How Does The Full Monty Affect The Economy

The Full Monty is a comedy-drama film that was released in 1997. The plot is about the lives of six unemployed men who decide to prepare a male striptease in order to make money (Cattaneo, 1997). By having an understanding of basic macroeconomics, it can enrich the viewer’s understanding of the film. This is done by examining the economy using economic indicators of the hard targets and determining the setting of the film. As a result, viewers are able to understand the economic conditions from what is seen from the film.
The film takes in the 90’s in the country of Britain. During that time period, a recession was occurring in Britain in addition to the global recession. From 1979 to 1990, Margaret Thatcher was the prime minister of the

This lead to economic growth of over 5% and housing prices increased. This eventually caused inflation to rise by 10%. This is known as the Lawson’s boom. The policies that Thatcher used was a short-term solution as another recession occurred in 1991 and 1992 (Pettinger, 2012). Workers especially of the steel and coal workers suffered the most as Thatcher privatised key public industries. British steel, the main steel company of Britain was privatised in 1988 after the stock market crash of 1987, which lead to shares to be priced at the lowest range (History of, 2001). The intention of privatisation is to generate more profits. Instead, the opposite occurred. Consequently, many workers began to lose their jobs and steel plants were shut down. This explains why so many of the characters have lost their

Aggregate demand would also decrease as GDP is also decreasing. During the 90’s, the hard target for GDP was 2.5%. During that time period, there was either negative GDP growth or very little GDP growth (UK Targets, 2011). The hard target wasn’t being met and indicates that economy wasn’t performing efficiently. The formula of the expenditure approach of GDP = C+I+G+(X-M). The “C” in the equation is consumption (Bolotta, 2002). Consumption went down as the characters couldn’t afford to buy a lot as they lost their jobs and thus have a lower income. This is often shown as Gaz, the main character constantly gets others to steal for him as neither of the characters can afford things like a DVD or a blazer (Cattaneo, 1997). The “I” in the equation is investment (Bolotta, 2002). Investment also went down as businesses shut down. The prime example in the movie is when the audience learns that the steel plant has been shut down. By understanding macroeconomics, viewers understand the behaviours of the characters as many of their behaviours are influenced indirectly by the economic conditions of that time