Lecture 9 Subculture Style

Lecture 9 Subculture Style

This lecture will look at:

-An introduction to writings on Subculture
-Skateboarding/ parkour and free running/ graffiti as a performance of the city
-The Riot Grrrl movement as a feminine and feminist subculture
-The portrayal of youth subculture in film and photography

Definition of Subculture

In sociology, anthropology and cultural studies, a subculture is a group of people with a culture (whether distinct or hidden) which differentiates them from the larger culture to which they belong.

Parkour/Freerunning

Parkour - a method of movement focused on moving around obstacles with speed and efficiency. Originally developed in France, the main purpose of the discipline is to teach participants how to move through their environment by vaulting, rolling, running, climbing and jumping. Parkour practitioners are known as traceurs. They train to be able to identify and utilize alternate or the more efficient paths through the city

Free running- a form of urban acrobatics in which participants, known as free runners, use the city and rural landscape to perform movements through its structures, places more emphasis on freedom of movement and creativity than efficiency

Miss Van

McDonald suggest that women come to the subculture laden with the baggage of gender in that her physicality (her looks) and her sexuality will be commented on critically in a way that male writers do not experience

Angela Mc Robbie and Jenny Garber

-Girl subcultures may have become more invisible  because the very term ‘subculture’ has acquired such strong masculine overtones (1977)
-In postmodern subcultures overly feminine subcultural movements like the Lolita fashion are often assumed to be sexually suspect

Hells Angels

-In rocker and motorbike culture girls usually rode pillion
-Wills 1978: girls did not enter into the cameraderie, competition and knowledge of the machine
-In this subculture women were either girlfriend of.. Or ‘mama’ figure

Mod girl

-Mod culture springs from working class teenage consumerism in the 1960’s in the UK
-Teenage girls worked in cities in service industries for example, or in clothing shops where they are encouraged to model the boutique clothing
-This meant they had money for socialising and mod rallies.

Hippy girl

-Subculture arises through universities  of the late 60’s and early 70’s
-Middle class girl therefore has the space to explore subculture for longer before family etc.
-Space for leisure without work: encourages ‘personal expression’

Riot Grrrl- mid 1990’s onwards

Underground punk movement based in Washington DC, Olympia, Portland, Oregon and the greater Pacific Northwest

Riot Grrl???

-Mount Pleasant Race Riots in 1991
-Bratmobile member Jen Smith (later of Rastro! and The Quails), reacted to the violence by prophetically writing in a letter to Allison Wolfe: "This summer's going to be a girl riot."

The commodity form

-Subcultural signs like dress styles and music are turned into mass produced objects
-Eg: clothing which is ripped as an anarchic anti-fashion statement becomes mass produced with rips as part of the design

This is England (2006) Shane Meadows

-The new kid on the estate transforms into a British Skin
-His dad has been killed in the Falklands War and his new friends become a surrogate family