Away Days is an interesting film as not only is it a conventional ‘youth’ film that concerns itself with coming of age situations such as love, experimentation and growing up, it also constructs a representation of collective identity within it – namely The Pack. The Pack is the football firm that our hero, Carty, becomes a member of, a group that have a distinct identity that is easy to apply our main definition of collective identity:
‘a shared sense of ‘one-ness’ or ‘we-ness’ anchored in real or imagined shared attributes and experiences among those who comprise the collectivity and in relation or contrast to one or more actual imagined sets of ‘others’. Have a look at this clip. Try to identify what shared attributes The Pack have, also look at how they define themselves (and in how the film does) in terms of a group of others.
Some thoughts: The obvious shared attributes are for The Pack appearance, swagger, regionality and attitude. However, this mainly comes into focus once the set of ‘others’, the rival gang, are introduced:
Side partings vs long hair sideburns
Trainers vs boots
Lee jeans vs baggy denim
Peter Storm vs donkey jackets
Young, cocky, beautiful vs old and uglyJust look at the way the camera treats the two groups – the slo-mo, longing takes, the cool music. There’s no doubt who the film ‘loves’. In this second clip we see Carty getting ready for his time with The Pack. What’s interesting about it is that we seeing the transformation from Carty, the son, the brother, the responsible one, into Carty the nutter in the Pack. He’s changing from identity into another. Have a look at how he does this:
Some thoughts: there’s a physical and mental change. The mental change sees him almost psyche himself up for the away trip, the physical is depicted almost like a ritual as he gets dresses – carefully laying out his clothes. The other interesting things is that Carty runs to his meeting with Elvis – this is an expression wanting to be free from the Carty he is with his family (the young Carty) in order to become the new powerful respected Carty. Away Days is a film partly about ‘youth’ and so has the types of representations we see in other youth films, but also it is about a sub culture – namely the football casual. This Wikipedia page should give you the basic but here’s a good from the LFC site and another that references Kevin Sampson, Away Days author. Focusing on a subculture is what often happens when the media creates a retrospective representation of youth. Just have a look at this clip from Shane Meadows This Is England which focuses upon the mid 80s Skinhead subculture – compare this with the Away Days, look for similarities.
Both films focus upon two groups that have an identity that is largely defined by fashion, but also by media consumption and recreational choices. Also they have this ‘becoming scene’, a sequence of changing identity through clothes and mentality that allows them to be part of a group. Also this changes how the main character view themselves and how other people view them. This type of representation of youth is a popular choice for the media. Have a look the trailers for films and TV series that choose to focus on a youth subculture and tend to romanticise them.
Soul Boy (2010)
Quadrophenia (1973) - A film made in 1973 about 1965 Mod Culture
Tom Green, the director of the TV Misfits, is working on a film tentatively titled ‘Spike Island’ about the late 80’s early 90’s Manchester scene.
David Buckingham writes that 'Recent research has pointed to the dangers of romanticising youthful resistance and the tendency to overstate the political dimensions of youth culture.’ This suggests that films tend to embed these youth sub cultures within a political backdrop (Thatcher’s 80s for Away Days and This Is England) and suggest that the culture is a reaction against that. What Buckingham suggests is that this element is overstated – that we should remember that these are ‘sub cultures’ rather ‘counter cultures’.