaved and inked is very light-hearted, as is
most of the interaction between the members of Woodys gang and shows that while
being part of a gang may or may not be for life, it is where Shaun solidifies his
friendships with his new friends and as a skinhead. Coming of age is learning how to fit
in, which he does by doing all of these things in order to become more masculine and
4

Virginity Loss Narratives in Teen Drama Television Programs, Maura Kelly,

referenced from Carpenter, L. M. (2005). Virginity lost: An intimate portrait of rst
sexual experiences. New York: New York University.
5
Film Education: This Is England page 8

thus accepted by not just the gang but by society who views masculinity as a trait that
men should have.
Being that the film is set in England and that Combo is a sympathizer of the
National Front, a white nationalist political party, the theme of national identity comes
into play in how it shapes Shauns ideology and how it affects him as he comes of age.
Combos sense of national identity in how he was an original skinhead before he went
to prison and asserting his status as leader from Woody shows that he cares more about
running the gang as an actual criminal gang through his beliefs than a group of friends
who hang out with each other regardless of anyones beliefs. When Shaun has finally
found friends that like him for who he is rather than how they influence his actions, this is
flipped around when Combos influence takes precedent over Shauns original
friendships with the rest of the gang and taking him down that wrong path of
adolescence.
Combos sense of national identity is rooted in racism and prejudice of others and
his gift of the English flag to Shaun, representing the National Front and his beliefs, is a
symbol of Shaun blindly accepting and devoting himself to something that he does not
completely understand. This sense of national identity rooted in Shaun comes from
Combo becoming a father figure to Shaun, whose own father died defending his country
during the Falklands War. Through his own dads national identity of being a soldier and
wanting to live up to his fathers expectations, Shaun follows Combo because in order to
make it to adulthood, he must do what he can to live up to those expectations even if it
means sacrificing his own friendships and relationships with the people that he cherishes.

What makes this film unique in how it tells coming of age in This Is England is
that Shane Meadows (director of This Is England) felt it was essential to create a
balanced and truthful picture of the [skinhead] scene as he had experienced it. To capture
the inherent contradictions of skinhead culture, Shane presents a motley crew of
believable characters whose behavior is often as farcical as it is threatening and
disturbing. They are losers, but Shane never lets you forget that there is always a reason
behind their behavior.6 By doing this, Matthews is able to incorporate how Shaun
changes as a person because of becoming a skinhead and Combos influence on him and
how this coming of age story is told through how Shaun matures as an individual by his
encounters with the losers that he becomes friends with. Coming of age as a genre is
about these changes, it is about the protagonists journey into adulthood, and it is about
how the protagonist deals with all of it. What Matthews does that separates This Is
England from the rest is the pack is that he makes his story a story that shows the
protagonist as someone that should not be involved in something that is inherently wrong
but does it for the right reasons because of his need for acceptance and how Shaun
through all that is through at him is accepted at that is the cornerstone of what coming of
age films should be about.

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