The Full Monty: Social features and English features
By
Miwa Tamba
A GRADUATION THESIS
SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF FOREIGN STUDIES
IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF
THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF
BACHELOR OF ARTS
IN ENGLISH STUDIES
SUPERVISOR: Judy Yoneoka
Kumamoto Gakuen University
Oe 2-5-1 Kumamoto
Japan
Dec
17, 2002
This paper consists of approx. 3800 words
１. Introduction
Movies are mirrors which reflect the times. Movies portray what’s
going on the times. It is said that if you see a movie you can get a glimpse of
the climate at that time, people’s way of thinking and interests. Movies have
dynamic power which can control or influence your values. Movies can be
used as a vehicle to promote the director’s or writer’s will.
For example, “Michael Collins”, a film which deals with the Ireland
dispute seems to be depicted much in favor of the IRA. Audiences can be
exploited by the use of the movies as propaganda. During world war Ⅱ,
Hitler propagandized through films. Sometimes movies can be rather
hypocritical or lack credibility when they contain a strongly biased message.
On the other hand, movies can genuinely help people to have an awareness
of the issues.
With the big success of the Full Monty, it is fair to say that
unemployment issues are recognized more. Not only unemployment issues,
but various other issues are dealt with in this film, such as divorce, diet,
sexless couples, depression, and homosexuality which you can see in all
contemporary societies today.
In this thesis, chapter 2 introduces the movie itself and Chapter 3
introduces social features of the film. Furthermore Chapter 4 introduces the
features from the point of English view.
2. Background of the film
Chapter 2 tells you the plot of the film, awards and success, and
meaning of the title of the film.
The Full Monty is a movie which could completely change your
perception of Britain. Before they see this film most Japanese may have only
fond, posh images for Britain as they adore this country. This image probably
came from the Peter Rabbit, Alice in Wonderland, Tea, cute double Decker
buses, the Queen and so on. The Full Monty, however, is the story of working
class people, therefore it could sweep away the posh image of Britishness.
This movie might be a kind of a shock. However I think people will
probably like Britain better than before since they will get the impression
that this film shows much more of real Britain than what they used to
imagine before. This film gives a message which is interpreted as “don’t lose
hope and struggle through when you are in a tough situation”
The northeast of England has traditionally been one of the poorest
regions of the UK. The Full Monty seems to accurately reflect life in a typical
Northern English city. The Full Monty is a “feel-good movie” but what really
captures your heart is a sense of sadness and strong spirit in a poor northern
city.
2.1. The Plot
The story is set in Sheffield, the northern city in England which used
to be thriving “thanks to steel” in the early 1970s. But now 25 years later, the
city has lost the liveliness and the steel industry is almost closed. Gaz is the
main character who has been made redundant and is on the verge of losing
his only son since Gaz cannot pay custody for his wife. One day he sees the
women queuing up to see a performance by the Chippendales, male strippers
and comes up with the idea of raising money by stripping and going further
than them, by going the “full monty” –taking all his clothes off. Then he
persuades his best friend Dave, chubby, self-conscious guy who is also a
laid-off steelworker and together they assemble a troupe of six. Lomper has
his old mother to take care of and was committing suicide from depression
when Gaz and Dave first met him. Gerald was their foreman but now he is
also unemployed and has been unable to tell his wife, who has been still
using her credit card for 6 months. Then there’s Horse, an old black guy who
is drug addicted, and Guy, young handsome, homosexual guy who cannot
either sing or dance but has big equipment which looks great in a G-string.
Everybody has their own problems. This is the story of how these guys are
dealing with unemployment, with their feelings of uselessness, with their
vulnerability.
2.2. Awards and success
The film has received 4 awards in the BAFTA (British association of
Film and Television Awards) Awards ceremony in 1997. It was voted Best
Film, Best actor (Robert Carlyle who played the main character Gaz), Best
supporting Actor (Tom Wilkinson who played Gerald, a former foreman of
others) and Audience-Most popular Film. The film was also nominated for 4
1998 Academy Awards-Best picture, Best director- Peter Cattaneo who made
his debut with this film, Best Screenplay Written Directly for the screenSimon Beaufoy, Best Original Musical or comedy score- Ann Dudley. The ‘98
Oscars were dominated by the film The Titanic but The Full Monty did earn
an Oscar for Best Original Music.
