Encyclopedia
The
goth subculture is a contemporary subculture prevalent in many countries. It began in the
United Kingdom during the late
1970s to early
1980s in the gothic rock scene, an offshoot of the post-punk genre. The goth subculture has survived much longer than others of the same era. Its imagery and cultural proclivities indicate influences from nineteenth century
Gothic literature, mainly through
horror movies.
The goth subculture has associated gothic tastes in music and
fashion. Gothic music encompasses a number of different styles. Common to all is a tendency towards a “dark” sound and outlook. Styles of dress within the subculture range from
death rock,
punk, androgynous, some
Renaissance style clothes, or combinations of the above, most often with black attire, makeup and hair.
Origins and development
By the late 1970s, there were a few post-punk bands in the
United Kingdom labeled "gothic." However, it was not until the early 1980s that gothic rock became its own subgenre within post-punk, and that followers of these bands started to come together as a distinctly recognizable movement. The opening of the
Batcave in
London's
Soho in July 1982 provided a prominent meeting point for the emerging scene, which had briefly been labeled positive punk by the
New Musical Express. The term "Batcaver" was later used to describe old-school goths.
Independent of the British scene, the late 1970s and early 1980s saw
death rock branch off from American punk. In 1980s and early 1990s, members of the emerging goth subculture in
Germany were called
Grufties . They generally represented a fusion of the goth subculture and the new wave movement with an influence of new romantic, and formed the early stage of the "dark culture" .
Goth after post-punk
After the demise of post-punk, gothic continued to evolve both musically and visually. This caused variations in style . Local scenes also contributed to this variation. By the 1990s,
Victorian fashion saw a renewed popularity in the goth scene, drawing on the mid-19th century
gothic revival and the more morbid aspects of Victorian culture.
Current subcultural boundaries
By the 1990s, the term "goth" and the boundaries of the associated subculture had become more contentious. New youth subcultures emerged, or became more popular, some of them being conflated with the goth subculture by the general public and the popular media. This conflation was primarily owing to similarities of appearance, and the fashions of the subcultures, rather than the musical genres of the bands associated with them. As time went on, the term was extended further in popular usage, sometimes to define groups that had neither musical nor fashion similarities to the original gothic subculture.
This has led to the introduction of slang terms that some goths and others use to sort and label associated trends and members of loosely related subcultures. These include
mallgoths or Neo-Goths in the US,
Cucarachas in Spain,
Dark in Latin America and Italy,
gogans in Australia, and
FjortisGoth in
Norway, and
spooky kids,
moshers or mini moshers in the UK. More positive terms, such as
mini-goths or
baby bats, are also used by some older goths to refer to youths whom they see as exhibiting potential for growth into older goths later on.
The response of these younger groups to the older subculture varies. Some, being secure in a separate subcultural identity, express offense at being called "goths" in the first place, while others choose to join the existing subculture on its own terms. Still others have simply ignored its existence, and decided to appropriate the term "goth" themselves, and redefine the idea in their own image. Even within the original subculture, changing trends have added to the complexity of attempting to define precise boundaries.
Gothic music
The bands that began the gothic rock and
death rock scene were limited in number, and included
Bauhaus,
Siouxsie & the Banshees, The Cure, Southern Death Cult, Sex Gang Children,
45 Grave, UK Decay, The Virgin Prunes,
Alien Sex Fiend and
Christian Death.
Joy Division,
Dead Can Dance and
Killing Joke have also been linked, but there is debate over their influence.
By the mid-eighties, the number of bands began proliferating and became increasingly popular, including
The Sisters of Mercy,
The Mission UK,
Xmal Deutschland, The Bolshoi and Fields of the Nephilim. The nineties saw the further growth of eighties bands and emergence of many new bands.
Factory Records,
4AD Records, and Beggars Banquet Records released much of this music in Europe, while Cleopatra Records amongst others released much of this music in the United States, where the subculture grew especially in New York, Los Angeles, & Orange County, California, with many nightclubs featuring "gothic/industrial" nights. The popularity of 4AD bands resulted in the creation of a similar US label called Projekt Records. This produces what is colloquially termed Ethereal Wave, a subgenre of
Darkwave music.
