Jubilee mugs:the monarchy and the Sex Pistols

With rare exceptions sociologists have traditionally had little to say about the British monarchy. In the exceptional cases of the Durkheimian functionalism of Shills and Young (1953), the left humanism of Birnbaum (1955), or the archaic state/backward nation thesis of Nairn (1988), the British nation has been conceived as a homogenous mass. The brief episode of the Sex Pistols' Jubilee year song 'God Save the Queen' exposed some of the divisions within the national 'mass', forcing a re-ordering of the balance between detachment and belonging to the Royal idea. I argue that the song acted as a kind of 'breaching experiment'. Its wilful provocation of Royalist sentiment revealed the level of sanction available to the media-industrial complex to enforce compliance to British self-images of loyal and devoted national communicants

The Devolutionary Jekyll and Post-devolutionary Hyde of the Two Morvern Callar

The two Morvern CallarsAlan Warner\u27s 1995 novel and Lynne Ramsay\u27s 2002 film adaptationare key contemporary Scottish texts yet represent two quite different moments in Scotland\u27s recent cultural history. Warner\u27s novel is decidedly devolutionary in its handling of Scotland and Scottishness. Although superficially faithful to its source text, Ramsay\u27s film is actually far more faithful to its depoliticizedor differently politicizedearly post-devolutionary moment. Examining the two Morvern Callars in light of Robert Stam\u27s theory of adaptation helps us understand both their complex relationship and the ideological consequences of aesthetic choices. © 2012 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC