An evaluation of societal consumption by the punk subculture A subculture, which is a more fanciful term for a clique , is a cultural subgroup differentiated by status, ethnic background, residence, religion, or other factors that functionally unify the group and act collectively on each member. Weve all heard of these cliques or subculturesthey are numerousbut because it is impossible to evaluate all subcultures in a single essay, the focus has been narrowed to the subculture that is known as punk. More specifically, the analytical movie SLC Punk! , which follows a few punks in Salt Lake City, Utah, in the early 1980s with narration by the main character, Stevo, who leads the viewer through the phases of his experience in the punk subculture. Stevo shows the intrigue, the entrance, the sustentation, the falling-out, and the ultimate irony of the punk subculture and proves that one can make an attempt to be an individual in society and end up being part of a huge group of societythe complete opposite effect that he or she was trying to obtain. The end results will always come out the same: there is no one true unique individual. Man has created a society in which he will always belong and therefore cannot be individually different than the rest.
INTRIGUE
I was dying (dyeing?) to tell people what was on my mind. My adoption of the punk style was an attempt at communicating what I thought and felt about nuclear war, sex, religion, language, politics, racism, classism, or any other topic, but no one wanted to hear it. I was a fifteen-year-old girl challenging the entire world on a number of fronts, but no one cared to listen (Leblanc). Generally, everyone has a want to express his or her thoughts and opinions on all of the aforementioned subjects. Whether its a resistance to the president of the era and what he didlike Stevo and Bobs hatred for President Ronald Reaganor just an annoyance of having felt like there was no fitting in with the rest of society, punks, unlike everyone else, took these things as a reason to rebel. Now the punks all had similar ideas in mind. They all were active meaning seekers and because of this, they were trying to establish some sort of identity for themselves. All of them, of course, thought that it was something that was unique to jus themselves. It wasnt, but that would the factor that brought them all together as a collective identity, which will be discussed later. In the book, Identity in Modern Society, Bernd Simon explains how the punks, as well as all other people, achieve this identity:
The integrative approach to identityrevolves around a self-aspect model of identity. This model builds on the premise that, as active meaning seekers, people engage in self-interpretation, which refers to the social-cognitive process whereby people give coherence and meaning to their own experiences, including their relations with the physical and social environment. Through self-interpretation, people achieve an understanding of themselves or, in other words, an identity, which in turn influences their subsequent perception and behavior (Simon). So once the punks got the idea in there head that the only way to make a statement or to get heard was to rebel, these thoughts began to induce their actions. Their actions were rebellion, though usually through fashion, writing and music rather than violence. Rebellion basically became the leading principal of punk. Dick Hebdige explains quite thoroughly about punks and the origin of their rebellion in his book, Subculture:
To reconstruct the true text of the punk subculture, to trace the source of its subversive practices, we must first isolate the generative set responsible for the subcultures exotic displays. Certain semiotic facts are undeniable. The punk subculture, like every other youth culture, was constituted in a series of spectacular transformations of a whole range of commodities, values, common-sense attitudes, etc. It was through these adapted forms that certain sections of predominantly working-class youth were able to restate their opposition to dominant values and institutions (Hebdige). The entire punk subculture, then, stemmed from a need to express the values and ideas of a working-class society, which was being ignored by dominant society. It would make sense that a slick, corporate, preppy-ass lawyer in his mid 30s would see no reason to listen to a young 15 year-old-kid from the depths of the city. None of this kids issues were issues to him or his immediate surroundings, so it was no skin off of his nose. It was this sort of attitude from the adults who just dont understand that brought about these punk ideals and rebellion. Intrigue may have not only spread from a want to rebel but also a want to look different than others. Leblanc explains how she was always called ugly, even to her face. After shaving her head and wearing different clothes, she felt different about herself and even though it didnt make her prettier, when confronted with an assailant saying she was ugly, she could turn the tables on him or her and say well at least Im ugly on purpose.
