MovieChat Forums > This Is England (2007) Discussion > How did the Jamaican culture influence t...

How did the Jamaican culture influence the skinheads?


I'm quite confused by that

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good question. outside of ska music I don't know....

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when jamaican ska & rocksteady became popular in the UK(mainly london) alot of teens were influenced by the rudeboy culture from jamaica. sharply dressed, big boots, braces etc. black culture in dress sense, music & lifestyle was a big influence. usually accompanied by short cropped hair(between a 2-4 guard,short,but not too short). usually referred to as trads(traditional skinheads) or trojan skinheads. later traditional skinheads used the term 'spirit of 69' to differenciate themselves from the 80's neo-nazi/left wing/white power skinheads. obviously since these days when somebody mentions a skinhead most people think of a racist bald *beep* (amazingly portrayed by steve graham as combo), making the proud traditional skinheads (also amazingly portrayed by joe gilgun(woody),andrew shim(milky),vicky mcclue(lol), et al) misunderstood.

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Yes I didn't know about this until a couple of years ago. The traditional skins were not racists.

This is not known about by a lot of people mostly only by those that were there at the time!

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unfortunately your comment is too true. its a shame that the word 'skinhead' automatically refers to the bad kind of skinhead, not the original kind, and its a shame not very many people are even aware skinheads never used to be that way, except as you say, the ones that were lucky enough to live through it at the time. i wasn't there at the time, i was born in '86, im just a big fan of that era. some good skinhead reggae tunes you might like to youtube are Toots & The Maytals (54.46 Thats My Number, Pressure Drop, Louie Louie) Andy Capp - The Law, The Charmers - Skinhead Train, The Upsetters - Return Of Django, Symarip - Skinhead Moonstomp and Skinhead Girl (if anyone knows a lady who fits the description of this song, send her my way please).

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Thank you for this response (and the other one on this thread)! It really annoys me when people just assume that as soon as you say 'skinhead' people think 'racist thug' when this is not always the case.

My dad has always been a traditional skinhead one of the 'spirit of 69' type skinheads. He still wears his DM's, his Ben Sherman's, his braces, his Harrington jacket (hell he bought me a Harrington jacket and a pair of DM's when I asked for them) and he still listens to reggae and ska all the time. I grew up listening to ska and reggae and still regard them as some of my favourite genres of music. It annoys me the association that the word 'skinhead' now has because my dad is nothing like that, my aunt (who was also a skinhead) is nothing like that, and while I wouldn't class myself as a skinhead (I don't have the hair and although I wear the clothes sometimes I'm not necessarily a hardcore skinhead) I'm certainly nothing like that.

I love the fact that this movie does show the traditional skinheads and I love the fact that they demonstrate it with characters like Woody, Lol and Milky who are all friendly, nice people who just dress in a certain style and listen to certain music. They help to show that skinhead does not equal racist thug.

Sorry about this very long response, this is just something that has always agitated me and I appreciated and was relieved to see your posts expressing this!

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Hey dont worry about the long response, its nice to read about something thats of a common interest. Its amazing to hear that your dad is still keeping it old school, sounds like a cool brother, you're lucky to have such a cool relative. Like I mentioned in an earlier post, its not that i was there at the time when the traditional skinheads came about, but i've read/watched and researched so much stuff from that time that i'm pretty sure we'd have a lot to talk about. Ska/rocksteady and dub are my specialities, even though i'd consider my musical range very very broad. I'm sure your dad will have also seen alot of good ska/reggae bands from that era but you should let him know that Lee Scratch Perry is playing at the riverside in Newcastle on April 10th. I'll be there, picking up change........

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Oh cool, I'll have to let him know! We don't live very close to Newcastle though so it would depend on whether or not he fancies travelling all that way, although knowing him he probably wouldn't mind for a good gig! Yeah I'm the same, my musical taste is a very wide range, I enjoy variety in my life so I can't just stick to one genre all the time or I get bored but thanks to my dad I do have a special place in my heart for ska music! I went with him to see Madness live, about 5/6 years ago now, and it was amazing! He also goes to gigs to watch ska cover bands and I tend to join him, they're always really good!

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I didn't know much about this until I watched a short docu-series iD magazine put on YouTube. They covered all the different British music eras and the style that came with it. I really liked the skinhead style and realised I kind of dress like them already, so thought I'd watch This is England. It's a real triumph to British cinema and television.

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If you liked the film, check out the 2 follow up tv series' , This Is England 86 and 88. This Is England 90 will be starting very soon. Probably my favourite TV mini series ever

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