'We Are the Mods': a Transnational History of a Youth Culture
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“‘We are the Mods’: A Transnational History of a Youth Culture” by Christine Jacqueline Feldman B.A., Western Washington University, 1993 M.A., Georgetown University, 2003 Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Arts and Sciences in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Pittsburgh 2009 UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH ARTS AND SCIENCES This dissertation was presented by Christine Jacqueline Feldman It was defended on January 6, 2009 and approved by Brent Malin, Assistant Professor, Communication Jane Feuer, Professor, English and Communication Sabine von Dirke, Associate Professor, Germanic Languages and Literatures Akiko Hashimoto, Associate Professor, Sociology Dissertation Advisor: Ronald J. Zboray, Professor, Communication ii Copyright © by Christine Jacqueline Feldman 2009 iii “‘WE ARE THE MODS’: A TRANSNATIONAL HISTORY OF A YOUTH CULTURE” Christine Jacqueline Feldman, PhD University of Pittsburgh, 2009 Mod youth culture began in the postwar era as way for young people to reconfigure modernity after the chaos of World War II. Through archival research, oral history interviews, and participant observation, this work traces Mod’s origins from dimly lit clubs of London’s Soho and street corners of the city’s East End in the early sixties, to contemporary, country-specific expressions today. By specifically examining Germany, Japan, and the U.S., alongside the U.K., I show how Mod played out in countries that both lost and won the War. The Mods’ process of refashioning modernity—inclusive of its gadgetry and unapologetic consumerism—contrasts with the more technologically skeptical and avowedly less materialistic Hippie culture of the later sixties. Each chapter, which unfolds chronologically, begins with a contemporary portrait of the Mod scene in a particular country, followed by an overview stretching back to its nineteenth- century conceptions of modernity and a section that describes Mod’s initial impact there during the 1960s. They each conclude with a section highlighting the way in which Mod is celebrated by those who never experienced its initial 1960s manifestation. I position British Mod as a youthful response to Victorian modernity that was linked to industrialization, social classes, and colonialism and also to the destruction of WWII. Mod’s beginnings in Germany are depicted as a cosmopolitan solution to the problematic nationalist past. The presence of U.K. musical groups there excited the country’s youth into reconfiguring their identities while hoping to diminish their own associations with the previous generation’s Nazism. The 1964 musical “British iv Invasion” of the U.S. encouraged male and female teenagers to re-imagine gender roles outside middle-class conventions. In looking at Japan, I focus on Mod’s visual language and its translation into a non-western, yet, arguably “westernized” Asian culture. This dissertation examines the adoption and adaptation of this style across geographic space and also maps its various interpretations over time: from the early 1960s to the present. In sum, this study emphasizes Mod’s transnationalism, which is evident in the culture’s fashion, music, iconography, and gender aesthetics. v TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES ....................................................................................................................IX PREFACE.................................................................................................................................. XII 1.0 INTRODUCTION........................................................................................................ 1 2.0 WHOSE MODERN WORLD? MOD CULTURE IN BRITAIN.......................... 40 2.1 BRITISH MODERNITY IN THE VICTORIAN AGE ................................. 47 2.2 MODERNISM: FIN DE SIECLE TO WORLD WAR II.............................. 63 2.3 MAKING BRITAIN “MOD” ........................................................................... 68 2.4 THE BIRTH OF MOD...................................................................................... 71 2.4.1 Setting the Youth Scene: 1956-1960 .......................................................... 74 2.4.2 Modernist Tenets Take Hold: 1961-1963.................................................. 88 2.4.3 5-4-3-2-1: Mod Takes Off, 1963-1964...................................................... 103 2.4.4 All Over Now? Heyday and ‘Decline,’ 1965-1967................................. 126 2.5 RE(MOD)ELING MOD IN THE 1970S AND 80S....................................... 145 2.5.1 Skinheads................................................................................................... 