Goth Beauty, Style and Sexuality: Neo-Traditional Femininity in Twenty-First Century Subcultural Magazines
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Citation: Nally, Claire (2018) Goth Beauty, Style and Sexuality: Neo-Traditional Femininity in Twenty-First Century Subcultural Magazines. Gothic Studies, 20 (1-2). pp. 1-28. ISSN 1362- 7937 Published by: Manchester University Press URL: https://doi.org/10.7227/GS.0024 <https://doi.org/10.7227/GS.0024> This version was downloaded from Northumbria Research Link: http://nrl.northumbria.ac.uk/28540/ Northumbria University has developed Northumbria Research Link (NRL) to enable users to access the University’s research output. Copyright © and moral rights for items on NRL are retained by the individual author(s) and/or other copyright owners. 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Gothic Studies For Review Only Goth Beauty, Style, and Sexuality: Neo -Traditional Femininity in Twenty-First Century Subcultural Magazines Journal: Gothic Studies Manuscript ID GOTHIC-2015-0040.R1 Manuscript Type: Original Article Keywords: Goth, Subculture, Feminism, Postfeminism, Beauty, Sexuality https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/gothic Page 1 of 39 Gothic Studies 1 2 3 ‘Goth Beauty, Style and Sexuality: Neo-Traditional Femininity in Twenty-First 4 5 Century Subcultural Magazines’ 6 7 8 9 10 In The Beauty Myth (1991), Naomi Wolf evaluates how far femininity is constructed 11 12 and indeed regulated by concepts of beauty. The fashion industry, consumer culture, 13 14 magazines and the media all present ways in which women are expected to style 15 16 themselves.i The beauty myth is sold and packaged to women as emancipatory, as 17 18 For Review Only 19 offering choice to modern, savvy and assertive women. The following argument 20 21 maintains that the logic of subcultural style draws a great deal from ‘mainstream’ 22 23 strategies of advertising and commodity cultures. In the goth scene specifically, there 24 25 exists a ‘complex infrastructure of events, consumer goods and communications, all 26 27 of which were thoroughly implicated in media and commerce.’ii At the same time, 28 29 30 many accounts of gender dynamics in goth subculture suggest it is an egalitarian 31 32 space, offering equality in terms of gendered representation and sexual emancipation. 33 34 For instance, participants frequently articulate that the subculture is a tolerant space, a 35 36 utopia of gender-bending and sexual liberation: ‘A recurrent theme in the stories 37 38 iii 39 female goths tell about their style is power and control.’ There are several strands of 40 41 gendered representation clearly visible in the ephemera of goth culture, each of which 42 43 is often hailed as challenging to ‘mainstream values’: the ostensible celebration of 44 45 alternative sexualities almost always incarnated as bisexuality, or a flirtation with 46 47 fetish, S&M style and erotic modes of dress such as the femme fatale ; a 48 49 50 hyperfemininity which seeks to parody femininity (but which is deeply conservative 51 52 and heavily invested in Victorian sartorial choices); and a notion of androgyny which 53 54 claims to challenge normative gender binaries. 55 56 57 58 59 60 https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/gothic 1 Gothic Studies Page 2 of 39 1 2 3 Indeed, with regard to the ephemera of goth – flyers, magazines, advertisements, as 4 5 well as consideration of how promoters, bands and subcultural style gurus represent 6 7 gender – we can see that goth has much more in common with conventional gender 8 9 10 values for women than it might first appear. Any challenge to heteronormative gender 11 12 roles is partial at best. Catherine Spooner has cautioned against easy appropriation of 13 14 transgressive values onto goth.iv One woman in Amy Wilkins’ research explained ‘as 15 16 long as you dress sexy [you’ll fit in].’v It is possible to appraise such comments in the 17 18 For Review Only 19 light of the post-feminist climate of the early twenty-first century, where practices 20 21 focusing on style and appearance are frequently lauded as sexually empowering: : ‘the 22 23 body is presented simultaneously as women’s source of power and as always already 24 25 unruly and requiring constant monitoring, surveillance, discipline and remodelling 26 27 (and consumer spending) in order to conform to ever narrower judgments of female 28 29 vi 30 attractiveness.’ More broadly, John Fiske’s discussion in ‘The Cultural Economy of 31 32 Fandom’ emphasizes the importance of gender, race, age and sexuality in discussion 33 34 of subcultures, noting that the notion of ‘capital,’ as theorized by Pierre Bourdieu 35 36 (1984), and developed by subculture critics such as Sara Thornton (1995), is often 37 38 vii 39 neglected in major analyses, in favour of economic and class critique. In using 40 41 critiques of post-feminism and its complicity with commodity culture, I seek to 42 43 reevaluate how gender and sexuality functions in these publications, and provide an 44 45 alternative way of thinking about goth. 46 47 48 49 50 The current analysis seeks to tread a careful line between considering the relatively 51 52 small-scale, partly autonomous, and specialist nature of goth commodity, and at the 53 54 same time acknowledging that the logic of such retail and marketing practices are 55 56 often drawn from dominant discourses found in more ‘popular’ methods of 57 58 59 60 https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/gothic 2 Page 3 of 39 Gothic Studies 1 2 3 consumption.viii This clearly relates to the classic narrative of subculture. In Hebdige’s 4 5 account, subcultures are sites of working-class resistance, but when they are co-opted 6 7 by the mainstream, they are diffused in terms of their radical impetus. ix However, as 8 9 10 Hodkinson has noted, the idea of ‘subcultural retail’, where consumerism is 11 12 implicated in a subculture from its very origins, is crucial: ‘[whilst there is] a 13 14 significant degree of self-generation for the goth scene, such internal consumption, far 15 16 from being anti-commercial, was also enabled by the diverse free-market economy 17 18 For Reviewx Only 19 within which subculture operated.’ At Whitby Goth Weekend (WGW), a bi-annual 20 21 festival which began in 1994 in Whitby, UK, goths and other sympathetic subcultural 22 23 members such as metallers, steampunks, and bikers assemble for live music, 24 25 socialising in the pub, and shopping. xi The spectacle of buying and selling at WGW’s 26 27 ‘Bizarre Bazaar’ showcases independent retailers, branded goods, music exchanges, 28 29 30 magazines, and flyers testifying to the inherently commodity-driven, although 31 32 specialist, logic of the subculture. If this is the case, then how far do the advertising 33 34 strategies, the commodities and ephemera of goth subculture replicate traditional 35 36 gender norms of ‘mainstream’ commodity culture, and how far is resistance to 37 38 39 mainstream cultural and economic values even possible? How far are representations 40 41 of women implicated in discourses of heterosexual/male fantasy or postfeminist 42 43 beauty regimes and body management? Slippages between subculture and mainstream 44 45 are frequent and often neo-traditional in their message regarding women’s 46 47 appearance. By close inspection of the goth scene through ethnographic research 48 49 50 (interviews, observation), as well as scrutiny of cultural products (readings of 51 52 magazines and self-representations through media) and popular cultural 53 54 understandings of ‘goth’ in the twenty-first century, I argue women’s goth fashion 55 56 and body image often (but not exclusively) represents a traditional type of femininity. 57 58 59 60 https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/gothic 3 Gothic Studies Page 4 of 39 1 2 3 Paradoxically, despite participants’ allegiances to challenging mainstream fashion and 4 5 beauty culture, such images frequently draw from conventional ideas of womanhood. 6 7 8 9 10 BEAUTY AND STYLE 11 12 Goth represents a subcultural affiliation to a ‘dark’ aesthetic. Emerging from punk in 13 14 the 1970s, goth was initially a UK phenomenon, although it has since found followers 15 16 across the world. It is worthwhile to distinguish between different types of goth style: 17 18 For Review Only 19 traditional or ‘trad. goth’ being the most recognisable, including dyed black hair, 20 21 heavy emphasis on make up for men and women, long clothes in fabrics such as 22 23 velvet, satin and PVC, as well as an overlap with BDSM fashion sensibilities. The 24 25 scene centres in the UK on nightclubs in London such as the now defunct Batcave, 26 27 but also in urban locations such as Leeds, Bradford and Manchester. There are other 28 29 30 sub-genres, such as cybergoth, in which the literary genre of cyberpunk is influential, 31 32 (popularised by authors like William Gibson and Philip K. Dick).