Cintra Wilson on goth
Bela Lugosi is not dead. Dig the part-memoir/part-culture crit about goth written by fantastic author Cintra Wilson, whose new book Caligula For President Mark reviewed a couple days ago. Ah, the good old daze that have never died. From the NYT:
The goth subculture, however, for those who live it, is more than the sum of its chicken bones, vampire clichés and existential pants. It remains a visual shortcut through which young persons of a certain damp emotional climate can broadcast to the other members of their tribe who they are. Goth is a look that simultaneously expresses and cures its own sense of alienation."You Just Can't Kill It" (NYT, thanks Kirsten Anderson!)
This sentiment was echoed by Wendy Jenkins of Powell, Ohio, whom I contacted via a goth group on Facebook. “To me, Goth is like an escape,” wrote Ms. Jenkins, who is 18 and attends Olentangy Liberty High School.
“No one really judges each other,” she continued. “It doesn’t matter if you are tall, short, black, white, heavy, thin. Goth can fit everyone! I think it is a great way to bond with others who are different and who are just like you at the same time! Because we are wearing black most the time we are EZ to find!”
Missy Graf, 20, of Edmonton, Alberta, became fascinated by the goths at her Catholic high school. “One of the goth girls was in the choir with me,” she wrote in an e-mail message, “and we talked about depression and God’s apparent absence from her life. It was one of my first encounters with the world outside of the ‘Christian bubble.’ ”
“I guess I slowly became (eh-em) ‘goth’ starting a year and a half ago,” she added. “I was afraid of what my mom would think (she is still convinced that goth is associated with Satan-worshipping and that dying my hair black is one more step into the oblivion ... oh mom! You dye your hair red. Don’t you know that Satan panties are red, not black?). Whatever. Eventually I got to the point where I stopped trying to make people accept me.”
the latest
latest episodes
Mom's Minivan: Less conformist than the schoolbus
http://boortz.com/images/funny/moms_minivan.jpg
I'm in my mid-40s and married to a HS teacher. I've chaperoned a dozen or so proms and a variety of other events with over the years and I've always been favorably impressed with the sense of community the goth kids have. No member of the group (and they ALWAYS arrive and depart as a group) is allowed to "be a wallflower." "Goth is a look that simultaneously expresses and cures its own sense of alienation" is precisely the phrase I've been searching for when trying to explain to other, uh, members of the chaperonage just how great it is for this mutually supportive group to exist and be part of the culture of the school.
Having read a few pieces by Wilson, I honestly think she would be almost impossible to parody.
Well you can do that without even having to dress up! It's always seemed to me that all of the clothing/style/self decoration cliques are about providing group identification and to allow individuals to generate sufficient whuffie be accepted by the group.
I was a punk without doc martens, mohawk, leather jacket or ripped black jeans. I sure as hell felt I was more of a punk though than people who crafted their ensemble at Hot Topic.
This post made me gag. I hate people trying to sum up what Goth is... Why does everyone feel the need to pigeonhole it? The beginning musicians of the musical genre didn't even call themselves goth (read the book "The Dark Reign Of Gothic Rock: In The Reptile House with The Sisters Of Mercy, Bauhaus, and The Cure" by Dave Thompson). And does the pigeonholing the genre have to be so stereotypical in saying that because they wear black, dye their hair and thinks that the band Bauhaus started it all that someone is goth? Wait, let me adjust that comment because half the 18 year old "goths" don't even own any Bauhaus... It's all VNV Nation now. And trust me, like any group, there is judgement... There will always be a pecking order in any group. NYT, please, this article is as juvenile as the people quoted in it.
It's when they evolve another step and stop getting people to try to reject them that they become truly interesting.
I love goth's, especially the pink ones. Go Becky Go!
This post made me gag.
That seems like more of a Valley Girl reaction. It's the details that count.
Antinous- it didn't gag me with a spoon... lol just black lipstick and a pair of fishnets with runs all through them.
Looking goth is too much work without enough reward.
I settle on just having a goth attitude and being myself.
Waterlilygirl is right. What Goth is now and what it started out as are almost polar opposites. I don't even like to say the G-word anymore. Its origins are in Punk rock. You remember Punk? It used to be a type of music. Goth (to the mainstream) these days has little to do with music and everything to do with fashion. Go to a Goth club now and what you will hear is techno music; dressed up in black vinyl and big boots. I think it was NME that declared Goth dead in 1992. An interesting phenomenon however, is that there is a sub-sub-culture within the modern Goth scene. More hidden, and seemingly darker. They are the ones who aren't trying win you over with their fashion.
PS While I don't care for Voltaire's music, he is quite eloquent in this statement:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mf8EeyAB8fA
When I was your age, we didn't have black lipstick! We had to use ashes and vaseline, and dammit, we looked good!
Also, if you think Goths and Emo belongs in the same box, I would like to draw your esteemed attention to this lovely video entitled "Emo Assault Squadron"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkDhh1pfG-4
I'm kind of sorry to see older people get all crotchety like... well...they are old people.
I too was of age in Northern California as a teenager listening to groups like Fad Gadget, Throbbing Gristle, and Tones on Tail (etc etc)... before Love and Rockets existed and (gasp) sometimes sounded optimistic, even longer before Trent or Marilyn. I enjoyed Bauhaus and the Cure too, but everybody was listening to them, that wasn't anything special.
But having left those years indelibly behind I now simply feel supremely flattered by these young people. Yes, young people "weren't there" and they "don't know" but that's how young people are. No matter what they do it will not be the same because life is so dramatically different. Invariably they will do something different, more useful to them, with the cultural legacy they inherit. I'm just glad so many things are becoming canonical rather getting tossed into the dustbin of history.
