Young People:

Young people are shown in This Is England to be reckless and irresponsible. At various points throughout the movie, we’re shown the younger characters in the movie making irresponsible or wrong choices, not caring for the consequence of their actions. Examples of this portrayal are how Woody and his gang go to an abandoned housing complex to destroy the building for fun, or how Gadget goes to Combo’s gang purely out of spite, instead of because of his belief in their politics.

Older People:

One of the few times we see characters in This Is England that are older than their early 20’s is when Combo and his gang attend the nationalist rally. This shows that the older generation at the time would’ve cared about the nationalist policies and agreed generally with the anti-middle eastern policies they carried. This racially insensitive stance paints the older generation as being bitter.

Class:

Most of the characters in This Is England are from a lower middle working class background, and the indoor settings they are shown in give us an idea that these lower classes generally have worse living conditions. For example, Shaun lacks real furniture in his room, needing to use a chair as a bedside table, and the paint on his walls is peeling. We can further infer that the living conditions is worse through the actions of each character. Most of the lower class characters shown in the movie show a lack of intelligence, and this portrayal paints the lower classes as being generally less educated than higher ones.

English People:

Much like older people, English people are portrayed as being driven by entitlement, through the nationalist party. The only times we hear England being mentioned in the movie is in tandem with the viewpoints of the nationalist party, showing English people as agreeing with nationalist views.

Asian/Black People:

Every racial minority shown in This Is England becomes a victim to Combo and his gang, and these racial attacks portray Asian and black people as being victims in a 1980’s British society, as the common viewpoint of the time was that they were threats to “usual” society.

Men/Masculinity:

This Is England features toxic masculinity quite strongly, having the first issue of the movie be that Shaun gets bullied for having feminine trousers. Men are portrayed as being excessively aggressive throughout the movie, mainly through Combo. Combo’s irrational and crazed attacks through the latter half of the movie tell us as an audience that masculinity is being portrayed negatively, and as something that leads to most of the “evils” shown in the movie.

Women:

Women take a more submissive role in This Is England, with their plotlines having no agency in the main story of the movie. Although women aren’t directly shown to have agency in the story, Loll acts to portray women as equally as masculine as the main cast of the movie, through her character design and actions towards Combo. Her fearless denial of his love shows that she is a character that can stand up for herself and her skinhead character design helps to roughen up her character, helping subvert typical gender roles for women.

Place:

The Midlands are shown to be grimy and urban in This Is England, with a lot of the external set featuring graffiti or broken down/unmaintained housing. This, combined with the aforementioned internal set design, tells us that The Midlands wasn’t a particularly nice place to live in the 1980’s, as it was unkept and ran by the younger (less responsible) generation.

Mise-En-Scene: At 04:06, we see Shaun waking up and getting ready for school. In this shot we see that the paint on his wall is peeling, and that his “bed-side table” is a chair that he’s stacked items on top of. As this is one of the first shots we see of Shaun, we’re instantly made to believe that Shaun is less fortunate when it comes to money, as his mother can’t afford to properly furnish and decorate his room.

Editing: At 58:50, we see Shaun, Combo, Gadget, Banjo, and Meggy walking together in slo-mo, with the English flag imposed over them. This shot mimics a scene prior, where Shaun is shown walking in the same figuration with his old group, and this shot with the added context of the English flag shows Shaun’s transition to nationalism, through Combo’s mentoring.

Cinematography: At 01:02:50, we see Shaun getting apprehended by the shop owner, ending in the store getting raided by Combo and his gang. During this scene, the camera pans between characters frequently, making the documentary style that the film aims for feel much more realistic, and due to the amount of pans we do, it adds to the franticness of the scene, and throws the audience off when paired with the scenes racist undertones.

Sound: From 00:00, the movie starts with the song “54-46 Was My Number” by Toots And The Maytals, and this ska track paired with the 1980’s broadcast television footage on screen tells the audience about both the topic and time period this movie is set in. Through the song, we can infer that we will be dealing with the 1980’s Skinhead revival, as Ska was one of the genres skinhead culture was based around.