1. MEDIA & COLLECTIVE IDENTITY
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The film, ‘reflects the
moment of ‘new laddism’,
representing an
aggressive reaction to
feminism, anxieties over
‘There is evidence of
males roles and the
a connection between
glorification of consumer
the gangster craze and
culture where the right
the construction of
shoes and fashionable
post-feminist versions
clothes indicated
of masculinity in
lifestyle magazines
Mary Wood (2007) argues that like Loaded and FHM
the film ‘reflects’ a society preoccupied with
where men have had enough of representations of a
feminist ideas of what a man
should be. They want to be free time and a setting in
to be ‘laddish’ and masculine, which the rules of
asserting their importance male association were
through violence and style.
This view is shared by Steve Chibnall (2009) and he makes a
link between the gangster cycle and the men’s lifestyle
magazines of the time, Loaded and FHM. Launched in 1994,
Loaded’s selling line is ‘For men who should know better’.

2. Thank God for Britain’s
wideboys. We would be
lost without them. They
will be the saving grace Clare Monk (2006) has also
characterised ‘New Laddism’ as
of the British Film a ‘male backlash against the
Industry by breathing a media – and – female imposed
waft of fresh air into a ideal of the new man’ and ‘a
regressive escape from the
business controlled by demands of maturity – and
the Stuffy Luvvy Mob. women’. It is, she argues,
They seem to only want to reactionary in its attitude to
both gender politics and social
churn our frock-perfect policy.
period literary
adaptations or highbrow
intellectual twaddle.
Receptio
n
Some disagreed that the new ‘lad style’ was
refreshing. In the Sunday Times (11th June
2000), Bryan Appleyard complained that the
films were ‘sexist’ and fascist’ and links the re·gres·sive/riˈgresiv/Adjective 1. Becoming less
films to the rise in violent crime. He wrote, advanced; returning to a former or less developed
‘There is, in the end, something irredeemably
nasty about the new British gangster films…. state
The formalism they derive from Tarantino has
become, in the hands of these directors, an Regressive escape is clearly evident in Ritchie’s Lock
oppressive wallowing in amorality, as if the
Stock and Two Smoking Barrels . It’s regressive
only way they can find to entertain their
audience is to transport them to a world because:
where nothing matters and anything can be
done.’ 1. Conventional paid unemployment has been largely
eliminated or jobs are confined to being a policeman
Guy Ritchie is usually blamed for or a traffic warden.
what’s known as the pollution of the
British Film Industry. Lock Stock 2. Social organisation has been replaced by a jungle
was an unexpected success, low of ruthless competitors struggling for survival and
budget and privately funded. The
supremacy.
reality is that while the film inspired
stylistic innovation and further
films of the crime-comedy genre,
the gangster cycle was already in Many critics see the
motion since about 1996. In the four influence of Tarantino as
years between April 1997 and April a crucial factor in turning
2001 at least 24 British underworld the more honourable
films were released, more than had tradition of ‘realist’
been released in the whole 20 years underworld films i.e. Get
before. The cycle of films was Carter (1971) into a
paralleled by a stream of memoirs ‘semi-comedic travesty’
from real-life villains, the deaths in which authenticity is
and funerals of all three Kray replaced by pastiche.
brothers and the return of Ronnie
Biggs from Brazil.