By the mid-1990s, styles of music that were heard in venues that goths attended ranged from gothic rock,
death rock,
Industrial music,
EBM, ambient, experimental,
synthpop, shoegazing,
punk rock, 1970s glam rock , indie rock, to 1980s dance music. This variety was a result of a need to maximize attendance from everyone across the alternative music scene, particularly in smaller towns, and due to the eclectic tastes of the members of the subculture; but it also signaled new shifts in attitude.
Gothic rock was originally clearly differentiated from industrial and heavy metal by older participants in the alternative scene, but newcomers and media misconceptions blurred the boundaries in the nineties as gothic rock became significantly less popular in the US and UK. Thus while Industrial metal-influenced or
heavy metal bands such as Marilyn Manson,
Jack Off Jill,
Type O Negative,
Lacuna Coil,
Dimmu Borgir,
Cradle of Filth and Slipknot were often labeled as "goth" by the media, this categorization was strongly resisted by longstanding goths. Even more confusion was added with the rise of gothic metal, with such bands consciously using gothic imagery from the dark ages in their own music and appearance and started even following fashion trends indistinguishable from older goth ones. Arguments about which music is and is not goth became an ever more significant part of how the subculture tried to define itself.
The other significant development of the nineties was the popularity of electronic dance bands such as
VNV Nation,
Apoptygma Berzerk and Covenant in the goth scene. The rise of what has been called
cybergoth music and style, which has much in common with techno/synthpop and
EBM, caused bitter divisions between its fans and those firmly attached to the analog and/or guitar based sound of gothic rock. Bands with a
darkwave sound or those such as
The Crüxshadows, which combine an electronic and gothic rock sound, appeal to both sides to some extent.
Recent years have seen a resurgence in the early positive punk and
death rock sound, in reaction to the EBM, futurepop, and synthpop, which had taken over many goth clubs. Bands with an earlier goth sound like
Cinema Strange, Bloody Dead And Sexy, Black Ice, and Antiworld are becoming very popular. Nights like Ghoul School and Release The Bats promote death rock heavily, and the
Drop Dead Festival brings in death rock fans from all over the world.
Today, the goth music scene thrives most actively in
Western Europe, especially
Germany, with large festivals such as
Wave-Gotik-Treffen, Zillo , Mera Luna and others draw tens of thousands of fans from all over the world.
Historical and cultural influences
Term origins
The original
Goths were an
Eastern Germanic tribe who played an important role in the fall of the western
Roman Empire. In some circles, the name "goth" later became pejorative: synonymous with "barbarian" and the uncultured due to the then-contemporary view of the fall of Rome and historically inaccurate depictions of the pagan Gothic tribes during and after the process of
Christianization of Europe. During the
Renaissance period in
Europe, medieval
architecture was retroactively labeled
gothic architecture, and was considered unfashionable in contrast to the then-modern lines of classical architecture.
In the United Kingdom, by the late 1700s, however, nostalgia for the medieval period led people to become fascinated with medieval gothic ruins. This fascination was often combined with an interest in medieval romances,
Roman Catholic religion and the supernatural. Enthusiasts for
gothic revival architecture in the United Kingdom were led by
Horace Walpole, and were sometimes nicknamed "goths", the first positive use of the term in the modern period.
The
gothic novel of the late eighteenth century, a genre founded by Horace Walpole with the 1764 publication of The Castle of Otranto, was responsible for the more modern connotations of the term
gothic. Henceforth, the term was associated with a mood of horror, morbidity, darkness and the supernatural. The gothic novel established much of the iconography of later horror literature and cinema, such as
graveyards, ruined
castles or churches,
ghosts,
vampires, nightmares, cursed families, being
buried alive and
melodramatic plots. Another notable element was the brooding figure of the gothic
villain, which developed into the Byronic hero. The most famous gothic villain is the
vampire,
Dracula, originally depicted in a novel by
Bram Stoker, then made more famous through the medium of horror movies.
