Skinheads Essay examples -- Gang London Skinhead Gangs

When thinking almost skinhead gangs in London, it is unachievable not to conjure up images of shaved heads and heavy Doc Martin boots go with a particularly racist kind of violence with no valuate for authority structures of the state. However, did these gangs begin with such a clear idea of their theatrical role? Were they aware that their daily activities would become a subculture along with the Mods and Rockers? In his essay titled The bootboys and the Magical Recovery of Community, John Clarke argues that skinheadism is about the recovery of a community in working class neighborhoods where this tonicity had been lost due to various changes in socio-economic conditions. He says that their feeling of animadversion produced a return to an intensified Us-Them consciousness (Clarke, 99). Though the realization of this trait plays a major part in the formation of any subculture, the Us-Them dialogue turns out to be much more complicated in the typesetters case of skinhead gangs, and the space that these groups occupy in relation to the outside world does not have such clear boundaries. Looking at three contrary representations of Skinhead culture the novel A Clockwork Orange (1962) by Anthony Burgess, the non-fiction work The blusher House (1972) by the Collinwood gang, and the film Scum (1979) directed by Alan Clarke, the evolution of this space over time becomes clear. This change happens both in the route the gangs define and view themselves, as well as in the room mainstream society deals with the problem of violence in Modern Youth (Burgess, 41). Ironically, the skinhead stylus began as a way for these working class youths to feel honour and was in direct opposition to the tendency of other young people, such as hippies, ... ...ys, The people who read it will be these Marxist students and such who will contact us to join them in their fight against the face (110). There is certainly an ambivalence about giving mainstream society literary access to the space the skinheads occupy. This is yet another way that the enclosure between Us and Them gets breached. Perhaps the sheer violence, language, and overall controversial temperament of these works are in themselves a kind of boundary maintenance, nevertheless letting in those who feel some affinity to their world. Works Cited Clarke, John. The Skinheads & The Magical Recovery of Community. In Resistance through Rituals. Ed. by Stuart entrance hall and Tony Jefferson. 99-105. London Hutchinson, 1976.Doyle, Pat and others. The Paint House Words from and East terminate Gang. Middlesex, Eng. Penguin, 1972. Scum. Dir. Alan Clarke. G.T.O, 1979.