Lesson 9 – Subcultures and Comic Books

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Lesson 9 Subcultures and Comic Books

• Robert Wonser

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Variations within a Culture

• The dominant culture refers to the values, norms,
  and practices of the group within society that is
  most powerful in terms of wealth, prestige,
  status, and influence.
• A subculture is a group within society that is
  differentiated by its distinctive values, norms,
  and lifestyle.
• A counterculture is a group within society that
  openly rejects and/or actively opposes societys
  values and norms.

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Subcultures Specifically

• Prefix sub is telling implies subaltern or
  subterranean, below
• Commonalities
• Groups studied as subcultures are often
  positioned by themselves or others as deviant or
  debased
• Labeled as subculture implies lower down the
  social ladder due to social differences of class,
  race, ethnicity and age.

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Preconditions for the Emergence of Subcultures

• Youth is a social construct, adolescence and
  teenagers are new ideas
• Youth a stage of life defined as entailing a
  psychosocial moratorium from adult
  responsibilities and thus enables experimentation
  with identitya product of the economic
  development and affluence of Western societies in
  the twentieth century
• Made possible because of extended higher ed,
  postponement of work, birth control ? Youth as an
  in-between phase of the life cycle free of most
  adult responsibilities and free of many (but not
  all) child restrictions

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Only in Context

• Could only emerge in the specific context in
  which they did
• First, a dominant, mass culture had to exist to
  rebel against
• This dominant culture was a product of middle
  class post-war affluence and many subcultures are
  products of the declining middle class and the
  identity crisis that ensues afterward
• Intrinsically linked with our consumerist
  society eventually it is exposed as vapid and
  unable to satiate individual desires for identity
  fulfillment ? how unique are you when you like
  what everyone else likes?
• Where to turn? Subcultures. They offer identity
  most importantly, authentic identity partially
  defined in terms of its opposition to the
  mainstream cultures values and products.
• In this respect identity formation is linked to
  consumption.
• Subcultures attempt to provide an authentic
  identity for its adherents in the face of an
  increasingly vapid society

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The Other to who?

• To middle class culture.
• Identity was forged through lifestyle. The
  middle class lifestyle used to be available to
  many people, as it shrank it left a void where
  youth could no longer expect a middle class
  lifestyle as jobs moved overseas and neoliberal
  policies take hold.
• Many subcultures find new values or expressions
  against this unobtainable culture.
• Gap between the expectations created by an
  individualistic culture and the reality of a
  declining middle class is especially acute for
  the younger generations

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Punk

• The term punk was used because it seemed to
  sum up the thread that connected everything we
  likeddrunk, obnoxious, smart but not
  pretentious, absurd, funny, ironic, and things
  that appealed to the darker side. Legs McNeil
• Emerged during recession in NYC and after
  neoliberal (theory that champions privatization
  and condemns state intervention in the free
  market) policies decimated the city
• Emergence of punk as a response to the demise of
  rock and the failure of sixties utopianism

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Carinvalesque Punk

• Punk rockers took the carnival spectacle even
  further
• The ritualistic violation of social symbols and
  the glorification of indecency part and parcel of
  their stage acts.
• Like carnival jesters, punk rockers were lords
  of misrule celebrating everything viewed as
  unconventional and vulgar, and parodying social
  norms through their dress, language, and overall
  demeanor the carnivalesque elements were
  intentionally explicit in punk rock.
• Punks aimed to confuse, parody, satirize the
  mainstream, and to glorify vulgarity, in much the
  same way as did commedia dellarte characters in
  public squares, and as did jesters or clowns at
  carnival time.
• Rage, horror and comedy were united in punk and
  continue to be part of some genres of pop culture
• Sex Pistols Fuck Forever! referring to sex as
  an animal act, vomited onstage, wore garbage bags
  held together with safety pins, urination,
  defecation, drunkenness and so on.
• Profane rituals and theatrical put-downs of
  sacred images that are understood as
  authoritarian and rigidly moral.
• Sex Pistols made fun of the British monarchy, and
  government, the human body, multinational
  corporations, and other forms of rock.

