In Dick Hebdige’s introduction to Subculture: The Meaning of Style, he places faith in the fact that subculture movements use style to interrupt ideological structures – perhaps more specifically the American conservatism and middle class suburban mundanity during the mid-to-late 20th century. I want to dig deeper into Hebdige’s own detailed understandings of “ideology” and “hegemony” to ask:
How can style become a resisting force when the culture industry thrives off of heterogeneity, newness, rebelliousness – as much as it does normalization and unification?
Hebdige’s understanding of “ideology” and “hegemony” hinges on the linguistic turn of the 1970s, unfolding in two conceptual steps. First, he argues that ideology cannot be “reduced to the abstract dimensions of a ‘world view’ or used in the crude Marxist sense to designate ‘false consciousness’.” (12) Instead, ideology and hegemony operate beneath consciousness, codifying aspects of our lives in a way that seems natural, normal (11).
In his second step, Hebdige opens up an opportunity for resistance against dominant ideology/hegemony. Since every sign has ideological import and ideology/hegemony in many ways depends on an underlying unification of disparate signs, the key to resistance is to interrupt normalization through re-possessing signs themselves (16). Since style can surface and re-possess/re-purpose signs, it thus becomes “pregnant with significance” for subculture movements (18). His example about turning a tube of Vaseline into an illegimate sign associated with homosexuality particularly stuck to me as I read.
As an open question, I wonder if anyone has thoughts about how Hebdige transitions from discussing semiotics/codes to discussing style.
I ask this because the transition was not readily clear to me. In addition, a few nuances embedded within Hebdige’s explanation of ideology and hegemony in fact further complicate his ultimate belief in the power of subculture style to resist dominant ideological codifications of life. For example, his reference to Gramsci’s definition of hegemony as a “moving equilibrium” containing relations of forces favourable or unfavourable to this or that tendency” (16). When I read that definition of hegemony, I immediately understood hegemony as something that normalizes by allowing for contradictions and tensions among signs. Can’t hegemonies easily integrate quote unquote oppositional or illegitimate styles into its own agenda?
I want to further my questions by revisiting Adorno/Horkheimer, but first, I will list some relevant examples from the 21st century. We can think about the edgy, violent, perverted aesthetic of Billie Eilish’s style, how her fashion both combines and re-possesses gangster, punk, and tomboy aesthetic signs into a “Gen-Z Tumblrcore” style (Vogue, April 2019). The controversial but nevertheless incredibly popular film Joker (2019) directly illustrates a certain marginalized subculture movement, reveling in a certain crazy, weird vibe that critiques capitalist society on both a stylistic and narrative level. At the end of the day, Billie Eilish and Joker are rebellious and shocking as they flip signs and symbols on their heads… but instead of interrupting the general flow of dominant late capitalist ideology, they contribute to its vigor and spontaneity.
I do not want to argue that this phenomenon is unique to our times. Adorno/Horkheimer often agree with Hebdige about how the culture industry is normalizing and repetitive, but also emphasize that the culture industry thrives off its ability both preserve and normalize ‘resistant’ or ‘re-purposed’ styles, inviting newness as added “rules” to a traditional schema (101). They illustrate how the culture industry emerged from the persistence of ‘light art’ (the circus, vaudeville) over bourgeois ‘serious art’. Light art and ‘low’ amusement once acted like a subculture that resisted serious art, which inherently excludes the lower class (107). But, while crucial stylistic elements of this subculture was retained, light art was quickly streamlined and institutionalized into the dominant culture industry. The hegemonic power of the culture industry consistently depend on an embrace of seemingly interruptive, oppositional styles. While Hebdige goes into wonderful lengths about how ideological, hegemonic structures are much engrained in semiotics and codes, Adorno/Horkheimer illustrate to me that the cohering force of such semiotics and codes seep into but also lie outside the isolated level of style. Consequently, if subculture operates primarily on the level of style, they may not have time to properly resist dominant culture before smoothly, seamlessly becoming a part of it.
Politics of Media 
I appreciate your modern examples of Billie Eilish and Joker as — as I was reading Monday’s pieces I was trying to think of modern subcultures that fit with Hebdige’s model. As you note, both Eilish and Joker are, in fact, accepted as mainstream. Joker is a projected Oscar contender, and Eilish has multiple hits, despite how both can be deliberately provocative.
Hebdige’s (and by extension McRobbie’s) example of punk is also deliberately provocative, and while my knowledge of punk culture is casual at best, my impression from the articles is that the variety of punk both authors reference never went quite so mainstream. In your discussion of Eilish and Joker do you see them as representative of distinct subcultures that, in Hebdige’s terms, are interrupting ideological structures? If so what are those subcultures? I ask primarily out of my own ignorance and failure to come up with modern subcultures that fit the model of using style to deliberately disrupt predominant ideologies in a similar way to 1970s punks.
I agree that style may not be enough for a subculture to truly resist hegemony. However, I also wonder if punk is a little too convenient an example, since 1970s punk so clearly wishes to “detach itself from the taken-for-granted landscape of normalized forms.” (Hebdige, 19). I would be interested to hear other’s thoughts on this issue. What other subcultures can we discuss in these terms?
