Ideology in Trainspotting

Everyone's morally reprehensible - taxi driver ditching Rent Boy, Diane blackmailing Renton into a relationship
Sticks to the dominant ideology that 'addicts are bad' but shows that its to do with their addiction not them as people



Anti London-Centric media representations:
First time since 1960s we've had representation of working class British people - before that it was Richard Curtis films - middle class London was the worlds view of Britain, shown by Renton describing the British as 'effete'
Challenges notion that London is the centre of the world, high vs pop culture - linked to Cool Britannia

Colour palette - dark but high contrast colours - red=danger, green=healing

Called Trainspotting because it's a hobby that no one else understands why you'd do it, you're ashamed to admit it etc. + you get 'track marks' on your veins when you inject heroin
Honest representation of heroin - challenges the view that junkies are passive victims
See loads of addicts - Begby alcohol/fighting, Renton's mum's Valium, Tommy exercising. In society there's power, attention, wealth, shopping, work addictions

Binary oppositions:
Addiction vs sobriety
Passivity vs choice
Culture vs depravity
Civilisation vs wild

Scenes showing addiction:
Toilet Scene - pills glow pure white while everything else is brown, even though they wouldn't realistically be clean
Bar Scene - Begby putting knife down, needs a quick fix of violence, but doesn't need the knife but is willing to use it
Knife Scene - Spud gets cut, repercussions of addiction harming others, last straw for Renton
Working Out Scene - Tommy's addiction to fitness

Anti-British scenes:
Renton's Rant - Why being Scottish is 'shite' (down to the English) and why the English are worse
Describing his London real estate job (the epitome of what life in London is/represents) as 'cheating, scamming, fragmenting, breaking... there was no such thing as society and if there was I had nothing to do with it' - directly comparable to the lifestyle of a heroin addict
Judge was English - us vs them, English in position of power
Nihilism - apathetic about situation, life, goals, drugs
Can't discuss the significance of Trainspotting without discussing Cool Brittania


Postmodern - style over substance ie sinking into the carpet, James Bond intertextuality especially with Sean Connery who's very pro Scottish, toilet scene. This gives us ideological views of drug addiction
WE ATTACH ONE IDEOLOGY TO EACH FILM