INTRODUCTION

Skinheads are generally viewed, in contemporary Western culture, as symbols of violence, white racism and bigotry. In fact, the term ‘skinhead’ is taken by most academics and mainstream media consumers virtually to be synonymous with the term ‘Nazi’, and it has become almost automatic to asso-ciate images of young, white males sporting shaven heads with viciousness and racial intolerance. The media commonly utilise and exploit this iconic image in everything from television programmes and commercials to magazine ads and movies, reinforcing and strengthening its evocative power. The skinhead has thus become one of our culture's most recognisable images of contemporary malevolence.

A number of popular motion pictures, however, have expressed a remarka-ble ambivalence toward skinheads, depicting them in a sometimes very sophis-ticated and sympathetic light. In films such as Romper Stomper, American History X and The Believer, the skinhead is portrayed as a misguided, though passionate and rather intelligent, rebel; a sort of tragic, alienated and wounded character who is in search of, yet constantly failing to find, a place in the world. Because of these qualities, at the same time that we are encouraged to detest the way of life of the skinheads in these films, we are also encouraged to view them, and their struggles, with a sort of guarded sympathy and compassion.

The skinhead subculture has evolved over time, and though there is a great deal of diversity among the beliefs, practices and lifestyles of real-life skin¬heads, one characteristic that remains a stable feature of this subculture is its preoccupation with the ideal of ‘authenticity’. The skinhead's concern with ‘being authentic’ helps to account for the sympathetic depiction granted to the neo-Nazi characters in such fictional films as Romper Stomper, American History X and The Believer.

THE SKINHEAD SUBCULTURE

There is a large gap between the reality of skinhead culture and its depiction in much of the media and the academic literature. George Marshall, a Scottish skinhead and the author of two books on skinhead fashion and culture, writes: