Skinheads: Difference between revisions

{{Useful Notes}}

 

Ah, skinheads. Right up there next to feminists when it comes to subcultures people are most likely to have the wrong ideas about. Quick answer: Yes, there are Nazis among them, but they're not ''all'' Nazis, and a good number of them are [[Berserk Button|likely to strongly disagree with such an assertion]].

As has been outlined extensively, skins dance all over the political spectrum, from neo-Nazi skins to anti-fascist skins, who are likely to try and club the shit out of each other if they were to meet in a dark alley. There are also traditionalist skins, who try to avoid politics all together and focus on the working class pride the subculture originally was supposed to embody. Skinhead fashion is mostly uniform amongst guys: flight jackets, Fred Perry and Ben Sherman shirts, suspenders (braces), tight "bleachers" (bleached jeans), and work or combat boots (usually Doc Martens, though many skinheads have switched over to other brands after production for Doc Martens moved out of Britain to countries known for sweatshop labour).

 

* The recent British film ''[[This Is England]]'' focuses on a young boy who ends up befriending a group of mostly apolitical skins during the days of Thatcher's England. When the group's leader returns from prison having joined the National Front, it splits between white power and anti-racist skins.

* The movie ''[[American History X]]'' is about neo-nazi skinheads, the protagonist being a young teen whose older skinhead brother just got out of prison for brutally murdering a black man who tried to steal his car. In prison, the older bro reformed and learned to accept people of other races. He passes this well learned lesson on to his little brother. {{spoiler|Then the younger brother gets shot and killed by a black kid he insulted the day before.}}