Subculture Exploitation Without Representation

                                                               (Image via Pinterest.)

 

The other day I stumbled upon a Zimbio slideshow titled “The Most Goth Movie Characters Ever.” I'm always on the lookout for subculture representation in media, so I was intrigued. Unfortunately, the article turned out to be a little misleading. I was expecting a comprehensive list of film characters who actually participated in the goth subculture. Many of the characters listed live in fantasy or sci-fi settings where their morbid sense of style, while it might appeal to goth viewers, is not really an act of societal rebellion. For example, the article included Professor Snape and Bellatrix Lestrange from the Harry Potter films, Trinity from The Matrix, and Darth Vader.

The slideshow also includes characters who are depicted as participating in an alternative lifestyle, and yet cannot be considered goth because of their lack of choice or understanding. Wednesday Addams would fall under this category, because her whole family is completely unaware that their lifestyle is anything other than ordinary. (Morticia Addams, oddly enough, doesn't appear in this list.) The same goes for Edward Scissorhands, because his aesthetic was chosen by his creator.

                       (Peg and Edward in Edward Scissorhands. Image via huffingtonpost.com)

A lot of characters on this list weren't really goth in any sense of the term. Ramona Flowers of Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, for example, has an extremely colorful wardrobe which, while alternative, isn't goth in the slightest. The same applies to Amelie of Amelie. She may be strange, but that doesn't make her goth.

                                       (Ramona Flowers. Image via scottpilgrim.wikia.com) 

What I concluded from reading this list is that there seems to be a misunderstanding between character designs that borrow from the goth aesthetic, and characters who are actually portrayed as participating in the goth subculture. A lot of the characters listed in "The Most Goth Movie Characters Ever" have great style, but it would be nice to see more characters that actually represent the subculture.

The Frankenstein Aesthetic

 

 

(Boris Karloff as Frankenstein's monster in Bride of Frankenstein. Image via Wikipedia.)

If I asked you to picture Frankenstein's monster, odds are you'd conjure up an image of a flat-headed giant with green skin and bolts sticking out of both sides of his neck. This is the way that he has been portrayed in mainstream media for decades, and it's the image that most of us have grown comfortable with. As a matter of fact, I myself accepted this image as canon until very recently, when I started reading Mary Shelley's gothic novel, Frankenstein, for myself.

Shelley describes in detail the horrific visage of the monster, which causes his creator to flee in fear.


“His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same colour as the dun white sockets in which they were set, his shrivelled complexion and straight black lips” (p. 55).


So, if the common conception of the monster's aesthetic did not come from Shelley herself, then where did it come from?


Film adaptations of Shelley's novel have been produced as far back as 1910, when Edison studios released the 16 minute silent film, Frankenstein. The film that really caught on, however, was released in 1931 by Universal Studios.

                  (Charles Ogle as the monster in 1910. Image via antifilmschoolsite.wordpress.com)


Universal Studios produced Frankenstein after receiving such dramatic success with their adaptation of Stoker's Dracula. Originally, the role of Frankenstein's monster was meant for Bela Lugosi, the Dracula star, under director Robert Florey. Both actor and director were replaced, however; James Whale took over as director, and Boris Karloff was chosen to play the monster.

The Frankenstein aesthetic is mostly attributed to Jack Pierce. Universal Studios hired this master makeup artist after the death of their own Lon Cheney, Sr. The look was achieved with hours of intensive labour and experimentation. Supposedly the idea behind the flat head was to convey the infamous doctor's building process: cutting the top of the head and then stretching the skin over the brain. This giant forehead was created by piling cotton on top of the actor's head. In order to attain the monster's cadaverous facial structure, Karloff removed his dental bridge. 

                                   (Karloff as the Monster. Image via dailygrindhouse.com.)


Universal Studios followed up with many sequels, only two of which featured Karloff as the monster: Bride of Frankenstein and Son of Frankenstein. The final film, released in 1948, was Abbot and Costello meet Frankenstein, a campy horror/comedy which includes Dracula and the Wolf-Man as well as Frankenstein's monster. This was actually one of the first horror films I ever saw, and despite its light-hearted nature, Frankenstein's monster actually scared me quite a bit! I think that this long line of films reinforced the Frankenstein aesthetic created by Pierce. This particular make-up look has appeared in other media, such as the television program The Munsters, in which the character Herman Munster bears an almost identical, albeit friendlier, resemblance to the original Pierce 
creation. 

 

 (The Munster Family. Image via tvguide.com.) 

