Social realism is the term used for work produced by painters, printmakers, photographers, writers and filmmakers that aims to draw attention to the real socio-political conditions of the working class as a means to critique the power structures behind these conditions. While the movement's characteristics vary from nation to nation, it almost always utilizes a form of descriptive or critical realism.
It is very popular genre in British Media, as it tries to be a real representation of British society. Themes such as money, drugs, prostitution and sex are presented commonly in social realism films, and also social status, religious beliefs and political stance. It was dubbed 'Social Realism' because of the subtext, the word 'social' refers to the people in society, and 'realism' refers to the way these people were portrayed in each medium. The genre allowed artists to create art that represented the everyday lives of common, working folks, and use different artforms to show how the world really was and not how artists of the past made it out to be. Romantic, frivolous notions were discarded for the gritty, harsh characteristics that defined the world after the Industrial Revolution and Great Depression.
Ken Loach is a prime example of an artist who uses the Social Realism genre. Unlike virtually all his contemporaries, Ken Loach has never succumbed to the siren call of Hollywood, and it's virtually impossible to imagine his particular brand of British socialist realism translating well to that context. He made his feature debut Poor Cow (1967), a surprise success at the box office as it not only sold to the US for more than its production cost but also did extremely well in Italy and Britain. The following year, Loach made Kes (1969), which was also a successful product with the Social Realism genre attached to it. Much of the film's content has been inferred as a critique of the British education system of the time, which sorted children into different types of schools depending on their academic ability. Ken Loach's naturalistic, social realist directing style is the reason he is successful in his craft, and his use of the Social Realism genre allows him to explore themes and ideologies he would be unable to otherwise.
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