152 2.5.2 Northern Soul............................................................................................ 155 2.5.3 The Mod Revival....................................................................................... 157 2.6 COOL BRITANNIA: “MOD EMPIRE” IN THE 1990S ............................ 174 2.7 NEW MILLENNIUM MODS: WHOSE MODERN WORLD? ................. 181 vi 3.0 THE YOUNG IDEA: COSMOPOLITANISM, YOUTH, AND MOD-ERNITY IN GERMANY ............................................................................................................................... 192 3.1 NATIONAL UNIFICATION AND IDENTITY........................................... 201 3.2 YOUTH, MODERNITY, AND GENERATION, 1900-1960....................... 206 3.3 MOD COMES TO THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC, 1960-1967..................... 223 3.4 MOD DECLINE AND REAPPEARANCE, 1967-1989 ............................... 270 3.5 MOD YOUTH IN E.U. GERMANY, 1990-2008 .......................................... 286 4.0 MOP-TOPS, MINISKIRTS, AND OTHER MISDEMEANORS: “GENDER TROUBLE IN THE USA” ....................................................................................................... 312 4.1 GENDER ROLES AND AESTHETICS: 1890S TO 1945 ........................... 321 4.2 MASCULINITIES AND FEMININITIES: 1946 TO 1963.......................... 338 4.3 THE BEATLES AND THE BRITISH INVASION, 1964-1965 .................. 354 4.3.1 The Beatles’ Initial Mod Message of 1964 .............................................. 355 4.3.2 More British Are Coming: 1964-1965..................................................... 366 4.4 MOD “GENDER TROUBLE” IN THE U.S.A.: 1964 TO 1966.................. 393 4.4.1 1965: Creeping Feminization and the New Mod Girl............................ 397 4.4.2 1966-1967: More Peacocks and Mod’s Decline...................................... 403 4.5 BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE MODS: THE LATE SIXTIES........... 412 4.6 THE 1970S AND 1980S: MOD UNDERGROUNDS ................................... 420 4.7 THE 1990S AND BEYOND: ENGENDERING MOD AMERICA........... 434 5.0 EPILOGUE: JAPAN’S “CULT OF MOD” .......................................................... 451 5.1 MOD IN POSTWAR JAPAN......................................................................... 458 5.1.1 Rebuilding Urban Japan: 1946 to 1964 .................................................. 460 vii 5.1.2 The Beatles................................................................................................. 466 5.2 JAPAN’S MOD SCENE CIRCA 2004 .......................................................... 474 5.2.1 The Scooter, Modernity, and the Vespa in Japan.................................. 485 5.2.2 Cosmopolitanism in Mod Japan?............................................................ 495 5.2.3 Gendering Mod: Mod versus “Sixties” Style.......................................... 499 5.3 MODERNIST JAPAN: FINAL THOUGHTS............................................. 507 6.0 CONCLUSION......................................................................................................... 510 APPENDIX A............................................................................................................................ 517 APPENDIX B ............................................................................................................................ 520 BIBLIOGRAPHY..................................................................................................................... 523 viii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1 Eddie Piller, August 2007. Photo by author................................................................... 41 Figure 2 Colin Fribbens, Brighton, August 2007. Photo by author........................................... 149 Figure 3 Stuart Whitman, Brighton, 2007. Photo by author....................................................... 160 Figure 4 Rob Bailey DJed at this Mod event in Berlin, September 2006................................... 173 Figure 5 Phil Saxe, Manchester, September 2007. Photo by author........................................... 177 Figure 6 Steve Plant and girlfriend Sue, September 2007. Photo by author. ............................. 178 Figure 7 Mark Perryman, Brighton, August 2007. Photo by author........................................... 180 Figure 8 Rob Bailey, Brighton, August 2007. Photo by author.................................................. 182 Figure 9 Sam Waller and Sasha Hopkinson, Brighton, August 2007. Photo by author. ............ 183 Figure 10 Preteen Mods, Brighton, August 2007. Photo by author............................................ 184 Figure 11 Manfred Mann. Klaus Voormann second to left. Photo courtesy K&K Center-of-Beat, Hamburg. .................................................................................................................................... 195 Figure 12 The Indra Club today, Hamburg, 2007.