The Lolita Complex: - Scholarly Commons Home

The question Chuang and I raised was how does one hold an
exhibition on Gothic & Lolita when “Lolita” and or “Gothic” cannot be
mentioned in the title? And if one omitted these words, what would it mean
for a potentially knowledgeable audience that may be attracted to the show
for the very reason that it was related to “Goth”? How would they be drawn
in? Could we even invite this new youth audience? And what about the
young Asians, particularly, who knew about Lolita? How would they realise
what the show was about? Besides, it was Chuang’s goal to bring in this
young Asian audience, and New Zealand youth in general, people who were
more likely to comprehend the nuances of these labels and be magnetised by
them. And what about museum goers of any age group that might be
enamoured with the Gothic, full stop?
Our struggle was to find a way to discuss Gothic & Lolita without
actually stating it. We tossed up titles containing Japanese phonetic forms,
such as Gosurori and Gosuloli, and some that ignored the terms completely.
Through this process, Chuang came up with “Loli-Pop”, as mentioned, a
contraction of “Lolita” and “Pop” but also a clever pun alluding to the
sweetness of Lolita.
However, we were still confronted with difficulty. In order for the
Museum to take this topic seriously, even to have our proposal approved,
Chuang emphasised the movement’s growing popularity among youth
communities worldwide. This was misunderstood by Museum staff
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