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Punk, Porn and Resistance

Carnivalization and The Body in Popular Culture

Loyola University of Chicago, USA, Llang944{at}aol.com

Following work by Michel Foucault and Bryan Turner, the body has become an important topic for social inquiry. One major debate concerns the nature of social control vs agency. For Foucault, the gaze, surveillance, imposes disciplinary practices that inscribe identities upon docile bodies. Yet he also notes that domination fosters resistance. For others such as Turner or Shilling, the body can be seen as a site of agency and locus of empowerment. Late capitalism, in its globalized moment, has produced enormous wealth, but at the same time this wealth sustains hierarchies in which only a few benefit. Vast numbers of people remain alienated in their work and politically powerless to foster change. People find themselves entrapped in a disenchanted, rationalized world of rules and regulations. Finally, for many, the mass-mediated commodified culture is superficial and inauthentic. Given such conditions, we have seen the re-emergence of the carnival, which Bakhtin saw as legitimating a variety of forms of transgressions as critique and resistance. This can be seen in many ways: in the popularity of tattoos and piercings, in punk/metal music and lifestyles, and in `porn chic' as a fashion statement. Each form of adornment, fashion and lifestyle can be understood as a way of claiming agency to resist domination, invert disciplinary codes and experience `utopian moments'. Body adornments would valorize the `primitive' as a protest against economic inequality and repression of the body. Punk/metal music and fashions empower audiences and allow expressions of rage and protest. Finally, `porn chic' can be seen as a critique of patriarchal codes of morality and adornment in which the body becomes a basis of empowerment and authenticity. Notwithstanding, most such `transgressions' serve as `repressive desublimations' that shunt discontent from the political economy to the culture and incorporate potential dissidence.

Key Words: agency • body • carnival • piercings • porn chic • pornography • resistance • sexuality • tattoos

Current Sociology, Vol. 56, No. 4, 657-677 (2008)
DOI: 10.1177/0011392108090947


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