Theoretical Groundwork

In the next few days I will be posting reading responses to the two books I have read over Semana Santa, the Mexican Easter week.

Cagle, Van M. Reconstructing Pop/Subculture: Art, Rock, and Andy Warhol. Sage Publications: Thousand Oaks, California (1995).

Reconstructing Pop/Subculture ventures into defining moments of pop culture and subculture. Cagle accomplishes this by presenting a study of cultural evolution: what contexts existed when Warhol was developing his art and what his reasons were for certain interesting choices. Cagle examines how David Bowie and glitter rock as a genre were deeply influenced and/or in part created by Warhol’s factory and pop culture itself. The book begins by Cagle explaining his base theoretical set for examination: namely, British cultural theory. Interesting is when Cagle describes research within cultural studies: “The particularity of the question being asked is what matters most; all questions must be guided first by context, second by theory. One cannot, for example, apply a theoretical model in advance, as if all the answers will unfold.” (p 21) I enjoy this philosophy; musings in the theoretical world, at least as far as cultural studies, beckon a multi-faceted approach. We consider the layers of context and work with individual theories or even grand themes of various disciplines to address each context. The approach is fluid; as research proceeds, theoretical frameworks are adopted, adapted, or thrown away.

Cagle adores Dick Hebdige’s subculture theories, especially the notion of how cultural appropriation works. The safety pin in punk music fashion is cited. Its original meaning is safety, and diapers on babies… Hebdige: “…if cultural forms are never rigidly in place, then they can be disentangled, stripped of their coded “layers,” bleached through for their hidden connotations. Second, if commodities are endowed with dominant meanings but never set into place permanently, then they can be “lifted” from dominant discourses and reorganized so as to have oppositional meanings.” (p. 29) So, the safety pin for punk culture ceases to be safe/protective and becomes sharp and visually abrasive.