1. SUBCULTURES &
COUNTERCULTURES

2. THE MAINSTREAM AND
OTHER STREAMS

3. MAINSTREAM CULTURE
O Mass culture (dominant/ mainstream
culture) - forms of culture that are
accessible, widely available, and intended
for consumption by as many people as
possible.
• Example: Hollywood blockbusters, pop
music on the Billboard top 40, broadcast
television, video games,…

4. MAINSTREAM CULTURE
O 2 ways that things might be seen as
dominant:
• Number of people that listen to it, watch it,
or participate in it.
• Core set of beliefs, ideas, and identities
that are circulated through forms of popular
culture.

5. OTHER STREAMS
O Subcultures and Countercultures are
groups that challenge the
values, ideas, and structures of
mainstream culture consciously and
directly through their actions and
practices.

6. OTHER STREAMS
O The concepts of subcultures and
countercultures opposes a minority group
to the majority.
O There is no subculture or counterculture
that is dominant.

7. SUBCULTURES &
COUNTERCULTURES

8. SUBCULTURES
O A group of people within a culture which
differentiates them from the larger culture
to which they belong.
O Conceived as disenfranchised, disaffected
and unofficial.
O Exist underground, outside of the
mainstream of society.

9. SUBCULTURES
O Often identified with youth groups and
youth culture.
O In contemporary societies, youth have
creatively expressed their dissatisfaction
with the social norms by adopting
unconventional practices, lifestyles, and
attitudes.

10. COUNTERCULTURE
O Groups whose goal is to change the
world.
O They have their own privileged set of
cultural objects (e.g. countercultural
music) through which they
express, articulate, and consolidate their
political views.

11. COUNTERCULTURE
O What makes a culture a counterculture is
its contravention and contradiction of not
just mainstream politics, but also the
culture that produces these politics.
O Example: The Sixties
• Lifestyle was expressed by the adoption of
communal living, vegetarianism, drug use,
open sexuality, etc.

12. DIFFERENCES
O Their boundaries are permeable.
O They share many things in common; what
distinguishes them is the degree to which
they emphasize politics as part of their
practices and activities.

13. DIFFERENCES
SUBCULTURE COUNTERCULTURE
Subculture describes
things as diverse as
science-fiction fans,
gay and lesbians
communities, the
lifestyle of singles,
Japanese-Americans,
squatters,…
Counterculture pulls up
a much more limited
range of topics:
communes, the Sixties,
new social movement
(women‟s rights, the
Civil Right
movement)…

15. DIFFERENCES
SUBCULTURE COUNTERCULTURE
- Subcultures may be
political in their aims
and activities.
- The power of
subcultures comes from
the tensions created by
the relationship
between subcultural
practices and the
practices of majority
culture.
- Countercultures are
explicitly political.
- They are motivated by
dissatisfaction with
dominant social and
political institutions and
a desire to
fundamentally alter
these values.

16. DIFFERENCES
SUBCULTURE COUNTERCULTURE
- Smaller social
canvas.
- Limited to specific
„scenes‟ or locales,
or the dominance of
youth within them.
- More commonly
viewed as self-
indulgent practices.
- Bigger social canvas.
- Unlimited to specific
„scenes‟ or locales,
or the dominance of
youth within them.
- Countercultures work
out their political
commitments more
explicitly & engage
them more directly.

17. POPULAR
REPRESENTATIONS OF
SUBCULTURES AND
COUNTERCULTURES

18. REPRESENTATIONS
O Representation plays a crucial role in how
we conceive of these sub- and
countercultures.
• Example: Our sense of the Sixties has
been based on an accumulated sludge of
television and film
representations, documentaries, and
experience with Sixties “classic” rock.

19. REPRESENTATIONS
O Subcultures tend to be viewed in 2 ways:
• Threatening, dangerous, lacking
substance
• A conscience of the mainstream

20. FORREST GUMP
O Forrest represents merely the experience
of mainstream culture.
O Jenny represents an alternative path
through recent U.S history – the dark side
of Forrest‟s generally blissful (or at
least, blissed out) experience.

