Page 126 - Battleground The Media Volume 1 and 2

Cultural Appropr at on | 10

Culture and suPerCulture
The cultural creativity we see everywhere is not limited to what is presented by the mass
media and the cultural industries, or to public appropriations made within alternative social
or cultural movements like punk rock or religion. Culture is becoming more and more person-
alized today—think YouTube, MySpace, iPod. The driving force behind this decentralization
of culture is modern communications technology. Access to Internet and satellite TV, mobile
(camera) phones, and computer software, for example, gives people in more developed
countries and middle-class individuals in less wealthy parts of the world unprecedented
sources of inspiration and tools for expanding their worlds as consumers and producers
of culture. Through acts of individual “cultural programming,” enterprising individuals today
create their own dynamic, personal “supercultures”—personalized matrices of material and
cultural resources.

does not mean “proper” or “fitting to the occasion.” What cultural appropriation
means and how it works becomes much easier to grasp with some examples.

ThE CLassiC ExamPLE: Punk roCk
The quintessential case of cultural appropriation can be found in popular cul-
ture of the turbulent 1970s, a stressful period in world history. Fierce resistance to
the Vietnam War was raging across the globe. Civil rights struggles, the emergence
of modern feminism, and increased use of illegal drugs by middle-class youth were
taking place. In England, other problems were developing. Much of England’s in-
dustrial economy—mining and manufacturing—was declining. Working-class
jobs were evaporating. British youth—especially young men—found their job op-
portunities shrinking and their lives becoming increasingly bleak.
At the same time, changes were taking place in the popular music industry in
England and the United States. Music fans had become bored with pretentious
“progressive rock” or “art rock” bands like Yes, Genesis, King Crimson, Jethro
Tull, and Rush. The poetic lyrics, lush arrangements, long solos, and concert hall
venues of these “super groups” were being rejected by more and more popular-
music fans. The virtuoso groups were being replaced by bands that played short,
simple, angry songs to smaller audiences in clubs. Punk rock was born.
The cultural emblem of the punk movement was a striking act of cultural ap-
propriation—safety pins that were stuck through facial skin as simple piercings.
The original function and significance of the safety pin for everyday domestic
purposes had been appropriated by disenfranchised youth for cultural and po-
litical reasons—rejection of a life of boredom and meaninglessness. Piercing
the skin with a safety pin—meant to shock and disgust mainstream society—
became a highly recognizable sign of resistance to the dominant culture. The
symbolic effect has had lasting effects. The contemporary body piercing craze
began as an iconic symbol of a social and musical revolution that raged from
the mid-1970s through the early 1980s.