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Goth subculture

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This article is about the late 20th century goth subculture. For the Germanic tribes, see Goths . For other uses of Gothic, see Gothic (disambiguation).
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New York City goth band The Naked and the Dead (1985).

The goth subculture is a contemporary subculture prevalent in many countries. It began in the United Kingdom during the late 1970s to early 1980s in the gothic rock scene, an offshoot of the post-punk genre. The goth subculture has survived much longer than others of the same era. Its imagery and cultural proclivities indicate influences from nineteenth century Gothic literature, mainly through horror movies.

The goth subculture has associated gothic tastes in music and fashion. Gothic music encompasses a number of different styles. Common to all is a tendency towards a “dark” sound and outlook. Styles of dress within the subculture range from death rock, punk, Victorian, androgynous, some Renaissance style clothes, or combinations of the above, most often with black attire, makeup and hair.

Origins and development

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Siouxsie and the Banshees were a major contributor to the style of Goth early on.

By the late 1970s, there were a few post-punk bands in the United Kingdom labeled "gothic." However, it was not until the early 1980s that gothic rock became its own subgenre within post-punk, and that followers of these bands started to come together as a distinctly recognizable movement. The opening of the Batcave in London's Soho in July 1982 provided a prominent meeting point for the emerging scene, which had briefly been labeled positive punk by the New Musical Express.[1] The term "Batcaver" was later used to describe old-school goths.

Independent of the British scene, the late 1970s and early 1980s saw death rock branch off from American punk.[2] In 1980s and early 1990s, members of the emerging goth subculture in Germany were called Grufties (engl. "vault creatures" or "tomb creatures"). They generally represented a fusion of the goth subculture and the new wave movement with an influence of new romantic, and formed the early stage of the "dark culture" (formerly called "dark wave culture").

Goth after post-punk

After the demise of post-punk, goth continued to evolve both musically and visually. This caused variations in style ("types" of goth). Local scenes also contributed to this variation. By the 1990s, Victorian fashion saw a renewed popularity in the goth scene, drawing on the mid-19th century gothic revival and the more morbid aspects of Victorian culture.

Current subcultural boundaries

By the 1990s, the term "goth" and the boundaries of the associated subculture had become more contentious. New youth subcultures emerged, or became more popular, some of them being conflated with the goth subculture by the general public and the popular media. This conflation was primarily owing to similarities of appearance, and the fashions of the subcultures, rather than the musical genres of the bands associated with them. As time went on, the term was extended further in popular usage, sometimes to define groups that had neither musical nor fashion similarities to the original gothic subculture.

This has led to the introduction of slang terms that some goths and others use to sort and label associated trends and members of loosely related subcultures. These include mallgoths or Neo-Goths in the US, Cucarachas in Spain, Dark in Latin America and Italy, gogans in Australia, and FjortisGoth in Norway, and spooky kids, moshers or mini moshers in the UK. More positive terms, such as mini-goths or baby bats, are also used by some older goths to refer to youths whom they see as exhibiting potential for growth into older goths later on.

The response of these younger groups to the older subculture varies. Some, being secure in a separate subcultural identity, express offense at being called "goths" in the first place, while others choose to join the existing subculture on its own terms. Still others have simply ignored its existence, and decided to appropriate the term "goth" themselves, and redefine the idea in their own image. Even within the original subculture, changing trends have added to the complexity of attempting to define precise boundaries.

Gothic music

Bauhaus are widely recognised as the first Goth band.

The bands that began the gothic rock and death rock scene were limited in number, and included Bauhaus, Siouxsie & the Banshees, The Cure, Southern Death Cult, Sex Gang Children, 45 Grave, UK Decay, The Virgin Prunes, Alien Sex Fiend and Christian Death. Joy Division, Dead Can Dance and Killing Joke have also been linked, but there is debate over their influence.

By the mid-eighties, the number of bands began proliferating and became increasingly popular, including The Sisters of Mercy, The Mission UK, Xmal Deutschland, The Bolshoi and Fields of the Nephilim. The nineties saw the further growth of eighties bands and emergence of many new bands. Factory Records, 4AD Records, and Beggars Banquet Records released much of this music in Europe, while Cleopatra Records amongst others released much of this music in the United States, where the subculture grew especially in New York, Los Angeles, & Orange County, California, with many nightclubs featuring "gothic/industrial" nights. The popularity of 4AD bands resulted in the creation of a similar US label called Projekt Records. This produces what is colloquially termed Ethereal Wave, a subgenre of Darkwave music.

