I've just been reading a great article in the Guardian Unlimited Film section from Shane Meadows about his new film This is England (which i'm hoping will include the song of the same name by The Clash).
There are a couple of choice quotes from the piece, but the interesting thing for me were his thoughts and ideas of what it was like growing up in a small town in the 1980's when you're part of a subculture, and in part, the attendant iconography of the objects that become meaningful.
Late in 1985, when I was 15, I got my first pair of Dr Marten's boots. For a while they had to be hidden at a friend's place, because at the time my Father wouldn't allow them to be 'under his roof'. What they meant to him and what they meant to me were completely different things - for him they were the accoutrements of fascism, while for me they were the symbol of anti everything - benign, insipid, popular, 'normal' and fascist. All of this meaning I had to walk around to my friend's place for the first 6 months of owning them to be able to wear them when we went out anywhere.
When we did go out, if we saw someone else wearing them, we (or them) would stop and have a chat about whatever, there was a good chance that we might have just met a brand new friend. The fact is, ideologically, or at least musically, there was a 99% chance we would be into exactly the same things. If you're my age, you might even remember that you could tell a lot about who you were meeting depending on the colour of their laces. Black and Red could mean Marxist and Anarchist, White could mean fascist or a 'hippy punk' preference.
When I was teaching, I used to tell my film or media students about this and for the most part they would laugh out loud unanimously. Maybe it was oversensitivity on my part, but whatever it was, it used to annoy me that they thought it was so funny. It wasn't funny. It was heart on your sleeve, life and death serious. Why? Because we all felt alone and sincere.
Shane Meadows talks about the multiple subcultures in his small town of Uttoxeter, and although my small town didn't have anywhere near the same diversity, I know exactly what he means when he describes his small town - pull the word Uttoxeter and insert Tauranga - during the weekends.
"In a town as small as Uttoxeter, though, there weren't enough people for each sub culture to fill their own parties or clubs, so most weekends everyone would turn up at the same village hall disco and end up fighting."
It's 20 years later, and a lot of the ideas, values and things I most value hold true to the things I learnt back then. Unlike then, I often wear a suit now, the footwear of choice are still the same.
"The big difference between now and the period in which my film is set is our level of isolation. In 1983, people still cared about society as a whole but now they'll keep their mouth shut as long as they've got the house, the job and the car they want. If you were a kid in 1983, you wouldn't have a PlayStation to sit indoors alone with. You got your entertainment from mixing with a variety of different people. While making the film, I realised that all of my fondest childhood memories surrounded human contact: mucking about with mates or going camping. In 2007, people put less emphasis on that sort of thing and more on planning their careers and their TV viewing. As far as I'm concerned, if you're working from nine to five then coming home to watch shows that your Sky box has recorded for you while you were out, you might as well be on a fucking drip."
Amen.