Sources:

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Pierce_(makeup_artist)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankenstein_in_popular_culture

http://frankensteinia.blogspot.com/2007/10/make-up-man-jack-pierce.html

https://causeandfx.wordpress.com/2011/08/02/hollywood-make-up-legends-jack-pierce/

                                     https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankenstein_(1931_film)
 

A Blog For Ideas

 

                                                      (Bob Dylan and Allen Ginsberg)

This is a blog about ideas. It's a place where we can analyze our favorite stories in any given medium, be they real or fictional, and think about what philosophies might be their driving force. It's a place where we can make connections between seemingly disparate facts and come to beautiful, terrifying, or incredibly trivial conclusions.


The main theme of most posts will be to pursue the ideas behind aspects of pop culture and alternative culture with an academic mindset, researching the history and ideas behind events and movements and linking them to a manifestation in the arts. My particular backgrounds are in literature, creative writing, and media, so most discussions will tend toward analyzing books, films, music, and advertising. I also have a particular interest in fashion trends, especially alternative movements such as the Goth and Punk scenes of the late 1970s and early 1980s.


I'd like for this to be a place where people feel comfortable sharing their thoughts and opinions. It is a privilege to be able to think freely and to communicate with other thinkers, and I would welcome in depth conversations about almost any topic.


Let me introduce myself, as a way of opening up the discussion. I am a senior English and Communication student at the undergraduate level, which means that I'm one year away from being young and free and glamorously unemployed. My particular concentration in college has been primarily poetry, but I dabble in fiction as well. Someday, I would love to write articles for a magazine like Rolling Stone. Currently I work at a bakery.


I would be delighted to have your company on Pinterest, where I keep track of all the best films, books, music, and other creative works I've come across, and where I go looking for inspiration from others. I will have a separate board for this blog, and will place a link there to each new post.

Upcoming Posts

Hello again, dear readers.

I apologize, once again, for the length of time that has passed since my last post. In that time, I have finished my junior year at college, started two very low-key summer jobs, watched through Peep Show, Daria, most of Parks and Rec, and two seasons of Sailor Moon. I also had my wisdom teeth removed, which was an unpleasant experience. I dyed my hair black all by myself for the first time, and, as it subsequently faded to an unholy shade of greenish grey, I have since had it all cut off. I have labored a little over a few poems and started writing a novel. I have also finished Anthony Burgess's A Clockwork Orange, and have gotten halfway through Voltaire's Candide. I will be seeing the Violent Femmes live in less than a week, which I am extremely excited about.

Now that you are all caught up on my oh so interesting life, I must inform you of something very exciting I will be doing this summer, which will affect this blog. I am taking a class on blog and internet article writing, which means that I will be using this blog to submit assignments for the next six weeks. So, dear readers, if there are any posts that seem contrived or out of place, that will be the reason.

Until next time, dear readers. I hope that you will continue to learn and grow and experience beauty firsthand.

Cleopatra: The Lumineers

                          

The Lumineers have come out with a new album! This was surprising to me, actually. I pretty much exclusively associated The Lumineers with that short-lived but intense indie movement of 2012 (give or take a year or two). I wouldn't necessarily have considered myself a huge fan of theirs; I never did listen to all the tracks on their eponymous album, though I've had a special affection for "Ho Hey" and "Stubborn Love" since they came out.

I was pleasantly surprised right away when I noticed the cover art of the album. Appropriate to the title of the album, and perhaps appropriate to the theme of the title track "Cleopatra," the cover features a photograph of silent film actress Theda Bara dressed for her role as Cleopatra. I appreciated this tribute, as I often feel that silent films are not talked about very often in mainstream culture.

I'm really, really impressed with a lot of the tracks on Cleopatra. I'm quite picky when it comes to acoustic/folk music. When it begins to sound too much like country or ubiquitous singer-songwriter, I lose interest very quickly. There's something about this album, however, that kept my interest. It was soulful, and even a little sad. I think it was a bit more low key than their first album, and meditative in tone. Something I like about their choice in sound is that they mix different instruments and ideas that I wouldn't normally associate with their genre.

My favourite tracks were "Ophelia", "My Eyes", and "White Lie" (a bonus track on the deluxe version). Of these, I think my favourite is "My Eyes," because several times it tricks you into expecting the melody to proceed a certain way by using familiar chord progressions, but then suddenly it takes a completely different turn.

While celebrating the success of the Lumineers in producing this wonderful album, I would also like to take a moment to remember an artist that is no longer with us. Prince passed on today, at 57. I'm not that familiar with his work, but I've always heard him spoken of as genius, and have understood him to be extremely influential. This has been a very unfortunate year in the music world, as the talented David Bowie was also lost to us in January. They will be dearly missed.