AUT Master of Creative Writing Thesis Exegesis - Scholarly ...

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AUT Master of Creative Writing 2008 Shorty © Michael Botur 2009 ‘Shorty’ also refers to characters aping the subcultures that they advocate, acting as shorties (hangers-on) to a lifestyle identifiable through its fashion, speech and values. According to Dick Hebdige (pp.106-12 in Subculture: The Meaning of Style 1979): Members of a subculture often signal their membership by making tangible choices in clothing styles, hairstyles and footwear. However, intangible elements, such as common interests, dialects and slang, music genres and gathering places can also be an important factor. Youth subcultures offer participants an identity outside of that ascribed by social institutions such as family, work, home and school. The tangible elements which Hebdige refers to are props visible to an interlocutor who reacts to and defines a subculture. This reactionary interlocutor is usually the ‘general community’, ie. a united cultural majority or ‘norm.’ The formative relationship between style and subculture has been defined by Michael Brake In Comparative Youth Culture: Youth subcultures (are) modes of expression or lifestyles developed by groups in subordinate structural positions in response to dominant systems — and which reflect their attempt to solve structural contradictions rising from the wider societal context. Props are an important part of power relations, contributing to the fetishising of subcultures. When this happens a style becomes recognisable to those outside the subculture. Style is ‘Visible affectations by members of the subculture (…) interpreted by members of the dominant culture (Youth Subculture October 2008 from www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Youth_culture 2008 .) Visibility and recognition 6
AUT Master of Creative Writing 2008 Shorty © Michael Botur 2009 are vital to certain subcultures such as skinheads and punks (Michael Brake 1985.) Subcultural stylistic props found in Shorty include Doc Marten boots, Converse sneakers, hooded sweaters, cigarettes, marijuana, RTD liquor, Che Guevara t-shirts, handbags and purses, trophies and rugby balls. 3. Subculture Considered Language and communication – and lack thereof – give form to the stories told in Shorty. Manners of speaking and vocabulary in NZ appear tied to subcultures, and every youth arguably identifies with at least one subculture (Martin 2002 p.51.) Meanwhile, the emergence of a recognisable period of youthfulness, in conjunction with a person’s age, has coincided with or caused the ousting of elderly people in a reserved social position. American media has exacerbated this divide; NZ subcultures which reference US subcultures seem to become the shorty of US attitudes and lingo. As Lloyd Martin reports on youth subcultural confliction, a subcultural youth may ‘Speak about connections with a global, black American subculture, even though it is white America that is selling them to her… It is a game of mutual exploitation’ (Martin, ibid.) Anonymity and inarticulation must be discussed here. Several lead characters in Shorty are rendered as anonymous narrators. This is because I can be expressing the voice of a whole archetype, and not a 7
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