"Youth cultural styles begin by issuing symbolic challenges but they must end by establishing new conventions; by creating new commodities, new industries or rejuvenating old ones"
- Hebdige, D (1979)
Mods and Punks
This quote has perfectly summed up what was discussed in today's lecture. We took a look at subcultures in Britain and what it meant to be part of a subculture. I've discovered that different subcultures were basically defined by their style (not fashion) and the clothes they wore, the music they listened to and what they did. To me that seems to be the only differences between the different subcultures, for instance 'Mods' were typically defined by The Who, Scooters to show that they were independent, and getting high of off amphetamines and and dancing all night in clubs (to name generic examples) where as Punks for example listened to punk music (Sex Pistols, Buzzcocks, etc.), wore a wide range of clothing items including offensive t-shirts, leather jackets decorated with large spikes or metal studs, Dr. Martens boots and converse and would often dye their hair bright colours and have it spiked up or in a Mohawk. A common punk's viewpoint was to not conform and not to sell out.
We watched the above video which explained how different subcultures came about and what they consisted of, as well as how each of them evolved and what it meant to be a part of each subculture. For instance the 'Skinhead' subculture originated in the 1960s and was influenced by West Indian 'Rude Boys' and British mods in terms of how they dressed, music and lifestyle. This died out around the early 70s, but was later re-adopted to be racially-motivated and violent. By the late 1970s the Skinhead subculture was largely viewed as the one to promote racism and neo-Nazism and white supremacy.
Other subcultures that were mentioned in the film were; Teddy boys, Mods, Punks, Rude Boy, Skinhead, Ravers (AKA Soulies), Rockers.
Lecture Notes
Influences on Animation:
John Holmstrom is an American cartoonist and writer, who is best known for being the founding editor of Punk Magazine and illustrating the covers of the Ramones albums 'Rocket to Russia' and 'Road to Ruin', The Ramones being an American punk rock band that were often cited as being the first band to define the 'punk rock' sound.
Ramones Album Covers by john Holmstrom
Though they weren't animated, you can clearly see how the punk culture has influenced the character design in these covers, or at least how the style of punk has been captured, with ripped jeans and studded jackets, with bold bright titles.
On Friday, I had a quick tutorial with Richard regarding my progress with CoP. So far I've done well at keeping up to date with blogging about my lectures and gaining a decent understanding about their topics, but because I have focused on getting my Telling Tales project finished and trying to make a start on my responsive briefs I haven't put too much thought into my essay. I knew that I was going to base my essay on gender representation in video games, but hadn't done a great deal of research and hadn't even come up with a solid question.
Tutorial Feedback
Talking with Richard made me feel a lot better about starting my essay. I was able to get a better frame of mind on what I was going to talk about/research/analyse by discussing my progress so far and what I was planning on doing further research on. Now that I have a better understanding I'm going to power through the Christmas holidays on my essay so I can get my first draft in for the deadline in January.
Today's lecture reminded me a lot of a lecture I attended last year titled "photography as a document", but today had slightly different undertones. Today we explored the notions of censorship and 'truth' and how indexical qualities of photography can obscure this 'truth'.
Lecture Notes
A good example of when a photograph's authenticity has been questioned is Robert Capa's Death of a Loyalist Soldier. It was questioned whether this was the actual point of the soldier's death or whether it was staged. Here I can refer to the lecture I sat in my first year, where there were many cases of photographers staging scenes to emphasise a deeper meaning or message, either because the actual scene wasn't a strong representation of the message they were wanting to portray or due to limitations imposed upon photojournalists' freedom of movement and not being able to go to active fronts.
Robert Capa - Death of a Loyalist Soldier (1936)
The photo had said to have been staged due to the location in which the photograph was taken. Many critics claim that they were miles away from battle lines due to the examination of the background scenery, there were also contradictions in the accepted account of the photograph; It was noted that in an interview Capa mentioned that the soldier was killed by a burst of machine-gun fire rather than a sniper riffle which is what the photograph actually suggests. It was then argued that the soldier was killed whilst staging for a photograph, and the later uncover of "The Mexican Suitcase" (boxes of negatives containing hundreds of negatives taken by Capa, Gerda Taro and David Seymour) could confirm that this was in fact the point of his death, but other stills still suggest he was killed during a staging.
Even though this is supposedly the point in which he died, it's still not a truthful depiction of the war that was occurring at the time, and we have to be careful when it comes to what we perceive as truth as it can often be obscured by a number of different factors. The following are examples that I have gathered from the lecture:
- Staging photographs and not knowing for sure what was happening at the time in which the photo was taken (example as shown above)
- The addition or the accompany of text. The title of the work or what people have to say about the piece can obscure our views of it.
- The media that has been used.
Ken Jarecke - Death of an Iraqi Soldier
This last example brings me to a good point regarding Censorship, and that the media that has been used to create a piece can change whether we feel is it acceptable or not. For example, Ken Jarecke photographed a burned-beyond-recognition Iraqi soldier in a destroyed truck. The photograph was up for being published in a newspaper which caused debate as to whether it was acceptable to use. The photograph was in colour which made it even more graphic and disturbing as the horror wasn't 'obscured by using black and white'. The photograph was deemed too sensitive and graphic for even the editors to see, and so went unseen in the US but was actually published in the UK by the London Observe which caused controversy due to the nature of the photograph. But that was what the photograph intended to do, it was to raise awareness of the horror that was occurring around us, and to get us asking "is this something we want to be involved in?". By looking at images like this we can have a more informed decision of whether we want to go to war, as a lot of information such as this is often hidden from the public, so in this case the truth is being obscured by censoring what we see and this withheld of information.
Censorship in Terms of Animation:
Towards the end of the lecture we started to consider whether art should sit outside censorship laws and whether it is acceptable to use this media as a way to approach more controversial topics. To be in the possession or making/distribution of decent pictures of children is an offence and can get you up to ten years in jail, which is why there was a debate with Tierney Gearon's work. She often photographed her nude children and considered it the "diary of my soul". Her work was exhibited in the Saatchi Gallery in 2001 which caused a great deal of media coverage considering her children we underage and the police had to get involved on a number of occasions. It raises the question whether it should be deemed acceptable because it is art. This leads me to Michele Cournoyer's The Hat.
Le Chapeau de Michele Cournoyer
The Hat is about a young woman that works as an exotic dancer who recalls incidents from her past where she was abused by a male. The animation is very disturbing as Cournoyer is wanting you to share the pain of the woman in the story. To my understanding the animation is totally fictional but it is still tough to watch and explores themes that make most very uncomfortable, which again refers back to the question does it make it acceptable because of the way it has been addressed?