ENTRANCE Entrance into the punk scene actually wasnt all that difficult, so long as you werent a poseur who looked like a punk, but did it for fashion. What many punks dont want to admit, though, is that even if they did have the attitude, the punk subculture was also based on fashion. Even Stevo admits that his friend Mike doesnt look like a punk, but hes one of the most hardcore guys in the scene. Hebdige explains how the punks used symbols (their clothing) as a way of expressing their thoughts:
The appropriated objects reassembled in the distinctive subcultural ensembles were made to reflect, express and resonateaspects of group life. The objects chosen were, either intrinsically or in their adapted forms, homologous with the focal concerns, activities, group structure and collective self-image of the subculture. They were objects in which (the subcultural members) could see their central values held and reflected (Hebdige). Its not a means of degradation to say that the punk culture was also a fashion scene, because the fashion that they were promoting was supposed to reflect their feelings as punks. Something as simple as fashion, however, is easily mimicked and thats when poseurs began coming on the scene. They wanted to look hardcore but didnt want to actually be it. It was easy to make yourself look like you were offensive and try to ward off people that way, but it was another thing to actually believe in it and practice it. Stevo and Bob were not always punks. They were those guys who sat alone in the cafeteria getting shit from the jocks, wishing to God they could be cool for just like one minute. A lot of the people who became punks seemed to have been this way. Kids who were picked on and ridiculed for not being preppy enough or cool enough or rich enough. Leblanc explains how becoming a punk freed her from all this:
[B]ecoming a punk was, for me, the ultimate in self-empowermentthat I had moved from a position of victimization, as the smartest, dorkyest, most persecuted girl in school, to one of agency, as a person in control of my self-presentation. I would have told you how I had gone from being a social outcast to being a core member of a marginal group, that it was no longer the case that the world was against me, but rather that I was against the world (Leblanc). For many kids, becoming a punk was becoming themselves. They were finally free to express, think and feel the way they wanted to and they didnt have to be afraid of what others thought. That was the beauty of being punkyou dont care what others think about you. For Stevos friend Mike, who looked like a total geek, it was all about being who he wanted and not caring what others thought, because most people didnt believe he was a punk because he didnt look like one. In reality, he was the only true punk in their group because he wasnt worried about the fashion scene like the others and Stevo would have this pointed out to him later on by the girl he ends up falling in love with. It wasnt about the fashion, but the ideas and just dressing a certain way wasnt going to make you become that thing. You had to be punk on the inside to be able to wear punk on the outside, but really, you didnt even have to wear it on the outside. So long as you knew it in your mind, thats all that really mattered.
SUSTENTATION Once you were in the scene, you just had to stay in it. Which if the punk was really a punk in the mind, then it was just a matter of being. Leblanc, for instance, had a deep connection in her punk roots which would later bring out a feminist in her because she was in the punk scene, which was mostly dominated by boys.
If you had asked me, then, who I was, what I was doing, and what I had to say, I would have told you that I was protesting The Injustice of The System. I would have told you that I was not trying to anger people, but to scare them, to wake them up. I would have told you, perhaps not in these words, that I was not trying to be sexual or indecent, but that, although still a virgin, I was mocking female sexuality through parody (Leblanc). It was the epitome of what the punks were supposed to be. They were rebelling against the system, which cruelly used and abused them when they were only simple young men and women. They were acting out of contempt for the dominant society that found it easy to look down on them and their culture. Punks were creating their own system to live by, instead of taking what was handed to them. It was a huge, endless cycle of t-shirts covered in filthy words and presidents with bullet holes in their heads and parties and demonstrations to dictate how the world should be.
Once loyment figures, the Depression, the Westway, Television, etc. Converted into icons (the safety pin, the rip, the mindless lean and hungry look) these paradigms of crisis could live a double life, at once fictional and real (Hebdige). Some punks chose to be more inward with living the archetype and some felt they needed to act out to be heard. Hence the birth of different types of punk, like gutter punks, indie punks, emo punks and street punks. Rebellion of the mind didnt have to stay in just the mind and so punks began to branch off from each other, just as they had branched off from dominant society. It wasnt necessarily considered as territorial as, say, a punk and a prep, but there was always going to be tension between people who didnt see eye to eye and not all punks did see eye to eye. Stevo and most of his friends were into going to parties, drinking and doing drugs and getting laid. Bob never did drugs. He complained about how the drugs muddled with the human body and he told his friends this all the time (not that they listened to him). But they all liked to fight. Fighting seemed to make them more punk than just being in the mindset. Fighting, especially people like the mods, skinheads and rednecks.
An Essay: Homosapien. A man. He is alone in the universe. A punker. Still a man. He is alone in the universe, but he connects. How? They hit each other. No clearer way to evaluate whether or not you're alive. Now. Complications. A reason to fight. Somebody different. Difference creates dispute. Dispute is a reason to fight. Now, to fight is a reason to feel pain. Life is pain. So to fight with reason is to be alive with reason. Final analysis: To fight, a reason to live (SLC Punk!). But a lot of being punk had to do with being an individual. If you were punk then you looked different and talked different and thought different and everyone knew that. But if every punk did this, dressed and talked a certain way, then they all ended up sounding and looking similar, possibly even the same. Thats not to say that they werent individuals in their own rights, but after a while, being punk started to become more about being a part of this punk group rather than individual rebellion in the mind. It started to be a rebellion by an entire group, which could make the point stronger, but it could also weaken it.
It might be tempting to assume that individual identity is more readily ascribed a deeper, underlying essence than collective identity because individual identity can be tied directly to ones own individual body as a natural anchor with a biological essence. However, although collective identity lacks such an immediate biological anchor or embodiment, it can build on (sub-)cultural artifacts and symbols, such as names, monuments, flags, songs, or literature (Simon). Music was obviously a huge part of the punk culture and it usually was a collective symbol of the punk ideals. Its possible that without these symbols like the music and the fashion, the punks as a collective would have been a weak movement. While not all punks would care about this because they were more about individual rebellion than the whole, it is safe to say that punk without the fashion wouldnt have been much of a culture. In fact, if it hadnt had it, theres a chance that punk would never have been born, at least not in the way its seen today. Certainly some angry teens would feel the same rebellion, but it wouldnt have ever evolved into the huge subculture that it did thanks to the music and the clothing.
FALLING-OUT Unfortunately for punks, the scene is mostly for the adolescents. One couldnt be a punk as an adultwhat was the point then? And everyone was going to grow up and become an adult so everyone needed to grow out of the punk stage. Either gradually, or abruptly. For Stevo, it was like he was hit over the head with reality. He was beginning to feel like the life he was living wasnt going anywhere.
And so we started our debate. He believed in structured, I believed in chaos. It was an on-going fight; he seemed to be winning. It was life in Salt Lake for us punks. The days would pass and there would be a party and then a fight and then another day and this was the cycle. It was getting old no I was feeling old (SLC Punk!). While Stevo was beginning to feel different, his friend Mike was different. He told his friends that he was leaving to go to college and study botany. Stevo couldnt see how one of the most hardcore people he knew was going off to save a bunch of plants. Things were falling apart. Bob had fallen in love and Stevo felt like he was the only punk left. Bob and Trish wanted to set Stevo up with her cousin Brandy and so they go to one last party. Stevo and Bobs last party as punks. Stevo spent the night talking to Brandy, who said to him a lot of the things he had been thinking himself lately.
Why do you go out of your way to look like a bum? Arent you like, rebelling against society? Wouldnt it be more of an act of rebellion if you didnt spend so much time buying blue hair dye and going out to get punky clothes? It seems so petty. You want to be an individual, right? You look like youre wearing a uniform, I mean, you look like a punk. Thats not rebelling. Thats fashion. Rebellion happens in the mind. You cant create it, you just are that way (SLC Punk!). Stevo fell in love with Brandy then. This was the ending factor of Stevos punk rebellion. Bob ended up taking some pills for a headache that someone had given him, which ended up being narcotics. That plus the beer did him in. Bob died and Stevo had to deal with it in the morning. He tried waking Bob up and he was dead. It was over for Stevo. He had grown up. He had seen the harsh reality of life and he was done rebelling. He didnt have anything left to rebel against. It was time for him to face life. So he did.
IRONY If it ends, then is it really a subculture? How can something be called a culture if it doesnt even sustain itself? Punk is only meant to be internalization. It is a rebellion in the mind, but once the fashion and the music is added to it, it is supposed to live up to some huge expectation that it cant. Its not a subculture, its a phase. If cliques are considered to be something that is timely, because they are usually associated with only teenagers, then punk is a clique. Punk is a timed phase that teenagers go through and eventually, they grow up and there is no place for punk in their lives anymore.
So there I was. It was obvious. I was gonna be a lawyer and play in the god dammed system. And that was that. I was my old man, he knew so what else could I do? I mean theres no future in anarchy, I mean lets face it. But when I was into it, there was never a thought of the future. I mean we were certain the world was going to end but when it didnt, I had to do something. So fuck it. I can always be a litigater in New York and piss the shit out of the judges. I mean that was me, a trouble maker, the future. A guy that was one of those guys that my parents so arrogantly saved the world forso we could fuck it up. You can do a hell of a lot more damage in the system then outside of it. That was the final irony I think. That and well this: I guess when all is said and done, I was just nothing more than a god dammed trendy-ass poseur (SLC Punk!).
Works Consulted Hebdige, Dick. Subculture. New York: Routledge, 1979. The Internet Movie Database. Internet Movie Database Inc. April 7, 2005 http://www.imdb.com. Leblanc, Lauraine. Pretty in Punk. New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1999. Simon, Bernd. Identity in Modern Society. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 2004.
SLC Punk. Dir. James Merendino. Perf. Matthew Lillard, Michael Goorjian and Annabeth Gish. Sony Pictures Classics, 1999.
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