Bricolage- Construction or creation from a diverse range of available things
Throughout the whole essay by Hebridge, the most interesting section was “Style as bricolage”, meaning that subcultures are the parent culture expressed in unconventional ways. A subculture takes the same available things that the whole of a society is made up of and creates its own. It uses symbols, language and codes and gives them its own meanings.
Subcultures are basically movements within a culture that take the dominant focuses of a society and spin them. Usually, these subcultures react to the dominant culture by either distancing themselves from it or taking it too far. Punks, for example, took the parent culture of Britain and acted in exact opposite ways. Instead of throwing away safety pins they wore them, and instead of seeing a white-collar lifestyle as successful, they saw it as empty and worthless. They saw desire as undesired and ugly as beautiful. So, in doing this, they created their own order in anarchy and created a family/ society of people who all could identify with the same ideas.
The Nightmare before Christmas is a good example of subculture formation and the reason why people remain in subcultures. The citizens of Halloweentown saw things like coffins and skeltons as wonderful and beautiful, but the citizens of Christmas town saw things like colors and Christmas trees as beautiful, just like Halloween-towners thought of being frightened as happiness. Both towns created different meanings from a range of diverse things. For example, when the citizens of Halloween town made gifts they made scary things and in their town they thought they were great and enjoyed giving and receiving them. But when they sent them to Christmas town, the people of Christmastown thought they were being attacked because they were used to getting cute stuff like dolls and trains, not skulls and snakes that ate their Christmas trees. Just like if the people of Christmastown sent happy gifts to Halloweentown, they would have absolutely no used for them because their idea of a “gift” is completely different.
The two places can represent a dominant culture, Christmastown, and a subculture, Halloweentown. Halloweentown took Christmas and created it in a different way, but both towns went about constucting it with the same ingredients. This could be compared to how a dominant culture functions in virtually the same way as a subculture. A subculture finds its coherence in a different form than its parent culture, but both find coherence in something.
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4 comments:
There's an extremely valid point that you brought up which was that a subcultures uses language, semiotic and codes in there own meanings. I completely agree and I think the article focuses on how any kind of subculture whether it be an ethnic, religious, economical or social group exhibiting specific characteristic patterns of behavior sufficient enough to decipher themselves from others within an embracing culture of society. This can really be applied to examples of the article encoding and decoding by Stuart Hall. The processes for how a subculture interprets, receives, acknowledges and projects information is very similar to the affects of how a message is created and developed and perceived. In a subculture it a collaborate and collective effort for how language, semiotic and codes are understood and acknowledged the same as how a message is not just a direct correlation of one specific party. There’s an interconnected relationship between everyone involved in the creation, perception, development and those who interpret symbols/messages which is the same as how a subculture is established and how it’s core functions. I think that can be further added to the concept that your addressing.
I really like how you used the Nightmare before Christmas as an example to illustrate the point of subcultures. It definately shows how subcultures have value different things, have different beliefs, and even "look different" compared to other subcultures.
The Nightmare Before Christmas gives both examples of spinning the dominant culture. Halloweentown in itself is completely distanced from Christmastown and acts much differently than they do. And later in the movie you have Jack who takes the idea of Christmastown too far, even going as far as dressing up as Santa and trying to do Santa's job.
again for some reason my last name didnt come up on the above post. so here i am, letting you know its me :)
What i find so fascinating about subcultures is that sometimes what they are fighting for or against can not be maintained or avoided. I mean the hippie culture did not withstand time because it became the victim of main society. It could not function well enough and over time it attracted so much attention that is was consumed by society and incorporated into it. Same for the punk movement, it was great while it lasted but after a while they could not cope without society. For those within the movement that were able to continue believing and supporting their movements, good for them, but the majority of them all confided themselves to societal norms. They got married, had families and had to have an income. As much a subculture may be diverse and unique they do not always survive. An example of a successful subculture, is that of the graffiti and hip hop/breaking dancing. They were all able to make it in society.
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