The film had been number one at the box office in Britain for five
weeks after its release and surprisingly it became number three at the US
office without the general release. It was only shown at 387 screens out of a
possible 10.000. Many people returned to see it again and again. Director
Peter Cattaneo explains the success of The Full Monty, “The comedy was
complemented by a serious tone because it was about real people. In addition
to being funny, it was a story with a contemporary relevant about what long
term unemployment does to people.” The film is a comedy, but its humour
derived from situations which audiences could find themselves in real life.
The Full Monty has also become a Broadway musical set in Buffalo in
the US.
2.3. Meaning of “The Full Monty”
There are some theories about the meaning of the title “Full Monty” are as
follows;
1) Fieldmarshall Montgomery, he Desert Rats fame, nicknamed Monty,
would always insist on getting a full English breakfast every day with all
the trimmings. Thus if anyone got the whole lot, they got the full Monty.
2) Soldiers demobilized from the army were given a full suit of clothes from
the tailors – Montague Burton’s. Therefore, a full suit was a full Monty.
3) From the medieval French – ‘montre’ meaning ‘to show’.
4) From an old Edwardian tale meaning the Full Monte Carlo.
5) A pile of cards given to the winners of a Spanish card game – ‘full monte’
3. Social Features of The Full Monty
The full Monty is made in 1997 and depicted the society after
Thatcher’s era (1979-1990). After the World War II Britain became one of
the most well ordered welfare states in Europe with the famous “from the
cradle to the grave” policy of the Labour Party cabinet.
In Britain then, after you left school you were allowed about 60
pounds a week, fixed living expenses from the government if you were
unemployed or short of income, even though you hadn’t paid
unemployment insurance. Therefore you were guaranteed the minimum
standard of living when you finished school even if you didn’t have a job.
It was said that this is the cause of the high unemployment rate.
Also an unemployed person didn’t have to pay for medical
prescriptions, dental treatment, eye tests or cheap glasses. Besides that
they didn’t need to pay for their children’s school lunch.
Pregnant
women got vitamin tablets for free and if you were a unemployed
pregnant woman, you received 100 pounds a week.
However, during 1979-1990, when Thatcher was Prime Minister, she
cut down sharply on the welfare budget and in inverse proportion to the
rise in prices, the unemployment allowance went down. Therefore people
could not make a living even if they were on the dole. The Full Monty was
made in this social background. In this Chapter the issues dealt in the
film
such
as,
divorce,
unemployment,
homosexuality
and
male
masculinity, are discussed
3.1. Divorce
In the film Gaz is a divorced father who cannot afford money to share
custody of his son, Nathan. Now his mother has a new partner. National
Statistics (it only take statistics in England and Wales) show that the
number of the divorce in Britain increased by 1.4%, from 155,000 in 2000 to
157,000 in 2001. This is the first time that the number of divorces has
increased since 1996. The provisional divorce rate increased to 13.0 divorcing
people per 1,000 married population in 2001 from 12.7 in 2000. Unexpectedly,
1997, when the film was made divorce number decreased. We can say that
the divorce rate dropped in 2000’s compared with the 80’s and 90’s. In 1971
the divorce number is extremely high because of The Divorce Reform Act in
introduced in 1969.
Divorces (Includes annulments. Data for 1961 to 1970 are GB only.)
*”The Divorce Reform Act in1969 in England and Wales came into effect in 1971. This
Act introduced a single ground for divorce- irretrievable breakdown of marriage-which
could be established by proving one or more of certain facts: adultery; desertion;
unreasonable behavior; separation of two years with mutual consent and separation of
five years at the solo wish of the petitioner.” (National Statistics)
In 2001 70 % of divorce couples were both in their first marriage.
