Key Concepts: ● Cultural resistance ● Cultural hegemony ● Subcultural theory Context: ● Race Relations ● Thatcher’s Britain Case Studies: ● Rock Against Racism ● Rock Against Sexism ● 2 Tone
The Idea of Resistance and Political Protest: ● When we first think about political protest, what comes to mind?○ Attempts to change to laws or legislation ○ Organised political movements ○ Public protests ○ Petitions, marches
● However, we can look at political protest in terms of: ○ Cultural resistance ○ Everyday people
● Why look at cultural resistance? ○ Overt political protest is uncommon. When it occurs, it often results in a backlash. ○ Even if overt political protest does results in changes in legislation, it won’t necessarily change public opinion. ○ Culture is what influences people’s hearts, minds and opinions. This is the site of popular change. Key idea: the political, personal and cultural are always intertwined
● 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.
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
British national identity could be swamped by people with different culture’ – 1978 Interview
‘firm immigration control for the future is essential if we are to achieve good community relations’ – Conservative Manifesto
Subculture:
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
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
Political protests are stereotypically petitions, marches etc, but people don’t think about the fact that people make moving images/music etc to help change view points on certain things. Just because a law has changed doesn’t mean the opinion of s topic will have changed, which leads to the fact that the political, personal and cultural are always intertwined.
Cultural hegemony
Framing ideologies of dominant social groups as the only legitimate ideology- The only ‘real’ belief is the hegemonic one, the dominant one.
Antonio Gramsci:
An Italian philosopher 1930s
Subculture-
● 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
The song challenges the social theories at the time
Paul Gilroy
Author of the book ‘Ain’t no black in the union jack’, exploring the construction of racial ‘otherness’ within the print media in the 1970s. The book traces the story of UK Post war race relations.
Gilroy argues that the racial representations that were ‘fixed in a matrix between the imagery of squalor and that of sordid sexuality’, marginalised the immigrant black community from the outset – constructing them as racial ‘other’ in the predominantly white world of 1950s Britain.
In 1970s and 80s, newspapers related stories concerning the many community riots of the period, depicting the multi-ethnic disturbing events as only black events, suggesting the black community was prone to lawlessness and incompatible with white British values.
QUOTES FROM ARTICLES
‘no night complete without a fight, Skinheads attacking whoever riled them, flick knives at the ready.’ – The conversation.com
‘nods to cinematic soundtracks and music hall tradition, it reflects and engenders anxiety.’ The conversation.com
deadpan vocals lamenting how “all the clubs have been closed down” because there is “too much fighting on the dance floor”. The conversation.com
‘England was hit by recession and away from rural Skinhead nights, riots were breaking out across its urban areas. Deprived, forgotten, run down and angry, these were places where young people, black and white, erupted.’ The conversation.com
it expressed the mood of the early days of Thatcher’s Britain for many. – BBC
Spent three weeks at the top of the charts after its release in 1981
Lyrics
“This town is coming like a ghost town All the clubs have been closed down This place is coming like a ghost town Bands won’t play no more Too much fighting on the dance floor
Do you remember the good old days before the ghost town? We danced and sang as the music played in any boomtown
This town is coming like a ghost town Why must the youth fight against themselves? Government leaving the youth on the shelf This place is coming like a ghost town No job to be found in this country Can’t go on no more The people getting angry
This town is coming like a ghost town”
“Too much fighting on the dancefloor” – Links to how “The tour was marred by audience violence which disrupted gigs”, even at their own shows, The Specials were met with disruption in their audiences from sub-culture groups who used the performances as a protest to express their views.
“Government leaving the youth on the shelf” – Link to Thatcher’s ideologies.
Band members are sat in a car driving through the deserted streets of a (ghost) town in Britain. The place looks run down a lacking civilisation. They look directly down the lens of the camera with melancholy expression, as if directly relaying the message of nation wide depression to the audience. During the chorus, the camera action is shaky and manic before the camera shot focuses in on a wall as if the car had crashed, perhaps signifying the social unrest and disruption in Britain at the time. The more positive, upbeat chorus paired with the bands more positive expressions could resemble the way they are reminiscing the “good old days before the ghost town”.
Attempt to change laws and legislation, to make a government hear a voice that is not represented
Could be in the form of public demonstrations through protesting on the streets, petitions, marches
Overt political protest is uncommon, it often results in a backlash
Even if law or legislation is put into place, it doesn’t mean that the dominant, hegemonic view of the public changes. Public opinion doesn’t stay inline with law.
AntonioGramsci
Italian philosopher who wrote during the 1930’s
Hegemonic/ Cultural Hegemony = The dominant class, the dominant political viewpoint or the power holders and their cultural viewpoint.
Culture = The elements of life which influence peoples hearts, minds and opinions. This is a grounds for change and development.
Sub-culture = The resistance towards the hegemonic culture that emerge with new ideas and opposing views from the bottom of the hierarchy in aim to ensure their voices are heard.
Sub-culture is working-class youth culture unified by shared tastes in style, music and ideology. Sub-culture is often the beginning to a solution to collectively experienced problems and a form of rebellion to the dominant hegemonic views.
Post-war Britain
Margaret Thatcher = Prime minister and leader of the Conservative party from 1979 to 1990.
“British national identity could be swamped by people with different culture”
Strong attitude against immigration (believed that immigration control is the way to bring about good community relations)
Nationality Act 1981 – Excluded Asian people from entering UK.
