Peter Bradshaw recently declared in The Guardian that during her premiership “nothing with the possible exception of football, was of less interest to Margaret Thatcher than cinema.” To add some context – these words were embedded in a 10 page retrospective exploring the history and legacy of the Thatcher years. Whilst this attention to a Prime Minister of almost a generation ago is not unique – there have been many recent discourses on Thatcher’s legacy – it does highlight not only the British media – and society’s – fascination with the 1980s but Mrs T’s troubled relationship with the nation’s cinema. The irony, of course, within Bradshaw’s comments, is that whilst she may not have had any interest in it, British cinema, arguably, has more interest in Margaret Thatcher now than ever before.
Whilst television and the printed media have more or less confined themselves to dramatisations of Thatcher’s life, coupled with documentaries and articles on her politics, cinema has fused fact with fiction to produce hybrid films that purport to reflect the brutality of Thatcher whilst often operating within a seemingly fairy-tale inspired narrative. Billy Elliot, for example, adds social realism through its representation of the 1985 miners’ strike to a tale of familial dependence and community spirit. By doing so, the film threatens to undermine Thatcher’s political ideology and conveniently overlooks her anti- trade union policies which resulted in the destruction of the mining communities which the film purports to represent. Arguably, Billy Elliot was the first in a series of films which succeeded in celebrating the very ideology they set out to criticise; by imbuing the period and the politics with a sense of community and family cohesion, sadly absent in reality.
To fully debate these issues we need to take a step back. What were the 1980s like under Thatcherism? To truly answer that question we need to agree what she stood for. At this point we should refer to one of British cinema’s greatest dissentients of Thatcherism – Ken Loach. At a recent screening of his latest film ‘Looking for Eric’ Loach argued that the film was anti-Thatcher in tone. His argument was that by depicting a society where friends and society matter he was subverting the Thatcher message.
That message is most explicitly represented by Mrs Thatcher’s declaration, ‘There’s no such thing as society’. By summarising in such succinct terms the culture she wanted to cultivate – one of self reliance, the importance of the individual over the collective and the minimising of state intervention, Thatcher ultimately produced a nation of selfish, solipsistic sociopaths – the complete opposite of the image projected in films like Billy Elliot and This is England.
Shane Meadow’s 2006 film, on the face of it, is extremely faithful to the period it represents – 1982. For instance, it perfectly captures the jingoist climate amidst the Falklands campaign. Where it fails to deliver, in the author’s view, is in its sociological representation of the period. Whilst a group of benevolent skinheads ‘adopting’ a fatherless, bullied boy and subsequently incorporating him into their innocuous gang is a clear sign of an evolved society, for those of us there it certainly wasn’t part of Thatcher’s Britain. Despite their jobless status there is no outward sign of anger or alienation from the gang members leaving a feeling that the film portrays a rose-tinted sense of belonging and community – a trait decidedly absent from Britain in the Thatcher years. In the same year as This is England Garth Jennings projects a similar image in Son of Rambow - extolling the virtues of friendship and camaraderie within childhood in 1980’s Britain which jars with the ‘every man for himself’ Thatcherite ethos. Others have followed.
Is Anybody There? - released this year – is, ostensibly, a timeless piece about the innocence of childhood - which just happens to be set in 1980’s Britain. However, its subplot (of a couple starting up a rest home) incorporates two key aspects of Thatcherism – entrepreneurialism and care in the community. The complexities of these components, however, are overlooked in the film’s tale of intergenerational harmony. Whilst in reality Thatcher’s restructuring of the family unit was forcing women into work and emasculating the traditional breadwinner the dramatic version presents the family as a strong, albeit fractured, unit.
Some may argue that this debate is flawed because the films featured in this article are not specifically about Thatcherism, rather just 1980s Britain, and, in most cases – childhood. But, I would argue, as anybody who lived through the decade knows, the 1980s belonged to Margaret Thatcher. Arguing that a film set in 1980’s Britain is not about Thatcherism is equivalent to making a film about the Iraq war and denying any commentary on Bush’s foreign policy. The two are inextricably bound.
Additionally, some would also argue that these films operate in the same way as Looking for Eric and should therefore be viewed as anti-Thatcher. The key difference, however, I believe, is that the films set in the 1980s purport to reflect a time many of today’s audience are unable to remember. By representing the era, and childhood in particular, in specific, often rarefied terms, these films are not only attempting to revise a historical era but imbuing a challenging period with a sense of nostalgia which subverts the true effects of Thatcherism.
Ultimately these films may appear few in number but the domino effect is troubling with more revisionist films arriving each year (Awaydays, Clubbed). The films have common themes which are ideologically opposed to those present within Thatcherism. However by adopting nostalgia to revise a period in history in an attempt to reflect how the filmmaker wishes it was, it only glamorises Thatcherist society and dilutes her policies. Before we know it people are revering a period and its politicians a whole lot more than is deserved.
Article by Andy Pope
popeandy1@gmail.com