The powerful imagery of horror movies began in
German expressionist cinema in the twenties then passed onto the
Universal Studios films of the thirties, then to camp horror B films such as
Plan 9 From Outer Space is a 1959 [i] science fiction [i]/horror [i] film [i] written, p ...
and then to
Hammer Horror films. By the 1960s,
TV series, such as
The Addams Family and
The Munsters, used these stereotypes for camp comedy.
Certain elements in the dark, atmospheric music and dress of the post punk scene were clearly
gothic in this sense. The use of
gothic as an adjective in describing this music and its followers led to the term
goth.
20th century influences
The influence of the gothic novel on the goth subculture can be seen in numerous examples of the subculture's poetry and music, though this influence sometimes came second hand, through the popular imagery of
horror films and television. The Byronic hero, in particular, was a key precursor to the male goth image, while Dracula's iconic portrayal by
Bela Lugosi appealed powerfully to early goths. They were attracted by Lugosi's aura of camp menace, elegance and mystique. Some people even credit the band
Bauhaus' first single "Bela Lugosi's Dead", with the start of the goth subculture, though many prior art house movements also influenced gothic fashion and style. A notable early example was
Siouxsie Sioux, of the musical group
Siouxsie and the Banshees. Some members of Bauhaus were, themselves, fine art students and/or active artists.
The concept of the
femme fatale, which appeared in
Romantic literature,
film noir, as well as in the
gothic novel, went on to become a vital image for female goths. In cinema, the femme fatale style adopted by silent movie actress
Theda Bara exerted a lasting influence. Bara was nicknamed the vamp, and her first name was an anagram for "death". She established the look for pale predatory women in later films, which ultimately influenced the goth subculture.
Some of the early gothic rock and
death rock artists adopted traditional horror movie images, and also drew on horror movie soundtracks for inspiration. Their audiences responded in kind by further adopting appropriate dress and props. Use of standard horror film props like swirling smoke, rubber bats, and cobwebs were used as gothic club décor from the beginning in The Batcave. Such references in their music and image were originally tongue-in-cheek, but as time went on, bands and members of the subculture took the connection more seriously. As a result, morbid,
supernatural, and occult themes became a more noticeably serious element in the subculture. The interconnection between horror and goth was highlighted in its early days by
The Hunger is a 1983 R-rated horror film [i]. ...
, a 1983 vampire film, which starred
David Bowie,
Catherine Deneuve, and
Susan Sarandon. The movie featured gothic rock group Bauhaus performing "Bela Lugosi's Dead" in a nightclub. In 1993,
Whitby became the location for what became the UK's biggest goth festival as a direct result of being featured in Bram Stoker's
Dracula.
Throughout the evolution of the goth subculture, familiarity with gothic literature became significant for many goths.
Keats,
Poe,
Baudelaire and other romantic writers became just as symbolic of the subculture as dressing all in black.
A newer literary influence on the gothic scene was
Anne Rice's re-imagining of the idea of the
vampire. Rice's characters were depicted as struggling with eternity and loneliness, this with their ambivalent or tragic sexuality had deep attractions for many goth readers, making her works very popular in the eighties through the nineties. Movies based on her books have been filmed in recent years — notably
Interview with the Vampire is a novel [i] by Anne Rice [i] written in 1973 [i] and published in 1976 [i] ...
, which starred Brad Pitt, and the more recent
Queen of the Damned is a novel [i] by Anne Rice [i]. ...
, in which goths appear directly and indirectly. The first film, in particular, helped further encourage the spread of Victorian style fashions in the subculture .
Later media influences
As the subculture became well-established the connection between goth and horror fiction became almost a cliché, with goths quite likely to appear as characters in horror novels and film. For example,
The Crow is a comic book [i] series created by James O'Barr [i]. ...
drew directly on goth music and style. The movies of
Tim Burton are all significant for their presentation of goth or goth-inspired characters, especially
Beetlejuice is a film [i] directed by Tim Burton [i], first released in the USA [i] on...