By the mid-1990s, styles of music that were heard in venues that goths attended ranged from gothic rock, death rock, Industrial music, EBM, ambient, experimental, synthpop, shoegazing, punk rock, 1970s glam rock (not to be confused with later glam rock), indie rock, to 1980s dance music. This variety was a result of a need to maximize attendance from everyone across the alternative music scene, particularly in smaller towns, and due to the eclectic tastes of the members of the subculture; but it also signaled new shifts in attitude.

Gothic rock was originally clearly differentiated from industrial and heavy metal by older participants in the alternative scene, but newcomers and media misconceptions blurred the boundaries in the nineties as gothic rock became significantly less popular in the US and UK. Thus while Industrial metal-influenced or heavy metal bands such as Marilyn Manson, Jack Off Jill, Type O Negative, Lacuna Coil, Dimmu Borgir, Cradle of Filth and Slipknot were often labeled as "goth" by the media, this categorization was strongly resisted by longstanding goths. Even more confusion was added with the rise of gothic metal, with such bands consciously using gothic imagery from the dark ages in their own music and appearance and started even following fashion trends indistinguishable from older goth ones. Arguments about which music is and is not goth became an ever more significant part of how the subculture tried to define itself.

The other significant development of the nineties was the popularity of electronic dance bands such as VNV Nation, Apoptygma Berzerk and Covenant in the goth scene. The rise of what has been called cybergoth music and style, which has much in common with techno/synthpop and EBM, caused bitter divisions between its fans and those firmly attached to the analog and/or guitar based sound of gothic rock. Bands with a darkwave sound or those such as The Crüxshadows, which combine an electronic and gothic rock sound, appeal to both sides to some extent.

Darkwave band The Crüxshadows.

Recent years have seen a resurgence in the early positive punk and death rock sound, in reaction to the EBM, futurepop, and synthpop, which had taken over many goth clubs. Bands with an earlier goth sound like Cinema Strange, Bloody Dead And Sexy, Black Ice, and Antiworld are becoming very popular. Nights like Ghoul School and Release The Bats promote death rock heavily, and the Drop Dead Festival brings in death rock fans from all over the world.

Today, the goth music scene thrives most actively in Western Europe, especially Germany, with large festivals such as Wave-Gotik-Treffen, Zillo (which ceased to be active after 2004), Mera Luna and others draw tens of thousands of fans from all over the world.

Historical and cultural influences

Term origins

The original Goths were an Eastern Germanic tribe who played an important role in the fall of the western Roman Empire. In some circles, the name "goth" later became pejorative: synonymous with "barbarian" and the uncultured due to the then-contemporary view of the fall of Rome and historically inaccurate depictions of the pagan Gothic tribes during and after the process of Christianization of Europe. During the Renaissance period in Europe, medieval architecture was retroactively labeled gothic architecture, and was considered unfashionable in contrast to the then-modern lines of classical architecture.

In the United Kingdom, by the late 1700s, however, nostalgia for the medieval period led people to become fascinated with medieval gothic ruins. This fascination was often combined with an interest in medieval romances, Roman Catholic religion and the supernatural. Enthusiasts for gothic revival architecture in the United Kingdom were led by Horace Walpole, and were sometimes nicknamed "goths", the first positive use of the term in the modern period. [citation needed]

The gothic novel of the late eighteenth century, a genre founded by Horace Walpole with the 1764 publication of The Castle of Otranto, was responsible for the more modern connotations of the term gothic. Henceforth, the term was associated with a mood of horror, morbidity, darkness and the supernatural. The gothic novel established much of the iconography of later horror literature and cinema, such as graveyards, ruined castles or churches, ghosts, vampires, nightmares, cursed families, being buried alive and melodramatic plots. Another notable element was the brooding figure of the gothic villain, which developed into the Byronic hero. The most famous gothic villain is the vampire, Dracula, originally depicted in a novel by Bram Stoker, then made more famous through the medium of horror movies.

The powerful imagery of horror movies began in German expressionist cinema in the twenties then passed onto the Universal Studios films of the thirties, then to camp horror B films such as Plan 9 From Outer Space and then to Hammer Horror films. By the 1960s, TV series, such as The Addams Family and The Munsters, used these stereotypes for camp comedy.

Certain elements in the dark, atmospheric music and dress of the post punk scene were clearly gothic in this sense. The use of gothic as an adjective in describing this music and its followers led to the term goth.

20th century influences

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Classic horror film actress Theda Bara.

The influence of the gothic novel on the goth subculture can be seen in numerous examples of the subculture's poetry and music, though this influence sometimes came second hand, through the popular imagery of horror films and television. The Byronic hero, in particular, was a key precursor to the male goth image, while Dracula's iconic portrayal by Bela Lugosi appealed powerfully to early goths. They were attracted by Lugosi's aura of camp menace, elegance and mystique. Some people even credit the band Bauhaus' first single "Bela Lugosi's Dead", with the start of the goth subculture, though many prior art house movements also influenced gothic fashion and style. A notable early example was Siouxsie Sioux, of the musical group Siouxsie and the Banshees. Some members of Bauhaus were, themselves, fine art students and/or active artists.

