History UsefulNotes / Skinheads

* The recent British film ''Film/ThisIsEngland'' 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.

* In the revival series of ''Series/DoctorWho'', the costume theme for each Doctor is (by admission of WordOfGod) based on a British subculture. Both the Ninth Doctor and the Twelfth Doctor were modelled after different kinds of skinhead - the Twelfth the more classic, 1960s-style kind, with close-cropped but not shaved hair, brogues with Doc Marten's-like soles and a Crombie coat; and the Ninth the 00s, LGBT-skinhead kind with a crew cut, more conventional Doc Martens and lots of leather.

Ah, skinheads. Right up there next to [[UsefulNotes/Feminism 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 [[BerserkButton likely to strongly disagree with such an assertion]].

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 [[BerserkButton likely to strongly disagree with such an assertion]].

* The recent British film ''ThisIsEngland'' 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 ''AmericanHistoryX'' 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 the car his late father left him. 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.]]
* ''RomperStomper'' is a 1992 Australian film written and directed by Geoffrey Wright and starring Russell Crowe. The film follows the exploits and downfall of a neo-Nazi skinhead group in blue-collar suburban Melbourne.
* ''The Believer'' is centered on Danny, a neo-Nazi skinhead who is [[YouAreWhatYouHate secretly a Jew]]. At one point, he runs into a Jewish childhood friend who assumes he's an anti-racist skinhead.

These days, the skinhead subculture isn't as large as it was, but still pervades amongst working class Brits, as well as working class Americans. It's just that the stigma is hard to avoid. It's a little bit easier in Britain, where while skinheads still bear racist associations, there are also vocal and active skinhead groups that speak out against racism, which kind of blunts the stigma (hell, skinheads are something of a fetish amongst European gay men). America kind of developed the skinhead subculture "second hand," however; while skins did make their way over from the first days on, and while the [=SHARPs=] came together in New York City, skinheads aren't really well understood as a subculture outside of the punk/hardcore/street subcultures assembly. As a result, "skinhead" and "Nazi" are practically synonymous in American media. This is possibly because, in the United States, there has yet to be a single skinhead movement or subculture which has received any media attention at all for being anything ''other'' than a pack of neo-Nazi scumbags. SHARP might have got its start in New York City, but by this point it may as well not exist in the US.

* In the revival series of Doctor Who, the costume theme for each Doctor is (by admission of Word of God) based on a British subculture. Both the Ninth Doctor and the Twelfth Doctor were modelled after different kinds of skinhead - the Twelfth the more classic, 1960s-style kind, with close-cropped but not shaved hair, brogues with Doc Marten's-like soles and a Crombie coat; and the Ninth the 00s, LGBT-skinhead kind with a crew cut, more conventional Doc Martens and lots of leather.

* "Bigmac" from Creator/TerryPratchett's ''JohnnyMaxwellTrilogy'' is mentioned to be a skinhead. No Nazi, however, more following the example of his elder brother.

* The movie ''AmericanHistoryX'' 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.]]

* "Bigmac" from Creator/TerryPratchett's ''JohnnyMaxwellTrilogy'' is mentioned to be a skinhead. No nazi, however, more following the example of his elder brother.

* Webcomics/{{Nothing Nice To Say}} plays the association with skinheads and Nazism for laughs in [[http://www.mitchclem.com/nothingnice/14/ this strip.]]

Examples of portrayals of skinheads:

* ''RomperStomper'' is a 1992 Australian film written and directed by Geoffrey Wright and starring Russell Crowe. The film follows the exploits and downfall of a neo-Nazi skinhead group in blue-collar suburban Melbourne.
* A group of neo-Nazi skinheads sit in the cafeteria of Steve's school on ''WesternAnimation/AmericanDad''. They are racist, but [[AffablyEvil uncharacteristically polite]].
-->(On Judaism) ''Yours is a rich and fascinating tradition which we '''despise'''.''

----

* The KimNewman short story "[[Literature/DiogenesClub The End of the Pier Show]]" revolves around a young policeman who's gone undercover in a white supremacist skinhead gang, only to get caught up in a more supernatural form of evil to whom the skinheads, constantly depicted as a bunch of over-macho and violent but ultimately inconsequential thugs who pale in comparison to the [[ThoseWackyNazis horrors of the people who inspired them]]. Throughout the story, he expresses discomfort with having shaved all his previously long flowing hair off, but by the end he's used to it and even after getting reassigned to other duties decides to keep the look, deciding that the skin look deserves to be reclaimed.