, which features Lydia, a goth teen,
Edward Scissorhands,
The Nightmare Before Christmas is a 1993 [i] stop motion [i] animated [i] ...
,
Sleepy Hollow and
Corpse Bride is a 2005 [i] Academy Award [i]-nominated stop-motion-animation [i] ...
. In turn, such movies drew new people into the gothic scene.
Anne Rice's book series "The Vampire Chronicles" and the popular
World of Darkness roleplaying games, especially
, also referred directly to gothic music and culture and encouraged an interest in the scene. Influences from
anime as well as
cyberpunk fiction such as
The Matrix, and
Shadowrun have found their way into the goth scene, which helped give rise to a new subculture and a new label,
Cyber subculture, or the Industrial/goth offshoot,
cybergoth; they also added to the popularity of
Industrial music.
Of note is the recent positive portrayal of a recurring goth character on the American television series NCIS.
Abby Sciuto played by
Pauley Perrette is uniquely goth, but works firmly on the side of the protagonists as a highly skilled forensic scientist.
Gothic ideology
Defining an ideology of the gothic subculture is difficult for several reasons. First is the overwhelming importance of
mood for those involved. This is, in part, inspired by
romanticism and neoromanticism. The allure for goths of dark, mysterious, and morbid imagery and mood lies in the same tradition. The rise of Romanticism's
gothic novel during the 19th century saw feelings of horror being commercially exploited as a form of mass entertainment, a process continued in the modern horror film. Balancing this emphasis on mood, the other central element of the subculture is a conscious sense of camp theatricality or self-dramatization.
The second impediment to defining a gothic ideology is goth's sometimes apolitical nature. While individual defiance of social norms was a very risky business in the nineteenth century, today it is far less socially radical. Thus, the significance of goth's subcultural rebellion is limited, and it draws on imagery at the heart of Western culture. Unlike the
hippie or
punk movements, the goth subculture has no pronounced political messages or cries for social activism. The subculture is marked by its emphasis on individualism, tolerance for diversity, a strong emphasis on creativity, tendency toward intellectualism, a dislike of social conservatism and a strong tendency towards cynicism, but even these ideas are not common to all goths. Goth ideology is based far more on
aesthetics than ethics or politics.
However, goths may have political leanings ranging from
left-liberal to
anarchist or
libertarian, but do not show them as part of a cultural identity. Instead, political affiliation is seen as a matter of personal conscience. Unlike punk, there are few clashes with political affiliation and being "goth".
For the individual goth, joining the subculture can be extremely valuable and personally fulfilling, especially in creative terms. However, it also can be risky, especially for the young, because of the negative attention it can attract. The value that young people find in the movement is evidenced by its continuing existence after other subcultures of the eighties such as the New Romantics have long since died out. Paul Hodkinson's book,
Goth: Identity, Style and Subculture, explores how the Western cult of individualism, usually expressed via consumerism, is drawn on by goths and other subcultural groups. Many who are drawn to the culture have already failed to conform to the norms of existing society, and for its participants the gothic subculture provides an important way of experiencing a sense of community and validation not found in the outside world. Hodkinson shows how inside the gothic subculture status can be gained via enthusiastic participation and creativity, in creating a band, DJ-ing, making clothes, designing, creating art, or writing a fanzine. He suggests that the self-conscious artificiality of a subculture is a valid alternative choice in a post-modern world, compared to submitting to the invisible manipulations of popular consumerism and the mass media.
Religious elements
Spiritual, supernatural, and religious imagery has frequently played an important part in gothic fashion, song lyrics, and visual art. Aesthetic elements of Catholicism especially play a major role in goth culture.
