The Lecture Subcultures was given by Ben Bethell on 25th Feb 2019. Introducing the outstanding figure in the scope of subculture studies, Dick Hebdige, the lecture was based on his publication Subculture: The Meaning of Life while extending its reach. Several representative sociology schools, historical background with visual materials, critiques, and associations in later eras were contained and well structured.

Accompanying the brief review of Hebdige’s book, a video named Something Else, produced in Manchester, was played to begin the lecture. It showed a group interview with real subculture teenagers in the 1970s, conveying the authentic voice of youth. American photographer Bruce Davidson was also mentioned for his Brooklyn street gang portraits.

Behind the growing emergence of media exposure, publication and visual documentation of youth subculture, sociological investigations had already been carried out by scholars decades ahead. Three institutions were introduced by the lecturer, as critical resources for subculture studies. Chicago school was regarded as pioneering in urban sociology, for its groundbreaking case study in the pre-war cosmopolitan Berlin, to the post-war industrialized Chicago. Frankfurt School, however, was holding negative views towards youth culture, comparing it to Nazi for their nature of ‘stupidity and brainwashing’. On the contrary, Birmingham School showed great appreciation, highlighting the self-identification within youth subculture and its link with working-class. Therefore, for scholars subculture portrayed an opposite and even rebelling image against the dominating capitalism. The lecturer also drew from researches from the academic schools that subculture, as delineated, existed within a broader culture but led by some outsiders whose social roles were self-defined.

The lecture then took a visual approach, shifting its focus to a cycle of the style of youth subculture in the UK in the 1960s and 1970s. Certain groups were introduced including Teddy Boy, Mod, Skinhead and Punk. Notably, this generation of subculture was more or less influenced by American music and films through the dissemination of entertaining culture and sometimes, via early immigrates, like Jamaican in the UK. Meanwhile, a mixture of dressing style was also noticeable in terms of both class and gender. Traditional upper-class apparel appeared with working-class accessories while a growing number of girls put on conventionally boyish garments. Photographs and videos were displayed in this part as supporting materials, including event recording, street interviews and TV shows, which furthermore documented mainstream response to such striking tides.

Following that were the later critiques of Hebdige’s subculture model, mainly put forward by cultural theorist Angela Robbie, that there were misjudgments on Hebdige’s research objects. For instance, the existence of girls on the street, and upper-class teenagers in subculture were, to a great extent, overlooked. Furthermore, Hebdige’s perception of subculture dressing being pure, symbolic and the representative didn’t apply to the newer generation’s ‘supermarket-style’. Boundaries between groups being dissolving, style being fragmented, subculture took on a changing look in the following decades.

The lecture ended with more theoretical reviews with sociologist Sarah Thornton introduced. Facing the prevailing consumerism, subculture is being commodified more than ever, which questions its intrinsic nature of anti-capitalism. Meanwhile, the solidification of ‘cultural capital’ with accumulated specialized knowledge, is urging subculture strengthen its own spiritual construction, which, stated by Thornton, fits into the mainstream while remaining outside to preserve individuality.

At the very end the lecturer returned to Hebdige’s notion of subculture, emphasizing its forever concerns for youth, shared visual identity, coherent informal structure and the very essence of non-mainstream.