Historical texts...

The Firm



The firm is a TV film produced in 1988 about gang war well fare in football Hooliganism and how Bexy (the main protagonist) has a urge and drive for violence despite the fact that his wife hates it and tries to depict him from his crowd. All of his neighbours think he has a screw loss in his head, however through his actions everyone is scared to approach him and tell him.

I have chosen this film to compare to my text as i feel that it is relevant to my study as it mainly focuses on men and gangs. I can analyse the representation of men and compare it to the representation of men in Rise of the Footsolider and see if the stereotypes have changed or stayed the same. Also, the time period is the same for both films therefore, i can if one representations has been exaggerated than the other or if one has been changed to mediate the text.

The differences, that i have depicted from the two texts which i will be exploring is the reaction of both male protagonists when their wife's slap them across their face. In one film the protagonist reacts back to his wife in an aggressive manor by brutally abusing her and in the other the protagonist just shouts back and does not react in any violent way. This could signify where the "new man" just started to realease itself into the media.

I think that The Firm has some elements of male domaniancy in it however, not as much as rise of the footisoldier. This could be prehaps, cause the director of ROTFS may have exaggerated the repesentation and stereotypes so that it has a more dramatic effect on the audience.

Useful Facts
Directed by Alan Clarke.
Produced by David M Thompson.
Starring- Gary Oldman
Lesley Manville
Phil Davis
Charles Lawson.
Distributed by BBC.