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British Cultural Studies and the Development of Subcultures in the 1960S

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British Cultural Studies and the Development of Subcultures in the 1960S Masaryk University Faculty of Arts Department of English and American Studies English Language and Literature Barbora Šidlová British Cultural Studies and the Development of Subcultures in the 1960s Bachelor‟s Diploma Thesis Supervisor: Stephen Paul Hardy, Ph.D. 2014 I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography. …………………………………………….. Author‟s signature Acknowledgement I would like to thank my supervisor Stephen Paul Hardy, Ph.D. for his endless patience and kind advice. I would also like to thank my friends and family for their encouragement and support. Table of contents Introduction ................................................................................................................................. 5 1. British Cultural Studies .......................................................................................................... 8 1.1 Antecedents ........................................................................................................................ 8 1.2 Influences on the field ....................................................................................................... 9 1.2.1 Changes in the post-World War II era ......................................................................... 9 1.2.2 European theorists ...................................................................................................... 10 1.3 Pioneers ............................................................................................................................ 12 1.3.1 Richard Hoggart ......................................................................................................... 12 1.3.2 Raymond Williams..................................................................................................... 13 1.3.3 E. P. Thompson .......................................................................................................... 14 1.4 Formation of the field in 1960s ...................................................................................... 15 1.4.1 New Left .................................................................................................................... 15 1.4.2 Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies ................................................................. 17 2. Theory of subculture ............................................................................................................. 19 2.1 Youth Culture .................................................................................................................. 19 2.2 Definition .......................................................................................................................... 20 2.3 Function ........................................................................................................................... 22 2.4 Style .................................................................................................................................. 24 2.5 Study of subcultures ........................................................................................................ 26 3. Youth subcultures of the 1960s ............................................................................................ 29 3.1 “The Kids Are Alright”: The Mods ............................................................................... 29 3.1.1 The origins of Mod..................................................................................................... 29 3.1.2 The reality and the ideals ........................................................................................... 30 3.1.3 Style ........................................................................................................................... 33 3.1.4 Mods versus Rockers ................................................................................................. 34 3.2 The Skinheads ................................................................................................................. 36 3.2.1 The birth of the Skinheads ......................................................................................... 36 3.2.2 Focal concerns ............................................................................................................ 36 3.2.3 Style ........................................................................................................................... 39 4. Works cited and consulted ................................................................................................... 43 4 Introduction World War II was a watershed event in British history. The era following it brought many changes in society, which were marked by an economic boom and an increased standard of living. Britain was determined to distance itself from the past by introducing an education system that would grant people equal opportunities of social mobility and would therefore create a de facto classless society. Thus the country‟s attention turned to youth, which emerged as a new group and having no experience with the pre-war era, they were supposed to be the future of the new system, which Britain had high hopes for. Despite the standard of living in fact being higher, equal opportunities for everyone turned out to be a rather chimerical plan. A lack of opportunities concerned the working-class youth primarily, who then dealt with their disenchantment in various ways. One of those was joining a subculture, which is a phenomenon this thesis aims to examine, in particular those of the 1960s. Subcultures provided youth with a breakaway from their daily mundane routine and with a way of responding to the problems associated with their class. It did not take too long before subcultures became an object of study and research for Cultural Studies, which were an emerging field themselves. The field was introduced most notably with the establishment of the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies in 1964 at the University of Birmingham. The Centre was not only a pioneer of Cultural Studies, but it also aimed to shift the direction of previous studies related to culture, which were only concerned with high culture. Researchers at the Centre wanted to alter this paradigm and instead focus on examining culture in terms of everyday lives and prove to scholars that culture in this sense was worthy of being included into the academics. Therefore, the purpose of this thesis is to describe the contemporaneous development of subcultures and British Cultural Studies in the 1960s and to examine the nature of connections between them. 5 The thesis is organised into three chapters, the first of which looks into the development of the British Cultural Studies in the 1960s. It briefly outlines the history of what might be considered Cultural Studies in Britain before this period, but then the main focus is placed on the history of the first years of the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies and events leading up to its establishment. The Centre revolved around a few leading figures such as Richard Hoggart, Stuart Hall and Raymond Williams, who are presented along with their work, as this chapter aims to show their revolutionary approach to studying culture and what ideas it was based on. The main sources for this chapter are Graeme Turner‟s British Cultural Studies: An Introduction and Patrick Brantlinger‟s Crusoe’s Footprint: Cultural Studies in Britain and America, which both offer a detailed background of the development of the field, as well as an analysis of the applied theories and the authors‟ works. The second chapter is devoted to the concept of subculture itself. It is based mainly on the Cultural Studies‟ scholars‟ approach to the phenomenon and illustrates which of its elements were examined in their work. First it provides a definition of subculture and as opposed to it, tackles the myth of “Youth Culture”, which was prevalent in post-war British ideology. Among the other aspects of subculture taken into consideration are its function, its relation to the dominant culture and the importance of style within these groups. Through examination of these elements, this chapter intends to demonstrate the importance of studying subcultures to Cultural Studies, which lies mostly in accordance to Cultural Studies‟ newfound conviction of studying the culture of daily life. Most of this chapter draws from Dick Hebdige‟s Subculture: The Meaning of Style, which provides a deep insight into the topic of subculture, covering many of the aforementioned aspects. The final chapter introduces some of the prominent subcultures of the 1960s in their approximate succession. The respective subcultures are presented in terms of their various features, some of which were theoretically examined in the second chapter of this work. First, 6 the thesis looks into the birth of the given subculture and then goes on to inquire about its ideologies and focal concerns, around which subcultures are mostly built. The relation of a subculture‟s relation to their parent cultures, or in some cases other subcultures are touched upon as well. Finally, their style is portrayed by various stereotypical elements, be it their characteristic traditions, music or fashion and others. The first introduced groups are the “mods” and “rockers”, two conflicting subcultures in the early 1960s, dubbed “folk devils” by the media for their infamous clashes with one another. Their inevitable decay was followed by the rise of other subcultures,
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