Classless

Book excerpt: Why has mainstream British film been so unrepresentative of the changes in British society over the past twenty years? Classless looks at the erasure of key issues of class and class struggle in recent British film as well as the flattening out of the rich variety of English social types into the bland middle-mass of Love Actually. By analysing a number of key films and emergent genres the ideological character of the Major years on into the false dawn of Blairism and Cool Brittania will be elaborated, and it will be argued that even works that are ostensibly subversive, such as Danny Boyle's Trainspotting serve to promote the underlying myths of neo-liberalism. The films under discussion will range from Steven Frear's The Queen to Jonathon Glazer's Sexy Beast The book will also consider popular genres such as the recent Football Hooligan films along with more recondite works by a handful of auteurs.