Endorsements

Reframing Margaret Thatcher explores new representations of Thatcher and her aftermath in contemporary film and TV. It traces a shift in British film since the early 2000s, which it understands as 'post-Thatcherism.' Rather than reproducing the polarisation of the Thatcher years, such post-Thatcherite films revisit and reflect upon earlier media incarnations of the former prime minister. This book adds to our understanding of how British culture represents and remembers Thatcher, how it has normalised the ways in which it does so, and how British film has begun to interrogate such normalisations. Simultaneously, post-Thatcherite films offer new and playful imaginations that appropriate, reconfigure, and rewrite the clichéd Iron Lady. This book addresses such new representations in relation to iconicity and memory (The Iron Lady), the Falklands War and social realism (This Is England), queer liberation and commodification (9 Dead Gay Guys), the cinematic form of trauma (Doomsday), and the mutability of Thatcher herself (Sherlock's 'The Six Thatchers'). Drawing on genre, trauma, and queer studies, as well as film narratology, this innovative study shows how the apparent depoliticisation of British film makes visible new relations between genre, cinematic form, and imaginations of the past. It demonstrates how post-Thatcherism allows films to question the dominant narratives that have historically defined Thatcherism, offering fresh perspectives that both critique and creatively reinterpret her enduring impact.