Romanticising violence

Submitted by Anon on 8 October, 2005 - 3:24

Ruben Lomas reviews Green Street

What do you get when you mix brutal violence, a bit of impressive camerawork and some absolutely appalling politics? You get the ultra-reactionary mess, but still bizarrely entertaining film, that is Lexi Alexander’s Green Street.

The Green Street Elite are a West Ham United football firm. Its members are all working-class men. Their portrayal in this film owes debts to Fight Club and Taxi Driver, both of which which looked at how alienation can lead to senseless and brutal violence.

Unlike Fight Club and Taxi Driver, Green Street really doesn’t delve too deeply into its subject matter. One solitary montage — in which the GSE boys are seen mooching nervously around their workplaces or council flats on the day before a feted final showdown with the rival firm from Millwall FC — is the only screen-time dedicated to exploring alienation.

So these are not sympathetic working-class characters whose violent backlashes are misguided but essentially positive responses to capitalism.

No, the film is a shameless romanticisation of the world of football firms.

The GSE is lovingly portrayed as an institution based on camaraderie, mutual respect, loyalty... The film’s explicit lesson for one of the central characters, Matthew Bucker, is that his time in the GSE teaches him to “stand up for himself”.

The only counterweight to the macho crap is offered by a brother of one of the firm. Steve lives in an enormous house, has a beautiful wife and child and some high-powered job. Once he was a firm-member. In a mawkish scene, Steve explains that he realised there’s more to life than mindless violence when he met his wife.

It transpires however that what actually made Steve leave the firm behind was the death of the young son of a rival leader during a clash. Steve couldn’t live with the guilt. Green Street’s morality is so distorted by its desire to portray the GSE in a positive light that when it tries to provide an alternative pole of morality it gets into a confused tangle.

Green Street’s biggest flaw is that it completely overlooks the fact that the vast majority of football firms are controlled by organised fascists who do premeditated racist violence. It is a far cry from the attractive fraternity Green Street portrays.

This film is most enjoyable when you don’t think too hard. Or at all, really. That’s the only way to deal with its macho masculinity and ignorance about racism and Nazism. For my money, any piece of art that actually requires you not to think about it is doing something very wrong.

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