The Performativity of Punk: Construction, Performance and Redefinition of the Punk Identity

1 The Performativity of Punk: Construction, Performance and Redefinition of the Punk Identity It is difficult to trace Punk back to a specific genesis; some claim it started in America in the late 1960s with the Stooges and the Velvet Underground, while others place its origins in England with the Sex Pistols in the mid 1970s. Regardless, in both regions of the world and within a short time span, the axioms of music, performance and styles of living and dress were shifting. This shift has been collectively termed ‘Punk’ and the movement not only redefined music as it had been known, but created a new performance genre in which identity was a key component, and was constantly being constructed, performed and reshaped. Punk served as a departure from previously established aesthetics concerning sound, style and performance and developed into the antithesis of propriety and order. While those engaged in the study of Punk are now beginning to analyze it as a performance type in addition to a music genre, the role of the Punk identity in cultivating the genre and developing a unique performance type has not been adequately discussed. This paper examines Punk as something that was created through performance, which is the crux of performative theory. The performance of Punk is the personification of chaos as an aesthetic, and utilizes an aggressive, interactive performance style established by Punk forerunners on and offstage. While looking at these figures, it is important to keep in mind that they are not representatives of Punk, but are essentially ‘Punk’ because it was via performance that Punk was created. Consider the classic “chicken and the egg” model, with the question being, “Which came first, Punk or Punks?” I argue that the answer is Punks (i.e. Punk performers). The identities that these performers developed and consistently performed resulted 2 in the collective identity of ‘Punk’. I use three well-known front-men, Johnny Rotten, Ian Dury and Iggy Pop, as examples, and I look closely at their performances in front of private and public audiences in order to explore the effect that Punk performers had on shifting the weight from what (musically) was being performed within Punk culture to how it was performed. Part of this shift had to do with the concept that Punk musicians, including performers other than front men and women, did not have to necessarily be musically talented, as long as they could make a spectacle and put on a show. An infamous example of spectacle supplementing musical ability was Sid Vicious, the bassist for the Sex Pistols. Marco Pirroni, musician, songwriter, producer and former member of the 1970s punk band “Adam and the Ants” remembered thinking When Sid joined [the Sex Pistols] he’d figured they would make him learn proper. But they never did. Sid just fucked about […] After that it was nothing to do with music anymore. It would just be for the sensationalism and scandal of it all. (Lydon, 223) Here Pirroni emphasizes the importance of showmanship over musicianship within Punk culture, and how the manifestation of the Punk identity often lent itself to scandal and extremity. I argue that the scandalous and theatrical1 Punk identity was formed and continually adapted in response to shifting social contexts; within these contexts, the identity was performative. In addition, the Punk identity, though often influx, gains its strength from the continuity of performance both on and offstage. Drawing upon the work of scholars Johannes Fabian, Erving 1 My use of theatrical here is not intended to mean excessively dramatic or contrived, but rather, heightened. 3 Goffman and Judith Butler (who theorized performativity), I identify the onstage and offstage identities perpetuated by Punk performers, consider how these identities were created and address why they fluctuated. In particular, I use Fabian’s concept of a performer both "being and not being" their performed identity, Goffman’s concept of ‘cynical’ and ‘sincere’ performance2, and Butler’s theory of gender as being constituted through a series of performative acts as applied to the Punk identity3. I have been especially interested in combining Goffman’s ‘cynical’ and ‘sincere’ performance types with a cyclical approach, observing the varying degrees of cynicism and sincerity in a performance, as affected by social context. Finally, I show how the degree to which the Punk performer was taken in by their performance and believed in the identity they created for themselves was dependent upon their environment and audience type. My contribution to the study of Punk as a performance genre and to theatre in general is to show that the Punk identity is performative because it is dependent upon social context and is therefore generated as “in-the-moment” responses to specific people, interactions and environments. The Punk identity is an extreme example of how an identity is performed, and therefore the performative moments will be used as a model because those moments are particularly clear. We will look at how Punk identity took shape and continued to develop and restructure itself as Punk performers transitioned between performance contexts, reacting impulsively to new environments. In order to do this I have analyzed Punk performance through a performative lens rather than an informative lens; in other words, I have looked at Punk as a doing that constituted a making, instead of a doing which yielded a faking or mere representation of Punk. 2 Goffman, Erving. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. 3 Butler, Judith. "Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory." 4 Through this I have shown that the Punk identity was not merely a guise that was adopted to fit within Punk culture, but rather, the performance of the Punk identity constituted Punk culture. It was by means of performativity that Punks performed consistently on and offstage in response to shifting social contexts, and a community of young performers were able to immerge which have since been referred to as “Punks.” Secondary Literature: What’s Been Said and Left Unsaid The advent of Punk has inspired generations both musically and stylistically, and therefore much of the secondary literature that has been generated has been focused on these elements of the culture. In order to understand and explain Punk and its very distinct aesthetic, many scholars have endeavored to compare it to other art genres. As for literature on Punk performers, most is purely biographical as opposed to analytical. Though some secondary sources have touched upon the creation of a Punk identity or “alter-ego”, none have focused analytically on how the Punk identity was developed and performed by individuals. In order to place my work within the larger context of Punk research and to understand this gap in the scholarship, it is important to acknowledge what other scholars have already contributed. Many who have studied the Punk genre have done so through an informative lens, which is a way of perceiving “knowledge only[as] what is based on data first gathered and then controlled by the collector” (Fabian, 179). The drawback to using an informative methodology is that performances are held at a distance rather than engaged with, as in Susanna Lee’s essay “Punk Noir”: Anarchy in Two Idioms. Her lack of participant knowledge prevents her from making a compelling comparison between noir crime-fiction and Punk. Often the knowledge that could have been gained from a performative approach is forfeited because the performance presents a 5 threat to the knowledge that has already been established. (Fabian, 179) Instead of an interaction with the performance, Lee has chosen to remain an observer and elaborate on the dark visual qualities inherently associated with Punk in order to juxtapose it with another dark art form. The approach Lee takes in her essay is to acknowledge the aesthetic of Punk in relation to the aesthetic of noir crime drama. Lee claims to work from an understanding of the Punk aesthetic and atmosphere, which positions her as an observer of the culture and shapes her informative approach. While both Punk and noir crime drama are acknowledged as having “the same aesthetic terrain” and a propensity toward the “ironic contamination of the everyday” Lee does not examine how, in regards to Punk, the characteristics were developed and articulated (Susanna Lee, 6). Similarly, Sinda Gregory’s essay Junk and Punk Aesthetics compares Punk music with junk fiction, and claims that the Punk genre provides audiences with a sense of pleasure and mental stimulation through its divergent aesthetic. However, Gregory also doesn’t venture to explain how the aesthetic was created or performed, but instead appeals to the effect of the aesthetic and it’s likeness to a deviant form of literature. Both Gregory and Lee’s essays approach Punk from the outside, describing from a bystanders point-of-view the “big picture” of Punk, but neither account for the construction of the genre from within. In addition to comparing Punk to other art forms, Punk has also been juxtaposed with different performance types, resulting in sub-genres such as “punk cabaret” and “pop punk.” It is particularly interesting to observe the aspects of Punk which are co-opted by other performance genres in the process of performing a Punk fusion piece. In Roger Babb’s review of the Punk- inspired production of the Kabuki play Drum of the Waves of Horikawa, Babb does a great job highlighting the facets of Punk which were extracted and enacted by performers outside of Punk culture in order to imitate Punk. The important thing to remember here is that in this case, the 6 performance of Punk is a representation, not a creation.

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