Over the last 10 years the age at divorce has risen from 39 to 42 years for
men and from 36 to 39 years for women, reflecting the rise in age at marriage.
In 2001 the average age at first marriage are 30.4 years for men and 28.4
years for women and in 1991 these are 26.5 years for men and 24.6 years for
women.
In September 2001 the remarriage rate was 24.9 remarriages per 1000
divorced men and 23.8 remarriages per 1000 divorced women. The average
ages of remarriage at the same period are 42.9 for men and 40.2 for women.
When they have children, females tend to take children with them. The
survey shows that 88% of step families consisted of a couple with at least one
child from the female partner’s previous relationship and 9 % of step families
consisted of a couple with at least one child from male partner’s previous
relationship. 3% of step families consisted of both children. In the Film,
Nathan lives with his mother and her new partner.
3.2. Unemployment
Unemployment is another main issue in The Full Monty and in
contemporary British society. According to the investigation of National
Statistics; Labour Force Survey (LFS) figures for July to September 2002
show that employment fell by 36,000 compared with the previous three
months. Male employment dropped by 22,000 compared with a fall of 14,000
among women. The number of full time workers was down by 72,000 on the
other hand part-time employers increased by 37,000.The working age (men
are 16 to 64 and women are 16 to 59) employment rate- the percentage of the
working age population in work- was 74.3 %, down from 74.5 % in the period
April to June. The trend in the employment rate has been broadly flat over
the last year. The LFS shows that unemployment rose by 45.000 over the
quarter to stand at 1.541 million for the July to September quarter. The
unemployment rate rose from 5.1 % to 5.3 %. The trend in the unemployment
rate has been increasing over the past year.
In the film the image of the security guard is used to emphasis the
terrible social plight of many workers. Many ex-steelworkers and miners
have become security guards, often working for as little as 2 pounds an hour.
3.3. Homosexuality
In the latter stage of the film Lomper and Guy became a couple. So
how many gay people in are there in Britain? According to The National
Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles in October 2002 asked the question
“How would you define your sexuality?”
93% said Heterosexual
3% Homosexual
3% Bisexual
1% Didn't know
The survey point to about 5 % of the population of London and 1 %
outside London are gay. With a conservative estimate that means:
5% of 8 million Londoners =400,000
1% of 52 million elsewhere = 520,000
Total Gay People = 920,000
Also, according to the survey;
Should gay sex be made illegal?
23% Yes
77% No
Should same-sex couples be allowed to marry?
50% Yes
50% No
Should same-sex couples be allowed to adopt children?
41% Yes
59% No
Hate crime against youngsters
83% of young gay people have experienced verbal abuse
47% have suffered anti-gay violence
It is interesting that 23 %of people severely consider that gay should be
made illegal but when it comes to marriage and children, almost half people
are rather tolerant. But still, 83% of young gay people have experienced
verbal abuse and 47% have suffered anti-gay violence. Thus you can know
that gay people are not well accepted in British society.
3.4. Male Masculinity
Some people claim that the centre of the topic of The Full Monty is
about the male masculinity.
In the film, men are feeling useless because of
being jobless. Gaz cannot keep his dignity. He can’t afford to take Nathan to
the football match or heat his house. Nathan complains to Gaz about the cold
in his house and says to him “Can’t we do normal things?” “You always make
me do stupid things.”
Being talked to by his son like this heightens Gaz’s
feeling of uselessness.
Compared with the men who know only working in the steel mill and
cannot get a new job, women are increasingly going out to work and
becoming the new breadwinners. This gives women more financial
independence and often leads to them wearing the trousers in the
relationship, further contributing to man’s loss of masculinity. Women
therefore have more money than men and they go to the famous strip
dancers’ Chippendale’s show and cheer and wolf whistle towards the strip
dancers. Gaz and Dave witness them and feel miserable, but this gives Gaz
the idea of strip show then.