21. FORREST GUMP
O Jenny appears in Playboy, gets involved
with hippies and peaceniks, becomes
involved with Students‟ Democratic
Society, becomes suicidal after doing lines
of coke,…
►The film suggests that subcultures and
countercultures are dangerous,
destructive, and misguided, especially
for those involved in them.

22. FORREST GUMP
O In the world narrated by Forrest
Gump, happiness are only achieved by
following the path of the straight and
narrow.
O It also suggests that even with the
presence of subculture, America has a
future.

23. FIGHT CLUB
O The movie translated critique into action
through the creation of an anti-capitalist
subcultural movement whose ultimate
goal is the violent destruction of the
system of global consumer credit.

24. FIGHT CLUB
O Fight Club takes the activities and
possibilities of subcultures seriously. Only
a group outside of the mainstream could
shake up a world lost in consumerist
dogmatic slumbers: Jack & Tyler cannot
change things on their own, nor is it likely
that mainstream society will change of its
own accord.

25. GHOST WORLD
O It explores the ghostly world of alternative
lives and practices that exist parallel to
and overlap with what we generally
imagine as mainstream culture.
O It also offers an incisive look at the
assumptions and presumptions that
constitute the mainstream, probing the
limits that it places on individuals and
groups to express their differences.

26. GHOST WORLD
O Unlike typical depictions of outsiders, both
the main characters are remarkably
confident.
O It gives them a feeling of power as they
navigate their way through the clichés and
stereotypes of contemporary culture.
O In the end, the “real” world appears to
have an ultimately irresistible power over
all those who try to exist at right angles to
it.

27. REPRESENTATION
O From these 3 examples, it can be seen
that while subcultures are celebrated as
playing an essential role in history and in
social transformation, they are almost
always represented as a problem for
society.

28. REPRESENTATION
O From our analysis of the films:
O Our understanding of subcultures is
affected by representation of them.
O Popular culture representation plays an
important role in how sub- and
countercultures imagine their own role
and engage in their own practices.

29. THE POLITICS OF
SUBCULTURES

30. O Subcultures articulate a complex politics
through:
• The ways they make demands on the
attention of the mainstream.
• Their connection to other modes and
forms of politics.
• The way they engage with
contemporary social spaces and
everyday reality.

31. HIDING IN THE LIGHTS
O “Subcultures are both a play for attention
& a refusal, once attention has been
granted…” – Hebdige.

32. HIDING IN THE LIGHTS
O Example: In the UK, punk was treated as
a dangerous movement. Yet, the anti-
establishment group Sex Pistols with their
song „God Save the Queen‟ became
successful and popular. Punk had become
a fixture of the London landscape.

33. HIDING IN THE LIGHTS
►By being available for display to the
mainstream that the minority culture of
punk was able to draw attention to the
very real sources of its discontent with
both the values of mainstream culture and
their relationship to it.

34. HIDING IN THE LIGHTS
O “Hiding in the lights” allows subcultures to
create, maintain, and nurture their own
communities of belonging, while also
engaging with the culture at large.

35. AVANT-GARDE PUNK
O Other ways that make punk political:
O The anti-establishment lyrics.
O The anti-establishment disposition and
demeanor of punks themselves.
O Subcultures of all stripes draw heavily on
a stew of political and cultural ideas and
ideals (Marxism and Situationism).

36. THE INVENTION OF
SKATEBOARDING
O As the Zephyr Skateboard Team began to
develop and build skateboards to surf
their mostly abandoned streets, they also
began to stretch their claims over public
space to other parts of the city.

37. THE INVENTION OF
SKATEBOARDING
O It might seem a stretch to equate kids
interested in doing grinds and flipping their
boards with anti-globalization
demonstrators who take over the spaces
of the city, but in a way both are making
the same fundamental demand: Whose
streets? Our street!”
►Skateboarding has a politics.

38. DISCUSSION

39. DISCUSSION
O 1. Choose a subculture/ counterculture
and tell how it opposes/ challenges
mainstream culture.