The concept of the femme fatale, which appeared in Romantic literature, film noir, as well as in the gothic novel, went on to become a vital image for female goths. In cinema, the femme fatale style adopted by silent movie actress Theda Bara exerted a lasting influence. Bara was nicknamed the vamp, and her first name was an anagram for "death". She established the look for pale predatory women in later films, which ultimately influenced the goth subculture.

Film poster for The Hunger, a key influence in the early days of the goth subculture.

Some of the early gothic rock and death rock artists adopted traditional horror movie images, and also drew on horror movie soundtracks for inspiration. Their audiences responded in kind by further adopting appropriate dress and props. Use of standard horror film props like swirling smoke, rubber bats, and cobwebs were used as gothic club décor from the beginning in The Batcave. Such references in their music and image were originally tongue-in-cheek, but as time went on, bands and members of the subculture took the connection more seriously. As a result, morbid, supernatural, and occult themes became a more noticeably serious element in the subculture. The interconnection between horror and goth was highlighted in its early days by The Hunger, a 1983 vampire film, which starred David Bowie, Catherine Deneuve, and Susan Sarandon. The movie featured gothic rock group Bauhaus performing "Bela Lugosi's Dead" in a nightclub. In 1993, Whitby became the location for what became the UK's biggest goth festival as a direct result of being featured in Bram Stoker's Dracula.

Throughout the evolution of the goth subculture, familiarity with gothic literature became significant for many goths. Keats, Poe, Baudelaire and other romantic writers became just as symbolic of the subculture as dressing all in black.

A newer literary influence on the gothic scene was Anne Rice's re-imagining of the idea of the vampire. Rice's characters were depicted as struggling with eternity and loneliness, this with their ambivalent or tragic sexuality had deep attractions for many goth readers, making her works very popular in the eighties through the nineties. Movies based on her books have been filmed in recent years — notably Interview with the Vampire, which starred Brad Pitt, and the more recent Queen of the Damned, in which goths appear directly and indirectly. The first film, in particular, helped further encourage the spread of Victorian style fashions in the subculture (although period inspired clothing has been a recurrent trend in the gothic subculture).

Later media influences

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Winona Ryder portrays goth Lydia Deetz in Beetlejuice.

As the subculture became well-established the connection between goth and horror fiction became almost a cliché, with goths quite likely to appear as characters in horror novels and film. For example, The Crow drew directly on goth music and style. The movies of Tim Burton are all significant for their presentation of goth or goth-inspired characters, especially Beetlejuice, which features Lydia, a goth teen, Edward Scissorhands, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Sleepy Hollow and Corpse Bride. In turn, such movies drew new people into the gothic scene. Anne Rice's book series "The Vampire Chronicles" and the popular World of Darkness roleplaying games, especially Vampire: The Masquerade, also referred directly to gothic music and culture and encouraged an interest in the scene. Influences from anime as well as cyberpunk fiction such as The Matrix, and Shadowrun have found their way into the goth scene, which helped give rise to a new subculture and a new label, Cyber subculture, or the Industrial/goth offshoot, cybergoth; they also added to the popularity of Industrial music.

Of note is the recent positive portrayal of a recurring goth character on the American television series NCIS. Abby Sciuto played by Pauley Perrette is uniquely goth, but works firmly on the side of the protagonists as a highly skilled forensic scientist.

Gothic ideology

Defining an ideology of the gothic subculture is difficult for several reasons. First is the overwhelming importance of mood for those involved. This is, in part, inspired by romanticism and neoromanticism. The allure for goths of dark, mysterious, and morbid imagery and mood lies in the same tradition. The rise of Romanticism's gothic novel during the 19th century saw feelings of horror being commercially exploited as a form of mass entertainment, a process continued in the modern horror film. Balancing this emphasis on mood, the other central element of the subculture is a conscious sense of camp theatricality or self-dramatization.

The second impediment to defining a gothic ideology is goth's sometimes apolitical nature. While individual defiance of social norms was a very risky business in the nineteenth century, today it is far less socially radical. Thus, the significance of goth's subcultural rebellion is limited, and it draws on imagery at the heart of Western culture. Unlike the hippie or punk movements, the goth subculture has no pronounced political messages or cries for social activism. The subculture is marked by its emphasis on individualism, tolerance for (sexual) diversity, a strong emphasis on creativity, tendency toward intellectualism, a dislike of social conservatism and a strong tendency towards cynicism, but even these ideas are not common to all goths. Goth ideology is based far more on aesthetics than ethics or politics.

