Hot Fuzz and This is England Comparison Essay

Hot Fuzz and This is England are both British films. Both films use British humour and iconography to attract there target audience.

Hot Fuzz is a film written by Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg. It was made in 2007 and consists of what is known as stock actors. Stock actors are actors are well known and are used again and again by the same director. The film is about how a top London cop (Nicholas Angel) is ‘promoted’ by his jealous colleagues to be sergeant in a small village called Sanford – a village that has won Village of the Year Award on multiple occasions. Angel believes it will be simple and boring, but little does he know Sanford is not what it seems.

This is England was made in 2006 and written my Shane Meadows. It’s about how a young boy, Shaun, finds his comfort in a group of skinheads. He is enjoying himself until Combo arrives on the scene and Shaun is faced with numerous problems. Unlike Hot Fuzz which uses stock actors, This is England uses actors that are less known. The actors chosen were based on their personality and stereotypes used in the film as opposed to their acting skill and previous work.

Iconography is a big aspect used to attract the British audience. The opening scene and montage sequence of Hot Fuzz uses many well-known British icons to catch the attention of the audience. For example,  actor Timothy Dalton is a well-known British actor after his run at playing James Bond for a couple of years. Jim Broadbent has also appeared in many well-known British films. Also, at the start of the film, you see a few red buses and London taxis - a common sight to see in London. A less obvious example of iconography is the number for the evidence room in Sandford police station is "999".This is the phone number to call for the emergency services in England - therefore adding a bit of humor to this certain part of the film. Sgt Angel’s police number is 777 which is a holy number. Like 666 is a reference to the devil, 777 is a reference to good - which relates to his last name being "Angel".

There are also some icons in This is England to make us 'feel' British and let us know that it is going to be a British film. There are aspects of the montage sequence that help relate to it being a British film. For example, a short clip of the Queen’s coronation and Princess Diana's wedding, with the Queen being one of the main icons of Britain back in the 80s and today.

Stereotypes are linked into iconography. Both films use iconography to portray aspects of stereotypes. In Hot Fuzz uses stereotypes to create its humor. It combines a hardcore London met police officer with and unbelievable record, and a village police station full of laid back police officers. They incorporate the stereotypical view of London police officers - hard, tough, strong, fast etc, to the common view of village police officers - laid back, lazy, not bothered about their job etc. Stereotypes are also used in This is England (but not for the purpose of humor.) They are played on in the film. The main stereotype in This is England is "skinheads" - a group of rough, tough, racist people who shave their heads and cause havoc. However, the skinheads in the film are different. They 'invite' Shaun into their group when they see him walking under the bridge unhappy.

Humor is a huge aspect of Hot Fuzz with it being a comedy film, but less for This is England. Hot Fuzz use stereotypes in the film to create humor. They use the stereotypical view of a London met police officer and play on it by "promoting" him to a Sergeant position but in a small village, instead of the promotion he would have wanted which would to become Sergeant and stay at the London met. This is because the other met officers are jealous that Angel is such a good police officer, and they want to get rid of him. A different example of humor is when Danny Butterman believes that London met officers are like police officers in a police officers in a game. He backs this up by asking Sergeant Angel if he has ever "jumped through the air whilst firing 2 guns." Hot Fuzz also uses a lot of one-liners or "catchphrases" to add to the humor. There is a scene in the film where Danny is telling Nicholas that he should say a one-liner after he does something cool, and later on when Angel does something cool, he says a one-liner and then quickly rushes off to tell Danny. There is less humor in This is England as it is not a comedy film. One of the humorous parts is that throughout the film, Shaun is shown to certain ‘adult’ aspects of life, despite only being 12 years old.

Both films incorporate the same aspects into their film to attract a British audience. Although the films are different genres and set at different times, the producers still manage to attract the British audience successfully.