Young people in This Is England play a big part in representing this time period in England, the youngest being Shaun who’s 12, along with Woody’s group who are all young adults. For the most part, they’re depicted to the spectator as being reckless, carefree, and unified by style.

Older people in the film have a range of roles, there’s Cynthia who is Shaun’s mother, she is caring and down to earth, and then there is Combo who has an authoritarian approach to keeping people close to him, instilling fear and nationalist propaganda onto others. The audience is shown that this heavily impacts Shaun, since Combo hones in on Shaun’s grief, weaponizing it so that Shaun becomes an asset to Combo’s gang.

The working class is the prominent class in This Is England, this is important to the spectator because it signifies how Margaret Thatcher’s time in parliament wasn’t taken lightly by those in the working class, as shown multiple times with graffiti.

English people are only represented by those from the North of England, in depth, the only time we ever see Southern citizens is on news broadcasts about those in power, like Margaret Thatcher and the Royal Family. This indicates to the audience that it is a common occurrence that the South have an overpowering hold on the North, along with classism against northern England.

Asian and Black people are depicted in a bad light whenever Combo has something to say about it, casual racism is a common occurrence throughout the film, for example, when Combo first visits Woody and the others to tell them a story about his time in prison, openly discriminating a black inmate whilst Milky is in the room (a Jamaican man). Asian people are portrayed as “job stealers”, according to Combo, as well as being verbally abused and taken advantage of in the scene where Shaun and Combo’s gang raid Sandhu’s shop.