My existential pants are at the dry cleaners. Until I pick them up, my life has no purpose or meaning, because all I have to wear are my nihilist jeans. I hate all of you.
Oh my goth... (few chances I get to say that line, let me this once darn it) cultures come and go, splinter and regroup... and change and evolve. Goth is no different. People try and pigeonhole what they don't always understand as a basis FOR understanding, yes the labels and ideas usually piss people off because its like trying to nail spaghetti to the wall without freezing it. People are just trying to 'get it' when they have no clue. Its not easy for people, much like its difficult for me to really get the whole urban/rap/hip hop scene, and sometimes I really wish I did 'get it' because I don't want to be someone who simply dismisses something I don't understand. I grew up in the goth/punk/geek side of things, and I don't even think I could really nail it down effectively, we give our own personal experiences and as a collective we approximate what its all about... thats all we can do.
"'No one really judges each other,'"
You have GOT to be kidding me. When I was a goth kid all we did, all day long, was judge other people for being shallower and stupider and happier than ourselves.
The way I understand it, the transformation of goth from the minor-key (though very rockist and old-school) post-punk rock of Bauhaus/the Sisters of Mercy to the fascist/militarist-themed trance-pop of VNV Nation et al. could probably be due to a large trend of computer geeks discovering that if they wore black and went to goth clubs, they could be part of a scene. Anyway, the music gradually adapted to this market, with bands building on West German electro-industrial styles of the early 80s, with bands like Front 242, Frontline Assembly and much of the Wax Trax roster coming along in the 1990s to unify the goth self-identification with a club-friendly (and coding-session-friendly) take on industrial music.
@ACB - could probably be due to a large trend of computer geeks discovering that if they wore black and went to goth clubs, they could be part of a scene.
A scene that girls were on. Real live girls.
Is there anyone around here that was in high school in the mid eighties? Remember when we called them "Death Rockers"?
It was basically:
Preppies/Jocks/Popular
Stoners/Heavy Metal
Nerds/Poindexters
Death Rockers/Weirdos
None of the above who hung out every break by themselves (Me).
Satan Panties? Hot.
@Svenski - the breakdown at my high school was much simpler than that:
wealthy (preppies/jock/popular)
not wealthy (stoners/heavy metal/nerds/weirdos etc.)
I think the quote about goth being a form of "escape" is apt. As a teenager, I frequented and ended up working for goth clubs in L.A. and it was, for my friends and I at least, an escape from the boredom of the real world. Every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and most Sundays, we could decide our characters, dress accordingly and then dance like deranged mimes to Virgin Prunes and Fad Gadget. Labels are labels (we always "declined to categorize" ourselves, even though there was no doubt that we ran in packs), but as long as people aren't hurting each other and having a good time, do the labels matter?
Svenski- yes- I remember that! We also got called "batcavers".
Ahahaha, goths don't judge each other? Where the fuck has she been hanging out?
My major writing project right now is aimed right at the heart of goth subculture—for Tempe, Arizona at least—and as an audience they’re a pretty fluid bunch. Although, I think that being young and goth gives the perception that you’re a weirdo like everyone else, I’d have to say that they’re just as cliquish as everyone else.
It’s definitely not gone. Certainly emo has a strange affiliation and conflation due to confusion between musical genres, but not so much reading materials, the literature does stand out in distinct contrast.
On Mill Ave, I had a long conversation with one of the preachers who came out there. A Latina woman with a pudgy face and a yellowed grin. She noticed me wearing my outfit and my makeup—with my notebook and voice recorder doing my anthropology—and as an aside asked me about it. It turned out her daughter was into the whole goth look and had joined a particular clique. Her daughter was also diabetic and she felt concerned that her daughter risked her health by putting on black mascara, thus hiding the signs of diabetic acidosis, e.g. dark shadows/rings forming under her eyes. “You look about her age, and you dress like her, tell me about this…thing.”
While a lot of parents have strange misunderstandings about the whole cultural affect—OMG Satan! and other weird observations—there is no shortage of people who just want a dialogue with their children. Being goth as a teen is pretty much a way to involve oneself in a social experience. It has a fairly defined core, although one that shifts, music, literature, dress styles, folk heroes, and other accoutrements. Being different to be like our friends—stand apart to stand together.
I’m not done reading the article, but some parts of it do hit home.
As Vex would say: Keep it surreal, everybody.
I really kind of envy goths. When I went to high school in the late seventies/early eighties, the "freaks and geeks" were starting to put together something close to goth out of bits and pieces from punk, heavy metal, Rocky Horror Picture Show, and just general moodiness, but it hadn't really coalesced yet. Now, I take one look at these kids, and no matter how much they take it to extremes, I think to myself, these are the kids that I'd be hanging out with if I were their age.
On the other hand, I also could have ended up like Damien Echols, or just beaten up a lot, so there's that.
Oh, and to everyone who's ragging on the woman who said, “No one really judges each other,” give her a break! She's eighteen! She has plenty of time to become bitter and cynical, like us.
Friday nights at Playland skating rink is enough to make you feel very old and unfashionable. Hordes of teens show up decked out in their assorted gothic-chic outfits and look pretty f*en fly. I see a lot of very androgenous hairstyles, interesting make-up, imaginative and colorful accessories.
My stab at goth was much more Kurt Cobain. Today's youth seem to be rocking more of a David Bowie kind of deal. Personally, I think it is a more refined aesthetic. Well, I guess that is the point.
Man, eff goths. Eff them and their baggy fands (spoonerism intendended) and chitty slothes (yet again). There is no way that ANY goth band could ever come close to the trifecta of D. Boon, Mike Watt and George Hurley. The Minutemen were so awesome and got their rage out right, and guess what; NO BLACK COSTUMES. Television, Black Flag, Talking Heads could all kick any goths ass.
Black never stopped being the new black.