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The Irony and Resurgence of Punk

• Punk was seen as authentic in its opposition to
  mainstream music and society ? this was precisely
  how it was later co-opted and marketed as a form
  of rebellion
• Be different, buy
• this!

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Style

• Subcultures take on a spectacular form by
  appropriating commodities and using them in
  innovative and unintended ways that assign them
  new, subversive meanings in the process of
  creating style.
• Subculture participants still seek identity
  through their subcultures based on authenticity
  and difference from an imagined mainstream but
  a post-fordist view of capitalism blurs the
  boundary between subculture and popular culture
  increasingly threatening these identities.
• How do punks manage this crisis of identity?

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Different Punk Identities
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Straight Edge

• Hardcore had a lot in common with the
  conservative political climate of the 1980s from
  which it emerged (cynical and antisocial).
• just say no
• The death of idealism
• Sobriety and abstinence as nonconformity
• DYI allowed the transition from only being a
  spectator to full participant
• Highly fundamental in their approach
• Like fundamentalism, straightedge strongly
  appears to doctrinaire young men who think in
  binary categories and have little tolerance for
  ambiguity

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Heavy Metal

• Emerged amid deindustrialization during the 70s
  and 80s
• Contributed to the polarization of social classes
  but also has been experienced as a crisis in
  masculinity.
• Job losses and downward mobility caused by
  deindustrialization have emasculated
  working-class men by displacing notions of the
  breadwinner ethic that was romanticized during
  the 50s and 60s.
• Coincided with other societal changes increased
  women in the workforce and visibility of the
  feminist movement.
• Many men interpreted this as a threat to their
  privileged position
• In recent decades these angry white males
  directed their anger towards relatively powerless
  groups like racial minorities, women, immigrants
  and gays rather than at corporations and the
  wealthy

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Working Class Masculinity

• Fit into working class culture that had an
  ongoing tradition of rebelliousness and a deep
  mistrust of middle class ideology of meritocracy
  and deferred gratification
• Deeply contradictory subculture pride in
  rebelliousness but otherwise adhered to very
  conventional ideas about gender, race and
  sexuality
• Used to be somewhat functional the socialization
  into a rebellious lifestyle of working class boys
  ensured failure in the school system and lack of
  social mobility while their investment in
  masculinity prepared them for manual labor. Not
  functional when the manufacturing jobs have left
  the economy
• Themes of power alienation and violence
• In its extreme image consciousness, vulgar
  materialism and individualistic ideology, glam
  metal was a perfect complement ot Reagans
  America.

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Reification in Heavy Metal Music

• To reify to make real
• In this case, the oppression felt by societal
  changes that were hard to identify the source
  were reified into 3 themes
• Power as demonic or supernatural
• Displacement of power into ancient mythology and
  history
• Fetishism of commodities and spectacles that
  signify power

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Indie Music

• Encouraged by the internet
• In some ways the democratization began with
  grunge music, epitomized by Nirvana.
• Simplistic, easy to play yet also memorable
• Pop music as of late has followed this trend of
  do-it-yourself (DIY).
• The current fragmentation and uncertain future of
  pop culture is a key topic in contemporary pop
  culture studies.

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Smells Like Teen Spirit

• Culmination of the socially outrage yet cynically
  resigned structure of feeling.
• entire song is made up of contradictory ideas
  Cobain
• Revolution might be necessary but not likely
  given his peers consumer-induced apathy (here we
  are now/entertain us)
• Represented the sound of the middle class
  declining and resigning
• Apathy was probably founded first generation to
  experience a lower standard of living than their
  parents and had developed an ironic style of
  consuming popular culture as a consequence of
  prolonged exposure to media and advertising.