Post-war Britain saw different sub-cultures/ groups begin to formulate.
Teddy Boys (1950’s/60’s) = Influenced by American rock and roll, resisted against post-war social changes in UK.
Skinheads (1960’s/70’s) = Responding to social alienation (the feeling of not fitting in to a certain social group). They expressed working class pride. Listened to West Indian music such as Ska and Reggae. Originally, Skinheads were anti-racist in the 1960’s. However, in the 1970’s, many skinheads joined far right fascist movements like the National Front and the sub culture became polarized by differing political stances.
Punks (1970’s) = They responded to social alienation due to the working class culture of their parents, hegemonic views of Thatcherism, anti-establishment, made music that was self-produced and focused on ‘DIY’.
Paul Gilroy
Wrote book called “There Ain’t No Black In The Union Jack” (story of race relations in post war Britain following a large wave of immigration from the west indies, causing anxiety around immigrant behaviours)
Paul Gilroy believed “unstable” and politicised identities are “always unfinished, always being remade” and ethnicity is an “infinite process of identity construction”.
In other words, ethnicity and national identity are not actually fixed or permanent.
Racial Otherness
Suggests that public association and stereotypes of the post-war immigrants with substandard living conditions. Gilroy said that these representations marginalised the black community as the racial ‘other’ in the largely white 1950’s Britain.
The British Empire had colonised and had ownership over many countries such as the West Indies, parts of Africa, India and Pakistan. Previously, Britain had used the produce and traded with these less developed countries as a way of benefitting white British people. After the war, Britain was in need of workers (people to re-build destruction from the war, to replace those who had died in the war). Many immigrated from the countries in the British empire to work in the UK, this was met with fear that the immigrant community would ‘overtake’ white Britain due to the news spreading coverage of the black/immigrant community being involved with muggings, violence and crime.
The Notting Hill Carnival riot (1976) was described as “an army of black youths”, the media/ newspapers suggested that the black community was “prone to lawlessness”
Two Tone Music
2 Tone was a genre of British popular music, that fused punk with Jamaican reggae and ska music. 2 Tone also attracted the attention of right-wing youth. 2 Tone concerts were often inflated by members of the National Front or British Movement, disputing gigs
“The Specials, too, encapsulated Britain’s burgeoning multiculturalism” – BBC Article 2011 (The Specials: How Ghost Town defined an era)
“For the first and only time, British pop music appeared to be commenting on the news as it happened.”
This is a targeted CSP and needs to be studied with reference to two elements of the Theoretical Framework (Media Language and Media Representation).
1 TASK 1: MAKE SOME GENERAL NOTES ON THIS MEDIA PRODUCTION: NAMES, DATES, NUMBERS, ETC
Ghost Town is a product which possesses cultural, social and historical significance. It will invite comparison with the other CSP music video allowing for an analysis of the contexts in which they are produced and consumed.
2 TASK 2 Continue your notes: WHAT IS THE CULTURAL, SOCIAL AND HISTORICAL BACKGROUND? Use ppt from Jodie below
Ghost Town by The Specials 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’’ one that “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 song was number 1 post-Brixton and during the Handsworth and Toxteth riots.
The aesthetic of the music video, along with the lyrics, represents an unease about the state of the nation, one which is often linked to the politics of Thatcherism but transcends a specific political ideology in its eeriness, meaning that it has remained politically and culturally resonant.
The representations in the music video are racially diverse. This reflects its 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 eclectic mix of stylistic influences in both the music and the video.
3 TASK 3:Continue to build up your notes (in preparation for the unseen essay) by reading see BOTH: 1. Paul Gilroy chapter in the Mark Dixon AND 2. some of the linked articles below.
1. Media Theory for A level by Mark Dixon
Look specifically at pp. 72-73 & 77-79 – Paul Gilroy chapter in Media Theory for A level book by Mark Dixon.Think about the following key terms:
racial otherness (72-73)
post-colonial melancholia (72-73)
the story of UK race relations post W.W. 2 (72-73)
4 TASK 4:MAKE SOME NOTES ON THE WAY IN WHICH THIS MUSIC VIDEOS CREATES AND COMMUNICATES MEANING THROUGH NARRATIVE
You should INLCUDE SOME SEMIOTIC TERMS ANALYSIS (ie the use of signs) which should specifically look at:
You should also focus on GENRE
Mise-en-scene – ie what can you see in each shot
Cinematography – ie how does the camera frame each shot & how are the shots edited together
How the story / narrative is constructed (this post should be helpful or this BBC Bitesize post). Put another way, how could TODOROV, LEVI-STRAUS & PROPP be applied to this music video.
Think about how the visuals link to the song lyrics (is it a LITERAL OR METAPHORICAL interpretation, eg the journey through a deserted landscape, or the way lyrics refer to effects of political and economic conditions)
Make sure you reference Neale! You may remember that we looked at Steve Neale when we looked at AS TV CSP (link here)
How the music video genre uses intertextuality and hybridity to establish meanings
ASSESSMENT
We will complete an unseen question in class. This question could look at either MEDIA LANGUAGE and / or REPRESENTATION. THAT MEANS THE QUESTION DOES NOT REQUIRE YOU TO TALK ABOUT INSTITUTION AND / OR AUDIENCE