Skinheads first truly emerged in British culture in the '60s, following the long post-war economic boom. They were working class youth who made use of their money by buying clothes that reflected their lifestyles (straight-leg jeans, work boots, braces, and occasionally suits) and going to dance halls to enjoy styles such as ska and rocksteady. They were technically mods (more famously known for their upper-class, more refined image), but broke off from the other mods around the late '50s and became their own subculture, eventually becoming known as skinheads around the late '60s.

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 [[BerserkButton likely to strongly disagree with such an assertion]].

Skinheads first truly emerged in British culture in the '60s, following the long post-war economic boom. They were working class youth who made use of their money by buying clothes that reflected their lifestyles (straight-leg jeans, work boots, braces, and occasionally suits) and going to dance halls to enjoy styles such as ska and rocksteady. They were technically mods (more famously known for their upper-class, more refined image), but broke off from the other mods around the late '50s and became their own subculture, eventually becoming known as skinheads around the late '60s.

Now, as for the racism... in the early '60s, there were individual attacks launched by skins on Pakistani and other South Asian immigrant families. It wasn't until the '70s, with the rise of the National Front, that a number of skinheads organized and adopted racist dogma. At the same time, though, there were still skinheads who joined up with other movements opposed to the National Front, such as Rock Against Racism, or would found their own, such as the [=SHARPs=] (Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice). It's just that, around that time, there were neo-Nazi groups that operated openly and were made up mostly of skinheads, and the media put two and two together and got headlines.

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 ''ThisIsEngland'' 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 ''AmericanHistoryX'' 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.]]
* "Bigmac" from TerryPratchett's ''JohnnyMaxwellTrilogy'' is mentioned to be a skinhead. No nazi, however, more following the example of his elder brother.

<<|UsefulNotesOnSubcultures|>>

-->(On Judaism) "''Yours is a rich and fascinating tradition which we '''despise'''.''

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 labor).

* A group of neo-Nazi skinheads sit in the cafeteria of Steve's school on ''AmericanDad''. They are racist, but [[AffablyEvil uncharacteristically polite]].

These days, the skinhead subculture isn't as large as it was, but still pervades amongst working class Brits, as well as working class Americans. It's just that the stigma is hard to avoid. It's a little bit easier in Britain, where while skinheads still bear racist associations, there are also vocal and active skinhead groups that speak out against racism, which kind of blunts the stigma (hell, skinheads are something of a fetish amongst European gay men). America kind of developed the skinhead subculture "second hand," however; while skins did make their way over from the first days on, and while the [=SHARPs=] came together in New York City, skinheads aren't really well understood as a subculture outside of the punk/hardcore/street subcultures assembly. As a result, "skinhead" and "Nazi" are practically synonymous in American media.
* This is possibly because, in the United States, there has yet to be a single skinhead movement or subculture which has received any media attention at all for being anything ''other'' than a pack of neo-Nazi scumbags. SHARP might have got its start in New York City, but by this point it may as well not exist in the US -- I'd never even heard of them before reading this article, but you can be sure that every state in the Union has its own pack of little bald-headed Hitlers running around. Sorry, guys, but it's not just the American ''media'' in which 'skinhead' and 'Nazi' are practically synonymous.
* Same thing in Russian media, to an extent that even the neo-Nazis who do not shave their heads are referred to as skinheads anyway. Meanwhile, counterparts to the original skinheads certainly exist in Russia, except that they do not call themselves that.
* The original movement still exists and has spread to cities on all continents, but because of the Aryans, they don't refer to themselves as 'skinheads' anymore. They are longest-lived subculture currently existing, probably due to remaining under the mainstream radar, which they're content to continue doing. The Aryans simply co-opted a few costume elements, and care less about preserving the movement than their own high profile.

* The amazingly good movie ''AmericanHistoryX'' 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.]]

** And it's a bit disingenuous, I think, to say that they're "just misunderstood, like furries". Last I checked, the furry fandom did not include a large subset of people whose interests run to making white-power Oi! videos and beating the shit out of people they don't like the look of. Compared to that, fucking a stuffed animal looks pretty harmless, wouldn't you say?

* 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.

Ah, skinheads. Right up there next to [[FurryFandom furries]] 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 [[BerserkButton likely to strongly disagree with such an assertion]].

*** Not really, considering skinhead groups do not include a large subset of people whose interests run to actually fucking live animals.