Abstract

In this paper I examine the history and style of the real-life skinhead subculture in order to clarify its nature and to highlight its preoccupation with the ideal of "authenticity." I then use the insights thus gained in order to understand why it is that the skinhead characters in such fictional films as Romper Stomper, American History X and The Believer are, despite their neo-Nazism, granted a sympathetic depiction.