Imaginary solutions

Posted on | October 23, 2006 | 6 Comments

By far my favourite quote from Resistance Through Rituals:

“Every mod was existing in a ghost world of gangsterism, luxurious clubs, and beautiful women even if reality only amounted to a draughty Parker anorak, a beaten up Vespa, and fish and chips out of a greasy bag.” (p 90)

- Dick Hebdige, ‘The Meaning of Mod’

Category: Reading

Comments

6 Responses to “Imaginary solutions”

  1. jean
    October 23rd, 2006 @ 9:57 pm

    yeah, nice. actually the bit of ‘classic’ subculture theory I like the most is the bit that talks about (sub)cultural practices being both the representation and symbolic (but not ‘real’) resolutions of tensions between the structural position (and temporal orientation, e.g. possible imagined futures) of the subculture and those of the ‘parent’ culture. That’s why the fish and chips are so noice in the quote.

  2. melgregg
    October 24th, 2006 @ 10:03 am

    Of course. Can you tell I’m working on the longer version of the blogging paper? :)

    The beauty of the quote is the way that it expresses the idea in such a poetic and approachable way. Hebdige is quite rare in that, I think: evidence that good theory doesn’t need to read like Theory.

  3. jean
    October 24th, 2006 @ 2:45 pm

    yeah, hebdige is a-ok by me too! Like you say, it’s cos of all the description, and I’m all about the description at the moment!

  4. jean
    October 24th, 2006 @ 2:46 pm

    PS what are our fish’n'chips? cheap beer at plastic tables in the beer garden of the staff club?

  5. Mark Bahnisch
    October 24th, 2006 @ 4:06 pm

    The not so glamorous Brisvegas mod scene of the mid 80s awaits its Hebdige!

  6. melgregg
    October 24th, 2006 @ 4:14 pm

    What I’d give for a beaten up Vespa anyway, what with Brisbane’s traffic chaos and my confinement to the ferry route running from one suburb of jacaranda lined streets to another. Middle class counter-cultural angst am I.

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