Trainspotting

Trainspotting

"Over the years, heroin and addiction have provided the subject matter for more than a few noteworthy films." The cult film Trainspotting, based on Irvine Welsh's book of the same title, offers an attractive case study as it represents a wide view of British youth culture by considering a large number of issues such as the critiques of consumerism, Thatcherism, class stratification and gender identities. The film portrays the lifestyle of a group of young drug addicts which places its emphasis on youth culture and links it to the drug subculture, and while also involving female characters in this drug subculture it manages to successfully relate the issues of drugs and gender. Therefore I will attempt to trace the links between youth culture, gender issues and drug subcultures in order to reveal their relation to the dominant class culture in Britain.

The film begins by introducing us to each character individually whilst also revealing the setting of Edinburgh in the early 1990's. The main character Mark Renton (Ewan MacGregor) enters the film in the middle of a stealing trip to the town center which immediately gives us an insight into a typical day in the life of a twenty-something heroin addict living in Britain. He is shown throughout the film to be someone who has rejected the culture of a nuclear family, material possessions and a paying job, instead rebelling, in not the average youth fashion, but through a culture he views as sick and stifling. The other main characters in the film represent varying problems that are prominent in the working class background from which they meet, with Begbie (Robert Carlyle) being the alcoholic, Tommy (Kevin McKidd) as the AIDS victim, Spud (Ewan Bremner) as another drug addict, and Sick Boy (Johnny Lee Miller) as the sexual abuser. All of these characters except Begbie use drugs, primarily heroin as a form of escapism from the harsh realities of present day living in a post-Thatcherite society. This drug abuse is a life practice for these young people and when this life practice is considered within the frame of youth subculture the function of drug use as a subcultural reaction to the social, political and economic environments becomes more relevant. In an attempt to define subculture John Clarke and Stuart Hall stress, in their book Subcultures, Cultures and Class, that it cannot be efficiently evaluated without relating it to the larger concept of social class:

"In modern societies, the most fundamental groups are the social classes, and the major cultural configurations will be, in a fundamental though often mediated way, 'class cultures'. Relative to these cultural class configurations, subcultures are sub-sets - smaller, more localized and differentiated structures, within one or other of the larger cultural networks. We must, first, see sub-cultures in terms of their relation to the wider class-cultural networks of which they form a distinctive part. When we examine this relationship between a sub-culture and the 'culture' of which it is a part, we call the latter the 'parent' culture. What we mean is that a sub-culture, though differing in important ways - in its 'focal concerns' and, its peculiar shapes and activities - from the culture from which it derives, will also share some things in common with that 'parent' culture."

It is also essential when studying this topic to realise that sub-cultures have to be analysed in relation to the dominant culture of that society, with Trainspotting in this context presenting the middle-class as dominant and the working-class second.

The graphic images and portrayal of drug consumption in Trainspotting, sparked what Cohen (1994) called a moral panic among the people of Britain in relation to their views and feelings towards the drug culture in their societies. "Since the 1960's, the concept of moral panic has been used by sociologists and criminologists to describe public reactions to mugging, soccer violence, social security 'scroungers', child abuse, vandalism, drug-use, student militancy, 'spectacular' youth sub-cultures, street crime, permissiveness, 'bail bandits' and lone parents." The media are often guilty of segregating a certain group and overreacting to a type of behaviour that is taken as symptomatic of general social disorder. This belief that tabloids instigate moral panic is prominent in the book Hooligan by Pearson (1983). He introduces us to the concept of moral panic and heightens our awareness of the image of the criminal. This concept was evident in the aftermath of Trainspotting, as people believed that the major cities in Britain were all filled with drug addicts and that if you visited there you were putting yourself in serious danger of being mugged by one. Pearson believed that the public were put in a state of fear due to the misrepresentation of criminals in the tabloids. A fine example of this could be seen when, in Easter of 1964, the entire front page of many significant tabloids was plastered with stories of how youngsters had beaten up an entire town and a community had been invaded by a mob 'hell bent on destruction'. Mods and Rockers had been accused of assaulting local residents and destroying a great deal of public property. However, after extensive research, Cohen(1973) discovered that this was untrue and the amount of serious violence and vandalism estimated by the tabloids was actually very small. "The typical offence throughout was not assault or malicious damage, but threatening behaviour." After Cohen confronted the press with his report a journalist was forced to admit that the story he had covered had been 'a little over-reported'. Trainspotting evoked a similar magnitude of exaggeration however no apologies could repair the damage already caused as the moral panics had set in. The