Escolar Documentos
Profissional Documentos
Cultura Documentos
Emerging out of field of Gender studies (the study of males and female roles
historically, politically, socially etc). Queer theory challenges the idea that
gender being male or female is part of the essential self, that it is fixed,
immovable in other words Queer theory suggest that our male or female
gender does not control all aspects of our identity or how we perceive other
peoples identity. In other other words gender, particularly as it is represented
in performance on TV, Film etc, is fluid, flexible depending on the context in
which it is seen. For example an audience can see Tom Cruise playing a
straight pilot in The Right Stuff and interpret his gender, although male, as
having very queer or gay attributes. The theory developed as a way of
In his book, Subculture and The Meaning of Style, Dick Hebdidge said that a
subculture is a group of like minded individuals who feel neglected by societal
standards and who develop a sense of identity which differs to the dominant
on to which they belong. Ken Gelder lists 6 ways in which a subculture can
be recognised: 1) Often have negative relationship to work 2) Negative or
ambivalent relationship to class 3) Through their associations with territory
( The street, the hood, the club) rather than property 4) Through their stylistic
ties to excess 5) Through their movement out of home into non-domestic
forms of belonging (social groups as opposed to family) 6) Through their
refusal to engage with they might see as the banalities of life.
Other ways of recognising a subculture might be symbolism attached to
clothes, music, visual affectations like tattoos etc. (Examples Ben and his
friends in Knocked up representing a subculture some of the values of which
Alison and as such the America she initially represents might benefit from).
Subcultural values often associated with being cool.
Pen name of Gloria Jean Watkins. First major work Aint I a woman? Lack,
women and feminity written in 1981. Focused on the perpetuation of
systems of oppression and domination in the media paying particular attention
to the devaluation of black womanhood. The idea of lack or otherness refers
to the way that women and ethnic minorities are usually represented as
other. Their primary purpose is simply to be other than the norm (usually a
white male hero). They are therefore known more by the context of lack than
by a realised or complex identity. This theory can be linked to ideas of the
monstrous feminine found in feminist analysis of literature and art.
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Representation of youth and teenagers
Considering Quadrophenia.
This film is great for thinking about subculture. The film looks and mods and
their interaction with the rockers. Think about how fashion, music, language,
drugs and sex are used symbolically to make meaning and represent values
like rebellion, anger and disillusion. Dick Hebdige said that subcultures use
style to represent their resistance to the dominant ideologies of a corrupt
society. They take symbols like the smart clothes or mopeds and modify or
customise them to show their alternative values. Watch the film again and see
if you can identify these symbols and what they represent.
Can this theory be applied to more recent films depicting youth? Watch 8Mile
and think about the urban music / hip hop rap subculture. Can the symbols of
this subculture be analysed in a similar way to Quadrophenia?