Simon Beaufoy, the writer of the screen play, was born and grown up in
Yorkshire and come up with the idea for the script with the closure of the
steel mills in the late 1980s. He comments “With women increasingly
becoming the breadwinners and traditionally roles being reversed by their
new-found economic independence, men were forced to reexamine their
relationships and deeply-held beliefs about gender roles. Fifteen years ago
male strippers were unheard of in England. There have been huge changes
in the past several decades in how men and women view each other and in
The Full Monty we used the need not to lose hope, and the humour and
optimism that is present even in life’s most difficult moments.”
Men worry about their body as well as women do. Dave has a strong
complex about being chubby and wrapping himself with a cling film. Horse
buys some dodgy tool to make his manhood bigger. All of the men in the film
are very self-conscious of taking all their clothes off and scared of being a
laughing stock. Thus male insecurity and vulnerability are well depicted
throughout the film.
In the end of the scene, all six men managed to take all of their clothes
and become “Full Monty”. “They show that they have the balls to show their
balls”. You can interpret that by taking all of their clothes off, they regain
masculinity and self esteem that has been taken from them through the loss
of their jobs.
4. Features of English in The Full Monty
English spoken in the Film serves to break another general
stereotype towards Britain. When watching this film for the first time, one
may not understand exactly what the characters are saying as they
pronounce in a very different way from what is generally considered the
Standard English pronunciation.
Chapter 4 analyses English features in the film such as local
pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary and rise features based on social
factors.
4.1. Features based on location
The English spoken in Sheffield has typical features of northern
English. For examples of the pronunciation, in northern England and middle
England, they don’t have /
/ vowel, so they pronounce /
/ instead of /
/.
You easily find it throughout the film. e.g. but /b
t/, bloody /bl d /, (in the
film). Also they pronounce dance /d ns/, laugh/l
f/ (in the film) which they
are pronounced /da:ns/, /la:f/ in Received Pronunciation(RP). In some words,
/a: / vowel is replaced by /
/ vowel.
Hughes (1979) shows how the /h/ sound is dropped and is said that it
is normal not to be pronounced. In the film, when Gaz’s son Nathan says,
“dad, I’m hungry” it is pronounced /aim ngri/ and when Lomper says “I can’t
stand heights, me.” it is sounded /aik nt st ndaits mi/, and Gaz says to
Nathan, “you’ve got a hangover.” and it is sounded /juvg t n
Dave also says “come’ere”
4.2. Local Pronunciation
/,
There
are
some
Sheffield
accents.
These
seem
completely
incomprehensible at first glance, but if you once master the changes of accent,
dialect and grammar of Northern English. You can figure them out.
“Eenosenowtabartit” means “He knows nothing about it.”
→Ee (He) nose(knows) nowt(nowt→nothing) abartit( about it)
“Purremineer” means “put them in here”
→Purr (put) em(them) ineer(in here)
“Midadzgorrajag” means “My dad got a jag.”
→Mi (Me→ My) dadz(dads) gorr (got) ajag( a jag).
“Tintintin” means “It isn’t in the tin)
→Tint(It isn’t) intin (in the tin)
4.3. Local Grammar
Form the grammatical point of view, the most frequent feature is that
the past tense of verb ‘to be’ is always “were”. Here are many examples from
the film. “That were your bloody maintenance!” “That were mine.” “That
were crap.” “That were our Jean isn’t it?” “When I were about 12” “I were a
stripper”
Another feature, they don’t put three person’s –s for examples. “ it don’t
matter”, “ she don’t think so”( in the film). Hughes (1979) says that in some
areas a past participle is used as a past tense. This happens several times in
the film, for example Lomper telling Gaz “I seen him go”. In Northern
English, the possessive is frequently replaced as the objective. I often heard
this used in Liverpool. In the film Gerald says “it were me first interview.”
and Gaz says “he’s me child.”
4.4. Local Vocabulary
In the Full Monty, there are many examples of slang which make up the
distinctive
northern
English
vocabulary.
Some
words
are
quite
location-specific. You could hear only in Sheffield or in small districts of the
city.
