british cinema in the 90s
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Analyse the handling of what Claire Monk terms "the problem of male disempowerment" in two British films of the 90's
"The 1990's saw a notable cycle of British films that drew their subject or subtext from the problems of unemployment and social exclusion faced by a social stratum identified by some social and political commentators as an 'underclass'"
Claire Monk discusses the problem of male disempowerment in "Underbelly UK: The 1990's underclass film, masculinity and the ideologies of 'new' Britain. In this essay I will be analysing and discussing the theory of male disempowerment by looking at examples in two British films made in the 1990's.
The two films' I have chosen to look at are The Full Monty (1997) and Trainspotting (1996). I chose these two films because I feel that they both reflect and represent male disempowerment from different perspectives. British cinema in the 90's dealt with issues of male masculinity crisis. The protagonists in the two films are dealing with issues such as unemployment but their disempowerment is shown in very different ways. The Full Monty deals with issues of disempowerment comically by following the lives of five very different male characters and their separate issues, such as impotence, divorce and body confidence. Trainspotting looks at disempowerment from a younger perspective, dealing with issues such as drug abuse and crime.
As The Full Monty and Trainspotting are two mainstream underclass films, they can be divided into two broad "cross-genre categories" . Trainspotting would be classed as a 'youth' underclass film...