Lights, Camera, Aggro!' Readings of 'Celluloid Hooliganism

Abstract

This paper examines reactions to the apparently growing number of films concerned with football-related disorder. The central concern of the paper is to address whether such mainstream films are guilty of glorifying and therefore inspiring football-related disorder, as some critics within the media claim. In order to address this vexed question, different readings of The Football Factory (2004) and Green Street (2005) were analysed, as well as those of the earlier titles The Firm (1988) and ID (1995). As Hall found in his classic study of the press coverage of 'real' hooliganism, it is evident that 'virtual' hooliganism is treated in a similar 'brutal, short-hand and simplifying' way. The textual analysis of many readings of the films indicated that 'moral panics' have regularly been constructed upon the release of celluloid hooliganism and that, just like his real-life counterpart, the 'virtual' hooligan is framed by the media in a not too dissimilar way, as a threatening 'folk devil'.