Subculture: The Meaning of Style

From MarxWiki

Dick Hebdige's book takes a serious look at youth subcultures, from [[[punks | punk]] to mods and rastafarians, examining them as a social and cultural phenomenon. In addition, Hebdige believed that there is historical and social significance within the different styles the youth subculture adopted. He also examines the machine of co-optation and the outcomes derived from the commercialization of subcultural styles.

Hebdige describes the recuperation of subcultural signs as taking `two characteristic forms . . . one of conversion of subcultual signs (dress, music, etc) into mass produced objects and the ‘labelling’ and redefinition of deviant behavior by dominant groups – the police, media, and judiciary.`

But given that reality, Hebdige points out that communication in a subordinate cultural form, even prior to the point of recuperation, often takes place in a commoditified form, “even if the meanings attached to those commodities are purposefully distorted or overthrown . . . it is very difficult to sustain any absolute distinction between commercial exploitation on one hand and creativity and originality on the other.` (Subculture, 94-95)

As the `model and metaphor` of the subcultural refutation of the dominant ideology of style, Dick Hebdige champions the life and work of French novelist, playwright, and poet Jean Genet.