Popular Culture Review Vol. 16, No. 1, Spring 2005 | Page 82

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Popular Culture Review
We suggest the process of transcendental deduction by those involved
in GIC differs from that of the larger population. For members of GIC, a priori
categorizations exist which give the culture meaning by virtue of their
familiarity and experience with GIC. Such experiences, and the resulting
categorizations, do not exist for the larger society. Due to the larger society’s
need for meaning, it categorizes GIC as deviant. The history of Goth’s affiliation
with things viewed as deviant dates to the eighteenth century.
Goth and Industrial
Historically, the term “Gothic” was most commonly used to
characterize the pointed arches and flying buttress styles of medieval barbaric
architecture (Germann 1972:181-182; Gunn 1999; Robinson 2003) and a literary
genre of late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century fiction featuring themes of
sinister darkness, gloom, and horror (Botting 1996; Gunn 1999). The modem
Goth culture had its beginning in the United Kingdom in the late 1970s as it
emerged from the rebellious punk rock scene (Porter 2002; Robinson 2003).
Along with the successes of bands such as Bauhaus, Joy Division, and Siouxsie
and the Banshees, the Gothic label became popular with music fans and the
artists. Self-identified Goths lay claim as well to more contemporary bands such
as Autumn, Lycia, and Christian Death (Gunn 1999). The music is generally
dark, ambient, melancholy, haunting, angst-ridden, and often contains
depressing lyrics (Gunn 1999; Hodkinson 2002; Porter 2002).
Hodkinson’s (2002) study on Goths in the United Kingdom found that
music and its performers were most directly responsible for the emergence of
the stylistic characteristics of Goth. One of the most notable starting points of
the Goth subculture came with the success of the Bauhaus 1979 single “Bela
Lugosi’s Dead.” It featured dark and mysterious lyrics with a funereal-tone
music tempo along an androgynous style that eventually was adopted by many
among the band’s following. Hodkinson notes that Siouxsie Sioux’s stylistic
onstage appearance in 1981 was characterized by “black back-combed hair and
distinctively styled heavy dark make-up accentuating the eyes, cheekbones and
lips;” and, for the next two decades, both male and female Goths would imitate
Siouxsie’s style (2002:36). Some variances to Siouxsie’s presentation of dark
femininity and Bauhaus’s andro gyny appeared with the addition of ripped
fishnet tights and shirts. Overall, the most obvious and important element used
to define Goth fashion and style is the color black (Hodkinson 2002:36; Khalili
2003:16-17; Porter 2002; Robinson 2003).
Early on, Goths generally wore a white foundation on their faces that
highlighted thick black eyeliner, cheekbone-accentuating blusher, and dark
lipstick (Porter 2003). Also associated with Goth are the various images
originating in macabre fiction such as crucifixes, bats, vampires, and elements of
eighteenth- and nineteenth-century fashions. These Victorian period fashions of
corsets, lacy or velvet tops and dresses, and frilly white shirts are often worn by