Ghost Town

Ghost Town is a music video produced by the band The Specials. It is a product which possesses cultural, social and historical significance. Ghost Town conveys a specific moment in British social and political history while retaining a contemporary relevance.

The cultural critic Dorian Lynskey has described it as “a remarkable pop cultural moment” which “defined an era.” The video and song are part of a tradition of protest in popular music, in this case reflecting concern about the increased social tensions in the UK at the beginning of the 1980s.

The aesthetic of the music video, along with the lyrics, represents the unease about the state of the nation, one which is often linked to the politics of Thatcherism but transcends a specific political ideology of eeriness meaning that it has remained politically and culturally resonant.

Thatcher’s Britain:

• Prime Minister 1979-90
• Militant campaigner for middle class interests
• Extreme attitude towards immigration
• British Nationality Act 1981: introduced a series of increasingly strict immigration procedure and prevented Asian people from entering Britain

The representations in the music video are racially diverse. This reflects it’s musical genre of Ska, a style which could be read politically in the context of a racially divided country. This representation of Britain’s emerging multiculturalism, is reinforced through the mix of stylistic influences in both the music and the video.

Race relations:

Bringing race into the picture in the 1980s, Paul Gilroy
highlighted how black youth cultures represented
cultural solutions to collectively experienced problems
of racism and poverty

Post war British Race Relations:

• After WWII, Britain faced a mass labour shortage which lead to the migration of half a million people from the Caribbean (the Windrush generation 1950s-70s) searching for jobs
• However, they faced severe discrimination which made it difficult for them to find employment and housing
• During the 1970s and 80s, the children of the Wind Rush Generation were reaching adulthood, but found it difficult to find employment due to having faced the same prejudice their parents did – the difference was that they were willing to resist this racism

Racism from the state/police:

• A clash between the police and black youth
• police generated the idea that black people were criminals – more likely to steal, use drugs, start fights etc
• Black community targeted by SUS Laws –  a stop and search law that permitted a police officer to stop, search and potentially arrest people on suspicion
• New Cross Fire 1981 – fire started by racist arsonist, killing 13 black people, whose charges were completely dismissed

Racism from Far Right Groups- NF:

Racism from Far-Right Groups: The NF
● The National Front was a far-right group
● Advocated the an end to immigration and the
repatriation of non-white Britons.
● Blamed immigration for the decline in employment,
housing and welfare.
● In the 1970s, the NF gained the support of
disillusioned white youth
● Racial attacks, violence and intimidation

Black Music Resistance:

• Black music offers a means of articulating oppression and challenging what Gilroy has termed ‘the capitalist system of racial exploitation and domination
• The lyrics of many reggae songs revolve around the black experience, history, culture and consciousness of economic and social deprivation as well as criticising the the continuing enslavement of racist ideology

Rock Against Racism 1976-82

• RAR campaign fought for the eradication of racism in the music industry against the rise of fascism among white working class youths
• People believed they could prevent their audiences from being prejudice by the messages they put across in their music
• RAR took advantage of the emerging subcultures who had similar anti-establishment ideologies as well as provided many different musical forms to which the campaign could project their anti-racist politics
• RAR organised hundreds of musical events which united white bands with black bands – it was highly successful in shining a light on multiculturalism and unity
• RAR’s fusion of youth culture and politics has been widely celebrated for making politics fun

Two Tone Britain:

• 2 Tone Records was founded by Jerry Dammers 1979 from The Specials which advocates the eradication of racism in British society
• This created a new genre of British music that fused punk with Jamaican reggae and SKA
• The bands signed by 2 Tone Records were largely multi-cultural, eg The Specials and The Selector, and represented the exact aim of RAR
• 2 Tone bands were most vocal after the election of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in 1979 – writing lyrics about the politics of racism, sexism, violence, unemployment, youth culture and a corrupt system of government
• 2 Tone gigs often attracted members of the right-wing which caused huge disruption

Key concepts:

● Cultural resistance
● Cultural hegemony
● Subcultural theory

Context:
● Race Relations
● Thatcher’s Britain
Case Studies:
● Rock Against Racism
● Rock Against Sexism

Resistance and political protest:

• laws don’t necessarily equal change
• change is much more likely through culture- which is normally more subtle and isn’t always riots and big gestures.
• everyday people
• Overt political protest is uncommon. When it occurs, it often results in a backlash.- doesn’t change public’s opinion

Cultural hegemony: (hegemony – dominant)

Antonio Gramsci: Italian philosopher writing in the 1930s

Cultural hegemony functions by framing the ideologies of the dominant social group as the only legitimate
ideology.
● The ideologies of the dominant group are expressed and maintained through its economic, political, moral,
and social institutions (like the education system and the media).
● These institutions socialise people into accepting the norms, values and beliefs of the dominant social
group.
● As a result, oppressed groups believe that the social and economic conditions of society are natural and
inevitable, rather than created by the dominant group.

