Lecture 6 Subcultures 02 28 2014 Dick Hebdige Subculture The Meaning of Style 1979 Working with the issue of culture from a Marxist perspective o Culture is implicated in social structure and power relations RULING IDEAS HEGEMONY Whoever controls culture can control ideas and concept essentially society They become the ruling ideas that reproduce class and society the ideas of the ruling class is the ruling ideas Close to the idea of hegemony ideas of the dominant class that function for perpetuating the power of that class when they are taken for granted it becomes hegemony o Hegemony is never total never complete there can be resistance ANTIONIO GRAMSCI PRISON NOTEBOOKS while there is hegemony in capitalist society hegemony is never total it is a process the ruling class is always struggling in maintaining the hegemony They are neither fixed nor guaranteed it can be prized open The consensus can be challenged and overruled it can neither be dismissed or automatically incorporated Subculture violation of norms through style group united by sets of concepts values traits and or behavioral patterns that distinguish it from others within the same culture or society A stylistic breach a symbolic challenge to the symbolic order Resistance through style Sometimes resist the existing social order but through style Subculture can challenge hegemony not directly but rather expressed obliquely profoundly physical level Appropriation Bricolage Subcultures take dominant meanings symbols and meanings to creatively re articulate them Made to carry secret meanings a form of resistance guarantees their continued subordination o YMCA by Village People referred to the gay community of Greenwich Village in New York This is the result of gay subculture in the 1970 s homosexuality was taboo they had to express themselves in code double meaning They re costume took dominant costumes of male images conveying the meaning of the subculture gayness o Rap Hip Hop 1980 s and 1990 s rap emerged in New York for the creation of the post industrialized cities loss of jobs which affected a lot of minority groups Breakdancing DJ s baseball caps oversized pants high top shoes chains sarcastic privilege on white men and expressed the alienation of the rap group The posse became an alternative to social group and solidarity Lecture 6 Subcultures 02 28 2014 o Sex Pistols introduced Punk emerged in New England in 1970s during the economic decline working class was not working class anymore Punk was the stylistic expression of the working class youths No Future For You lyrics that reflected times Safety pin piercing blatant make up hair dye repositioning and reconceptualization of everyday commodities owning their poverty Punks were reproduced in the media as menacing criminals and they reacted by appropriating their images and emotions frustration anxiety garbage anger empty Emerging subculture Pussy riot heavy metal in Baghdad Intentional Style they play upon deliberately and explicitly comment on subcultures Deliberate transgression of the rule that went against mainstream culture conscious reflective way of fashion Incorporation and Recuperation as the subculture begins to become more and more familiar eventually they can be incorporated back into the line Commodity form Commodification becomes corporate phenomena it becomes mainstream You can buy the costumes music art Because a normal everyday thing of consumption Ideological Incorporation relabeling or turning into lifestyle accounts for it and therefore dismisses its importance You are deflating the power of it by just naming it with something that you understand I would like to think that the refusal is worth making that these gestures have a meaning that the smiles and sneers and some subversive value even if they are just darker side of sets of regulations just so much graffiti on a prison wall