Some examples of these are:
Aye= yes, lad= a boy or young man, lass=a girl or young girl,
nowt=nothing, summat=something, nahden= now then (greeting) chuffing=
a mild swear word (used to emphasize what you are saying), Widger= penis,
(Gerald says to Gaz “Little and Large prancing round Sheffield with their
widgers out”). Beggar=a fellow, (Lomper says “here’s the beggar” when he
finds Nathan), Benny= a sudden outburst of temper (Gaz said to Dave “all
right, don’t get a benny on.”) Eppy= a fit of anger (Dave said to Gaz “Jean’ ll
throw an eppy.”).
These words only seem to be found or have special meanings in
Sheffield. Mash=brew, as in brew the tea. Nesh= feeling cold when others
don’t, or being unnecessarily frightened.
In addition, many local words are used quite frequently in the film.
For example, “Ay up” is used to catch attention and appears in the film 5
times.
“Chuff” is the most frequently used word in the film, it is used in
place of harsher swear words which would be inappropriate in a comedy for
children. e.g. “Chuffing Ｎora!” “That’s much of a chuffing SOS is it?” “I don’t
see why they chuff out” “chuffing woman’s doing D.I.Y.” “What’s that
pasty-face chuffer<which means Lomper> want?” “My chuffing pleasure” (as
sarcastic), “Go get chuffed”.
4.5. Features based on social factors
The Full Monty is about the story of working class people. Most of the
characters speak with local accents to some extent. It is hard to find people
who don’t speak it in the film. Only one instructor at the job centre and the
interviewers speak with RP. Gerald is the only guy who belongs to the middle
class but he speaks with accents and dialog especially when he is with other
guys or gets angry. For instant he says “you bloody bastards!! Why did you do
that? Why did you do that to me?? It were me first interview!!” when Gaz and
Dave disturbed his interview. Gerald is the one who speaks with less accent
and he changes his accent when he answers at the interview. Hughes (1979)
points out that “a regional accent speaker (may) attempt to change his
accents in a formal place or when he is with a RP speaker. A regional accent
speaker is practically a RP learner so he speaks slower than usual in order
not to make mistakes.”
5. Conclusion
In this paper, Chapter 1 introduces the relationship between movie
and society and Chapter 2 mentions the background and plot of the film,
awards and success, and meaning of the title of the film. In Chapter 3 social
features depicted in the film such as divorce, unemployment, homosexuality
and male masculinity are discussed and Chapter 4 describes English
features in the film the point of local pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary
and rise features based on social factors.
It was hard to write Chapter 4 since there was no available online
Transcript of this film. With such a resource, I could have used concordance
software and examined the words statistically.
In the future, one could compare “The Full Monty” with other films
which also depict life in Northern England cities such as “Brass off”, “Billy
Eliot”, “Trainspotting” and “Purely Belter”, and analyze the similarities and
differences of the situation in each film as well as the English features of
other local cities.
Bibliography
Holden, Wendy (1998). The Full Monty Based on the screenplay by Simon
Beaufoy. Penguin Readers.
Trudgill, P. and Arthur Hughes (1987).
English accents and dialects: an
introduction to social and regional varieties of British English.Edwar Arnold
Ltd.
National Statistics On line
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/
British stripper film goes all the way By Matt Wolf, Asociated Press
. http://www.canoe.ca/ JamMoviesReviesF/fullmonty.html
The Full Monty- Take the Quiz
http://www.foxsearchlight.com/fullmonty/quize2.htm
The Full Monty A freshing change By Robert Stevens
http://www.wsws.org/public_html/iwb11-3/monty.htm
The Full Monty: Taking it off for Thatcherism By Michael Bronski
http://www.zmag.org/zmag/articles/dec97bronski.htm
Film features full frontal humor By Liz Braun, Toronto Sun
http://www.canoe.ca/ JamMoviesReviesF/fullmpnty_braun.html
The Full Monty
http://www.demon.co.uk/dayco/monty.html
Ururun taizaiki
http://ururun.com/bn/226.htm