Subcultures:

Working-class youth culture
● Unified by shared tastes in style, music and ideology
● A solution to collectively experienced problems
● A form of resistance to cultural hegemony

Teddy Boys: 1950/60s
● Responding to: post-war social changes
● Music: influenced by American rock n roll
● Style: upper-class Edwardian fashion
(narrow trousers, lappelled jackets), fused
with an element of rebelliousness in the form
of exaggerated hairstyles and shoes (quiffs
and creepers)

Skinheads: 1960s
● Responding to: social alienation.
● Rejected: late 50s conservatism,
as well as the ‘peace and love’
middle class hippy movement of
60s
● Expression of: working class
pride
● Music: West indian music (ska,
rocksteady, reggae)
● Style: shaven heads, Dr Marten
boots, braces, shirts, and cropped
trousers
● Politics: Original skinheads were
anti-racist, however the movement
quickly polarised

Punk: 1970s
● A Reaction to:
● 1) Capitalist middle class culture
that has achieved dominance and
legitimacy (hegemony)
● 2) Their alienation from the adult
working class culture of their
parents and grandparents
● 3) The social, political and
economic crisis of the mid1970s,
resulting in high youth
unemployment
● Values: anti-establishment,
emphasis on individual freedom,
on doing it yourself.
● Fashion: emphasised ugliness,
shock value, irony. Used items like
safety pins, ripped shirts, chains.
● Music: often self-produced and
independently distributed, the
music is loud and aggressive, with
lyrics expressing anti-establishment views and working
class concerns.

Rude Boys: 1960s-80s
● Music: listened to 1960s Jamaican ska
and 1970s roots reggae. Lyrics about
oppression and poverty articulated their
own experience. Also influenced by the
anti-establishment ethic of 1970s punk.
● Style: influenced by Jamaican
Rastafarianism and also British working
class fashion. Focus on dressing ‘sharp’

• suits, shiny shoes, hats.
  ● Reacting against: oppression from the
  state, police, and racist thugs. Also
  against the ‘peace and love’ aspect of
  the rasta culture. Instead, emphasised
  self-confidence

Frantz Fanon:

Frantz Fanon took an active role proposing the first step required for ‘colonised’ people to reclaim their own past by finding a voice and identity. The second, is to begin to erode the colonialist ideology by which that past had been devalued. In a chapter from ‘On National Culture’ Fanon presents three phrases of action ‘which traces the work of native writers’:

1. Assimilation of colonial culture corresponding to the ‘mother country’ Chinua Achebe talks of the colonial writer as a ‘somewhat unfinished European who with patience guidance will grow up one day and write like every other European.’
2. Immersion into an ‘authentic’ culture ‘brought up out of the depths of his memory; old legends will be reinterpreted’
3. Fighting, revolutionary, national literature, ‘the mouthpiece of a new reality in action’.

As Achebe writes, ‘a new situation was slowly developing as a handful of natives began to acquire European education and then to challenge Europe’s presence and position in their native land with the intellectual weapons of Europe itself’

Hegemony:

Gramsci suggests that power relations can be understood as a hegemonic struggle through culture. In other words, Gramsci raises the concept of hegemony to illustrate how certain cultural forms predominate over others which means that certain ideas are more influential then others, usually in line with the dominant ideas, the dominant groups and their corresponding dominant interests.

In terms of postcolonialism Edward Said, notes how ‘consent is gained and continuously consolidated for the distant rule of native people and territories.’

However, this form of cultural leadership is a process of (cultural) negotiation where consent is gained through persuasion, inculcation and acceptance. Where dominant ideas, attitudes and beliefs are slowly, subtly woven into our very being, so that they become ‘common sense’, a ‘normal’, ‘sensible’, obvious’ way of comprehending and acting in the world.

For example, a way of reiterating European superiority over Oriental backwardness though image, sound, word, text, which in terms of postcolonialism, is ‘a flexible positional superiority, which puts the Westerner in a whole series of possible relationships with the Orient without ever losing him the relative upper hand.’ ( E Said- In other words, ‘being a white man was therefore an idea and a reality.’

However, hegemony is a struggle that emerges from NEGOTIATION and CONSENT. As such, it is not total domination (not totalitarianism or explicit propaganda) but a continual exchange of power, through ideas. In this sense, postcolonialism articulates a desire to reclaim, re-write and re-establish cultural identity and thus maintain power of The Empire – even if the Empire has gone. Put another way, it is the power of representation, played out in the cultural and civic, looking to make an affect on the political and economic.

So the idea of a MEDIA LITERACY (Jean Killbourne) is to equip students with knowledge and understanding that allows them to see the legacy of connections. So that rather acting as an accepting, passive consumer of media texts, they are able to actively engage in the process of meaning-making. Breaking down the layers of construction to grasp the sociological history behind the message.