However, the goth subculture contains a great diversity of religious and
secularist beliefs. Many goths seek to free themselves from what they perceive as the limitations of traditional systems of religious belief, and express a belief in secularism, or
New Age approaches to spirituality. A large number of goths adhere to
atheism or agnosticism. An interest in
Wicca, Neopaganism,
spiritualism and the occult among goths appears to be greater than among the general population. However, many goths also follow
world religions such as
Christianity,
Judaism,
Islam,
Hinduism,
Taoism and
Buddhism.
Compare with punk ideology.Criticism and intolerance
Like many other alternative lifestyles and music-based subcultures, the goth subculture has faced its share of criticism and intolerance. Such intolerance ranges from looks of disgust to assaults.
The
Columbine High School massacre, which was carried out by two students inaccurately linked to the goth subculture because of their involvement with one member of the Trenchcoat Mafia and affinity for industrial rock. This misreporting of the roots of the massacre caused a widespread public backlash against the North American goth scene; however, investigators of the incident later denied that any such link between the killers and the goth subculture had in fact existed . Most goths don't have a preoccupation with death and the macabre but stereotypically this is synonymous with the culture, often without true foundation.
References
;Books
- Baddeley, Gavin: Goth Chic: A Connoisseur's Guide to Dark Culture
- Davenport-Hines, Richard: Gothic: Four Hundred Years of Excess, Horror, Evil and Ruin * Hodkinson, Paul: Goth: Identity, Style and Subculture 2002: Berg. ISBN 1-85973-600-9 ; ISBN 1-85973-605-X
- Kilpatrick, Nancy: The Goth Bible : A Compendium for the Darkly Inclined. 2004: St. Martin's Griffin. ISBN 0-312-30696-2
- Voltaire: What is Goth? — a humorous and easy-to-read view of the goth subculture
- Andrew C. Zinn: The Truth Behind The Eyes — Dark Poetry
;Notes
See also
Music
- Darkwave
- Ethereal Wave
- Gothic rock
- Post punk
- Deathrock
- Electro-Goth
- Gothic Metal
- Horror Punk
- List of Gothic rock bands
Film
- The Hunger is a 1983 R-rated horror film [i]. ...
- Gypsy 83 is a 2001 film by Todd Stephens [i]....
- Corpse Bride is a 2005 [i] Academy Award [i]-nominated stop-motion-animation [i] ...
- The Craft
- The Crow is a comic book [i] series created by James O'Barr [i]. ...
- The Rocky Horror Picture Show is a science fiction [i]-comedy [i]-horror [i] musical [i] ...
Literature
Fashion
History
External links
General websites
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- - international alternative music community and magazine
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- Club Bizarre: New Zealand resource site.
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- - a community run listing of Gothic fashion sites
- More gothic links
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- Many pictures about the Gothic subject, and other associated subjects.
- home of Drop Dead Festival and Magazine as well as Shows, Zine, Merch and other ghoulish stuff
- Charity run by goths "serving humanity from the underground"
- Non-commercial site by and for goth-fans.
- an essay that disputes Goth stereotypes
- Gothic - Dark Avant-garde Multimedia Project from Italy
Events
- — Worldwide Goth club directory that is sorted by region. Content is contributed by visitors and usually consists of club specifics such as location, music type, cover charge, drinks, dress code, directions and other miscellaneous club information
- Largest US Deathrock & Goth Festival
- Chicago's Online Gothic/Industrial/Spooky Resource since Halloween 1996
- UK based goth event listings
- Scotland UK goth event listings
- Concerts, festivals and weekly events in New York City
- Annual Goth festival in Leipzig, Germany
- AKA Bats Day in the Fun Park, Goth Day, Bats Day Out, Batsday
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Magazines and press
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- US Goth and Deathrock Magazine
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- * : The Goth Culture: Its history, stereotypes, religious connections, etc.
- A History of the Infamous NYC Goth Club.
- Gothic lifestyle, beauty, and fashion magazine.
- An article on benefits of the Goth subculture.
- : Goth/Deathrock/Punk/Psychobilly music, culture, and fashion E-zine.
- : Printed Gothic / Punk magazine covering the midwest scene.
- : Gothic Literature before 1950
