 CHAMPAIGN -- Occasional fashion-mag
spreads aside, punk, as a subcultural phenomenon, is toast.
Its dark, melancholic and aging love
child, on the other hand, is alive and kicking.
In fact, goth is so vibrant, it's
positively undead, say the editors of "Goth: Undead
Subculture" (Duke University Press), Lauren Goodlad, a professor of
English at the University
of Illinois, and Michael Bibby, a professor of English at
Shippensburg University.
"If anything is clear about goth,"
they write, "it is the undeadness of its appeal even as the social
and cultural formations of the modern world become ever more
globalized."
In their book, the first collection
of scholarly essays devoted to this cultural phenomenon, the editors
argue that 25 years after its emergence, "Goth subculture's enduring
vitality seems indisputable, despite phases of mainstream popularity
that ought to have proved fatal."
The editors and contributors
explore the gothscape in all its shades of black, its androgynous,
mysterious and often perverse guises, and its many genres –
including essays on goth aesthetics, fandoms, fashion, film,
literature, music, TV, Web sites and zines.
In 23 essays, we encounter
everything from analyses of Anne Rice novels and the music of
Marilyn Manson, to the anatomy of goth itself as a brilliantly
self-reinventing phenomenon that joins, weaves into and splits off
from the mainstream culture. Many of the authors are scholars; some
authors are practicing goths who speak frankly about their
lifestyles and beliefs; some are both scholars and goths.
But what is goth?
Largely misunderstood by outside
observers, especially since the shootings at Columbine High School,
goth is a complex cultural phenomenon, a paradoxical "mainstream
alternative," a set of aesthetic conventions found across genres and
media.
Anything but monolithic, goth is
neither easily commodified nor defined.
Still, goth maintains a "vibrant
presence," perhaps most strikingly on city sidewalks and in suburban
malls, where its superficial layer appears "spectacular" – in black
and retro garments fashioned from leather, chains and lace; spiked
heels, clunky Doc Martens, corsets; elements of Celtic, Christian,
pagan, Egyptian or Asian iconography; dyed hair, shaved heads,
tattooed and pierced bodies, decorative scarring and fangs. The
"look," the editors write, "signifies difference through stylistic
innovation" trying to "violate the conventional barrier between
object and representation."
Goth also has a strong presence in
urban nightclubs, in zines and most of all, in cyberspace. The
Internet, Bibby and Goodlad write, "has quickly become the most
important channel for the dissemination of goth culture." Indeed,
while gothic rock has been absent from the pop charts for more than
a decade, the genre continues to attract fans all over the world,
who support niche record labels by mail order and through the Web.
But where did goth come from?
Goth's modern roots are clear
enough, the editors tell us: the socioeconomic decline and
Thatcherite politics of the late 1970s Britain – and punk.
Many "keynotes" of goth subculture
can be traced to the early days of punk. As punk's crass and trashy
style became intensified and romanticized, "a gothic predilection
for the dreadful and macabre emerged from within its ranks. Siouxsie
Sioux, who began her career as a gothic doyenne in the Sex Pistols'
scene, helped to popularize a look characterized by deathly pallor,
dark makeup, Weimar-era decadence and Nazi chic."
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 Punk's ethos – a militant,
antisexual anarchy – was "challenged by the gothic's romantic
obsessions with death, darkness and perverse sexuality."
"A discordant bricolage of
hyperromantic elements, goth drew inspiration from its glam, punk
and new wave subcultural antecedents.
"But it also culled freely from
Gothic literary-historical traditions; from vampire cults, horror
flicks, and B-movie camp; from Celtic, Pagan, Egyptian, and
Christian mythology; from cyborg and techno cultures; from
oppositional sexual practices including queer, drag, porn and
fetish; from subterranean drug cultures; and from a historical canon
of the gothic avant-garde ranging from the pre-Raphaelites,
Nietzsche and Lautreamont, to Dali, Sartre, and the Velvet
Underground."
The goth tendency to embrace gothic
literature and art has made the subculture "more dialectically
engaged with the past than is typical of most youth cultures,
providing yet another source of exceptional vitality."
"The antique and archaic are
central to a gothic sensibility, just as death itself is typically
perceived as a source of inspiration rather than a terminus."
Goth also is inspired – fueled may
be a better word – by transnational capitalism.
"Late capitalism produces the
desire for an aura that is felt to be prior to or beyond
commodification, for a lived authenticity to be found in privileged
forms of individual expression and collective identification. For as
long as goth seems to answer that desire, it will thrive as an
undead subculture: forging communities on the margins of cities,
suburbs, campuses and cyberspace; defying constraints on gender and
sexuality; and imbuing the stuff of everyday life with the allure of
stylistic resistance."
In her essay, self-described goth
Rebecca Schraffenberger, a stage manager in New York City,
illuminates the goth nature, conceding that it is "fraught with
contradictions."
"We're hard-core romantics, dreamy
realists and cynical idealists. We find beauty in the macabre, while
seeking fairness and tenderness in our daily lives. We love all
things ancient, while being modern and liberal in our social
outlook. We're intelligent and creative without being cutthroat and
competitive. We're angry yet peaceful. We're sure of ourselves but
wary of strangers. We're funny but bitter … but mostly very shy."
The editors are careful to separate
goth from the acts and actors at Columbine. It is misleading, they
write, to believe that the subculture is associated with violence or
racial hatred.
"It's one of our many ironies,"
Schraffenberger writes, "that we externalize the world's
destructiveness stylistically, without resort to actual violence.
I'd even hazard to say goths are better adjusted than most people
are, despite the isolation and rejection they experienced as youths.
A goth's anger, though rooted in personal suffering, is directed at
widespread injustice and inhumanity. While our literature, music,
and style express a disturbed and disturbing point of view, most
goths are incredibly gentle people. We're not a bunch of murderous
psychopaths. I can't think of any goth capable of committing the
atrocity at Columbine."
Goths make great friends,
Schraffenberger writes, "if you can just get past all those barriers
we've put up after our years of enduring ostracism and snap
judgments from others."
[Text copied from
University
of Illinois news release]
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