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Disdain for the Lolita Look
Although one may empathise with the plight of recent generations and
acknowledge the difficulties of growing up in an environment accented by
“poverty, war… discrimination or joblessness”, there is and has been,
nonetheless, a larger aversion to the attitude of youth by others. This
connects with a reaction against the Lolita subculture in regard to what it
appears to stand for.
Ginny Parker has claimed that “despite the nation’s reputation as a
culture with a love of all things cute, many in mainstream Japan are
contemptuous of the Lolita look”. 126 She has spoken of “fans of the style…
being called stupid by strangers, getting mean looks and having chewing
gum stuck to the backs of their dresses”. 127
In line with other subcultural identities that sit outside the normative
the Gothloli’s appearance tends to shock and even anger critics as it is seen
to disrupt the social order. As Dick Hebdige has observed, “violations of
the authorized codes through which the social world is organized and
experienced have considerable power to provoke and disturb”. 128 And
although the Gothloli image is referred to as sweet and cute, and may not be
immediately viewed as shocking, it still manages to operate in the manner
that Hebdige describes, to incite heated responses and generate fierce
debate.
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