However, goths may have political leanings ranging from left-liberal to anarchist or libertarian, but do not show them as part of a cultural identity. Instead, political affiliation is seen as a matter of personal conscience. Unlike punk, there are few clashes with political affiliation and being "goth".

An example of the silent film era's influence on gothic makeup.

For the individual goth, joining the subculture can be extremely valuable and personally fulfilling, especially in creative terms. However, it also can be risky, especially for the young, because of the negative attention it can attract. The value that young people find in the movement is evidenced by its continuing existence after other subcultures of the eighties such as the New Romantics have long since died out. Paul Hodkinson's book, Goth: Identity, Style and Subculture, explores how the Western cult of individualism, usually expressed via consumerism, is drawn on by goths and other subcultural groups. Many who are drawn to the culture have already failed to conform to the norms of existing society, and for its participants the gothic subculture provides an important way of experiencing a sense of community and validation not found in the outside world. Hodkinson shows how inside the gothic subculture status can be gained via enthusiastic participation and creativity, in creating a band, DJ-ing, making clothes, designing, creating art, or writing a fanzine. He suggests that the self-conscious artificiality of a subculture is a valid alternative choice in a post-modern world, compared to submitting to the invisible manipulations of popular consumerism and the mass media.

Religious elements

Spiritual, supernatural, and religious imagery has frequently played an important part in gothic fashion, song lyrics, and visual art. Aesthetic elements of Catholicism especially play a major role in goth culture.

However, the goth subculture contains a great diversity of religious and secularist beliefs. Many goths seek to free themselves from what they perceive as the limitations of traditional systems of religious belief, and express a belief in secularism, or New Age approaches to spirituality. A large number of goths adhere to atheism or agnosticism. An interest in Neopaganism, spiritualism and the occult among goths appears to be greater than among the general population. However, many goths also follow world religions such as Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Taoism and Buddhism.

Compare with punk ideology.

Criticism and intolerance

Like many other music-based subcultures, the goth subculture has faced its share of criticism and intolerance. Such intolerance ranges from looks of disgust to assaults. The gothic preoccupation with themes of death and the macabre has occasionally raised public concerns regarding the well-being of goths, and the addition of new members to the subculture has stirred fears of cultic indoctrination. Such conceptions are often reinforced by the popular media, as exemplified by the fallout of the Columbine High School massacre, which was carried out by two students inaccurately linked to the goth subculture because of their involvement with the Trenchcoat Mafia and affinity for industrial rock. This misreporting of the massacre caused a widespread public backlash against the North American goth scene; however, investigators of the incident later denied that any such link between the students and the goth subculture had in fact existed [1].

Goths are often cofused to be emo.

Notable critics of the goth subculture include cartoonist Jhonen Vasquez and writer Maddox. In his comics, Vasquez has criticized the goth subculture for what he perceives as its tendencies towards backbiting and unoriginality. Maddox has criticized the goth subculture by claiming that it is based only on shallow aesthetics, and is hence "trivial and unimportant". [2]. He goes on to characterize its membership as, "Boring, arrogant, uninteresting, [and] un-innovative". [3].

References

Books
  • Baddeley, Gavin: Goth Chic: A Connoisseur's Guide to Dark Culture (Plexus, US, August 2002, ISBN 0-85965-308-0)
  • Davenport-Hines, Richard: Gothic: Four Hundred Years of Excess, Horror, Evil and Ruin (1999: North Port Press. ISBN 0-86547-590-3 (trade paperback) - A voluminous, if somewhat patchy, chronological/aesthetic history of Gothic covering the spectrum from Gothic architecture to The Cure.
  • Hodkinson, Paul: Goth: Identity, Style and Subculture (Dress, Body, Culture Series) 2002: Berg. ISBN 1-85973-600-9 (hardcover); ISBN 1-85973-605-X (softcover)
  • Kilpatrick, Nancy: The Goth Bible : A Compendium for the Darkly Inclined. 2004: St. Martin's Griffin. ISBN 0-312-30696-2
  • Voltaire: What is Goth? (WeiserBooks, US, 2004; ISBN 1-57863-322-2) — a humorous and easy-to-read view of the goth subculture
  • Andrew C. Zinn: The Truth Behind The Eyes (IUniverse, US, 2005; ISBN 0-595-37103-5) — Dark Poetry
Notes
  1. ^ Batcave club history Scathe.demon.co.uk. URL Accessed April 23, 2006.
  2. ^ Archived Interview with Ms. Dinah Cancer Alicebag.com. URL Accessed April 23, 2006.

See also

Music

Film

Books

Comic Books

Fashion

History

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Gothic people.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Gothic subculture.

General websites

Events

Magazines and press

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