Lecture 3 - Sub Cultures

Sub Cultures

A Sub Culture is a community of people who wish not to conform to society and stand alone on their own values. there is a very fine line between sub culture and mainstream (not to be misconstrued with a hyphen)

Lets take for example the sub culture of punk:

Wiki pedia describes 'Punk' as:

The punk subculture, which centres on punk rock music, includes a diverse array of ideologies, fashions and forms of expression, including visual art, dance, literature and film. The subculture is largely characterized by anti-establishment views and the promotion of individual freedom. The punk subculture emerged in the United Kingdom, Australia, and the United States in the mid-1970s. In the late 1970s, the subculture began to diversify, which led to the proliferation of factions such as new wave, 2 Tone, pop punk, hardcore punk, no wave, street punk and Oi!. Hardcore punk, street punk and Oi! sought to do away with the frivolities introduced in the later years of the original punk movement.

But when a sub culture gets well known, and involves numerous followers, then society has a fascinating ability to draw it back in to make money off of, they sell merchandise and accessories valued by the sub culture. and so the sub culture grows but slowly but surely gets embedded back into society as they can control the following of the culture which in turn defeats the object of it being a 'Sub' culture.

Sub Culture in Animation

There are two ways in which we can approach sub culture in animation, 

Are we talking about a sub culture in the 'content' or the 'animation'

 Firstly:

If the animator adopted a certain style in order to reach a certain sub culture then that would reflect on the animator, for example:

Tim Burton

Who adopts a very 'Gothic' theme, does this mean that he is reaching out to the sub culture of 'Goth' but if this is the case would it be very restricting for him to explore different styles of animation as it might not adhere to the Gothic values.

if we were to take the content into account, there are a few animations that involve sub cultures, for example there is the group of Goths in South Park:

So how (in animation) does one represent what is underneath the surface of a subculture, and how do you contextualize subculture to animation. 

In my opinion its down to the style of the animation, as restricting as it is to create a demographic of a subculture if that is the intention, its not strictly speaking the content of the animation, which could be perceived as just being introduced for comic value, and could offend the followers of those sub cultures.