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Thank you so much for clarifying and expanding Hebdige’s article! It definitely solved some confusion I had when reading the essay.
When thinking of style as a resisting force, the first thing that popped into my mind was drag queen show/aesthetic. I view it as a subculture mainly based on the experience that my friends who are not lgbtq+ or in the art industry barely know anything about it. For some, it is odd or, in worst cases, disturbing. Yet, many people participating in drag find freedom in expressing the part of themselves repressed by their surroundings or use drag to fight the discrimination and pain they experience for their identity. It is a rebellious style resisting the norms related to gender, sexuality, and beauty in the mainstream media.
The influence of the style is increasing since drag queens gain more exposure and shows like RuPaul’s drag race and Kinky Boots gained popularity. Some companies in cultural industries also begin to adopt the style to, as you noted, bring newness to their collection. Among them, some apply elements from the style that incites curiosity in customers while embracing the core value of the style which disturbs the dominant ideology and raises public awareness. Of course, not all companies are doing this, some are just normalizing the style to gain profits. Yet the aesthetic of drag is disturbing the hegemony and forcing the viewer to see what lies in their unconsciousness.
Comparing Drag to Joker, (I don’t know much about Belie Ellish), I think the reason the latter one did not interrupt the dominant ideology is that it did not come from a rebellious root but simply applied certain edgy elements from other styles to create a sense of novelty on a social issue most audiences are familiar with, Joker is produced by Warner Brothers based on a DC comic character. For the past few years, DC has struggled to compete with the Marvel Cinematic Universe and tried many different styles, all of which failed. So in some degree, although it is a fantastic film, Joker can be viewed as DC’s another shot to find the right narrative based on an already immensely well-known and popular villain (thanks to Batman), The film is innovative in many aspects. Still, it didn’t disrupt anything but mostly improved a mainstream style – comic book movies – by showing how it can be “an art form that brings you the unexpected” (The NYT, “Martin Scorsese: I Said Marvel Movies Aren’t Cinema. Let Me Explain”).
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Thank you for both your comments – I think in the examples I gave, I attempted to show how subculture style is now circulated all the time in bits and pieces to create a vaguely edgy ‘subculture aesthetic’ itself. I want to use these examples to show how dominant ideology is not hell-bent on concealing contradictions or interruptions to its system. Rebellion is integrated in mainstream culture as a way to re-invigorate it. Drag is definitely a clearer example of one particular subculture being integrated (and to a certain extent preserved) in today’s entertainment industries, so thank you for comparing that to Joker!
As for the question about what other subcultures (apart from punk) we can think about, a quick glance at Hebdige’s table of contents made me think a lot. I wasn’t able to read his chapter on hipsters, beats, and teddy boys, but hipsters and teddy boys immediately make me think of how those styles have been integrated and very much de-politicized in the 21st century. So many people have claim to a watered-down idea of hipsterism these days, and the ‘teddy boy’ has been revived as a cool, throwback retro aesthetic without much resistance to dominant ideology.
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Billie Eilish is interesting for her use of “demonic” imagery. There are many fascinating YouTube conspiracy videos purporting to expose the alleged demonic undertones of secular / non-Christian culture industry objects, but the truth is that this kind of imagery has also become a lot more normalized. Marilyn Manson made a name for himself in the 90’s trafficking in these themes which seem to have evoked much more widespread unease at the time. He now appears fairly tame, not to mention figures like Alice Cooper or Ozzy Osbourne before him. I think the question of incorporation of rebellious styles is fascinating. I was a punk rock fan growing up and really bought into the aura of authenticity that punks play up, only to constantly be disturbed by the ease with which this style was incorporated in the service of things seemingly at odds with the punk worldview. Hall’s concept of polysemy seems related here. Does the notion of polysemy – the recognition of a multitude of possible interpretations – contradict the project of cultural interpretation? Can a style exist in capitalist society that is wholly outside of its logic? Is it necessary for something to operate this way in order to be subversive? I struggled with these questions on a much stupider level as a conflicted punk-consumer & as time went on I came to feel that leaning into dominant styles can feel much more subversive. To this day I am very fascinated by the project Lucia Cole, a fake pop star and an intervention of sorts which seems to subvert dominant styles by embracing them absolutely: https://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2015/07/17/423612001/can-you-have-an-album-on-itunes-if-you-dont-exist
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Thank you for your post; you offered may thought-provoking examples! From the music side of the culture industry, I’d like to emphasize a point you made about Billie Eilish and her rebellious style as emblematic of classic Marxist capitalist reinvention. There is a fair amount of discussion as to whether or not she could be considered an industry plant, carefully manufactured to be perceived of as a prodigy (https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/pdominguez/is-billie-eilish-really-that-weird). I see her supposedly meteoric rise to stardom out of nowhere as an example of neoliberal reinvention of the music industry, simultaneously devaluing traditional modes of music dissemination (favoring Spotify and Soundcloud over radios and record deals) while encouraging her “entrepreneurship.” Perhaps I’m a bit cynical of the music industry as a former performer, but I hope that doesn’t make me the “bad guy.”
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