What was the obsession with aligning and portraying themselves as an “outcast of society” (ST, “Possessed to Skate”, 1986) in the music video representation of Suicidal Tendencies? There was a certain socio-political environment that provided the impetus for skateboarding and punk to converge in the early 1980s. Grossberg theorises about wanting to escape postmodern contemporary America, to him it’s a place that reeks of “boredom, cynicism, demoralization, a lack of passion and affect, and, most important, political inactivity” (Graebner, 1993, p1173).
One must look to the preceding two decades to ascertain what had created the spirit of alternative rebellion and the dissatisfaction in postmodern contemporary America that manifested in skate punk subculture. America’s moral compass was challenged to the core with the 1960s social movements and De Curtis (1999, p2) uses the description coined by Tom Wolfe in his essay, “The ‘Me’ Decade and the Third Great Awakening” (1976) to refer to how people felt hope in their quest for personal enlightenment and perhaps an overly optimistic attitude to peace, love and equality. The “me decade” of the seventies was very much influenced by popular culture and music that had inspired so many. DeCurtis ascribes the death of John Lennon in New York in 1981 as a huge turning point in the ethical direction of society. “Lennon’s death struck at the very souls of a generation and made idealism seem senseless, even dangerous” (1999, p2). This understanding is intriguing as the power of music and medial representation had indeed made the Beatles massively influential demi-gods of modern society, so what hope did the future now hold? …Apparently Reaganism.
As explained by DeCurtis, the need for enlightenment and self discovery was now replaced in the 1980s by an insatiable desire for a craving for pleasure through the acquirement of money and possessions. “..things that could be counted, measured, and used and that, for those reasons, provided the illusion of certainty – filled the vacuum in the 1980s. That so many people that wept and lit candles to mourn John Lennon’s death eventually fell into the step with the unforgiveable individualism of the Age of Reagan…” (1999, pp2-3) The “me decade” had been replaced with “pinched privatism, the smug selfishness, the glib pragmatism, the grim status consciousness, the greed masking as taste, the brutal superficiality of the 1980s…the sober workaholics of the ‘gimme decade’” (DeCurtis, 1999, p2).
Why were Suicidal Tendencies rebelling against Reagan’s white middle class society of Southern California? The impact of Reagonomics, the Neoliberal philosophies espoused by the 40th President of the US (1981-1989) generated much dissatisfaction from the minorities of the country, including those that were a part of subcultures such as skate punk. As the previous Governor of California and former Hollywood movie star, the people of Southern California in particular had been subject to his personality, policy and governing methods for some time. His policies of neoliberal capitalism which included deregulation, privitisation, and trade liberalism were devastating, causing a huge loss of jobs from deindustrialization were further compounded by budget cuts for social services such as education and welfare which increased class and racial polarization, destroyed inner cities, created epidemic homelessness, increased exploitation of workers and a spatial concentration of a permanently unemployed class. (Parenti, 1999, p44)
Other conservative elements that thrived under this traditionalist agenda were the pro-life movement, conservative academics such as Allan Bloom and various fundamentalist Christian groups. (Grossberg and Nelson, 1988, p124) Furthermore, technology had disrupted the social arrangements fashioned in the 1950s during the transition to a high tech service and sales economy, America was becoming deindustrialised and detaching individuals from the traditional authority of work, community and family (Lipsitz, 1999, pp324-325). The individualistic ethic of upward mobility encouraged a concomitant sense of isolation and fragmentation which was further perpetuated by post suburbia.
Countercultures have always occurred in society, but the prominence of the 1960s counterculture movement had meant that suddenly, alternative ideologies were in fact widespread and influential throughout wider society in ways that had never been seen before. The 1960s had shaken up young people’s sense of class, sex, and racial divisions, and these divisions remained. Frith’s work in regards to youth culture contributed to the understanding of youth as an ideological concept, a counterculture that disrupted the hegemony of mainstream western society and the society of their parents. (See Frith,
1983 pp189-201) Frith’s explanation was endorsed through the observation of American sociologists who discovered and questioned why deviant middle class children were rebelling against their parents. When Frith compares 1960s youth with that of 1920s youth, it is evident just how much youth subcultures were changing society, strongly witnessed through the 1960s counterculture movement. Youth were becoming strongly political, they were restless and frustrated and their experiences marked a generational consciousness.
Young people in the 1960s had experiences (of war and politics) that intensified the conflict between public and private obligations, between freedom and responsibility, and it was these problems that rock more than any other form of expression, addressed and made plain. (Frith, 1981, p194) The problem with youth subcultures in the 1970s was that they became more focused on issues of youth leisure rather than youth politics. Who was now going to buy the records and why? How was music going to inform and challenge the youth now? Frith’s expose on ‘The Case of Punk’ (1981, pp158- 164) articulates how punk music made meaning when it burst upon the music scene in 1977. As seen in the liner notes of Suicidal Tendencies albums, it was their intent as musicians to “continue on their journey to wake the dead!” (ST, 13, 2013). They, amongst other punk acts became a voice in youth politics. Skate punk aligned themselves with the minority, speaking out regarding the marginalised “non-conformist” groups that they felt they were a part of.
Suicidal Tendencies’ Mike Muir explained that their music was about the problems of young individuals that are fighting problems and issues regarding fitting in, making decisions and not being able to relate to the society that they lived in (Fo, 1987, p67). This was especially evident in the music video “Institutionalized”, where Mike was frustrated and angry about the institutionalisation of youths that were anti-traditionalist, did not conform to societal expectations, and who seemed to be acting in “excess and exaggeration”, ie. behaviour that was not restrained as discussed in Gelder’s subcultural analysis (2007, piii). The disparity between skate punk bands like Suicidal Tendencies and the conservative establishment that they fought against got worse with the creation of the Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC) which was formed in 1985 and ran by Tipper Gore, wife of Albert Gore Jnr, the Democratic senator from Tennessee (DeCurtis, 1992, p6). This movement meant an increase in censorship in music, to warn “naïve” parents of the debauched and potentially threatening lyrical content found in popular music. Suicidal Tendencies were attacked by the PMRC and later in the decade by the American Family Association for obscene and immoral lyrical content (Donahue, 1990).
Muir appeared on Donahue’s “Indecency and Obscenity” (1990) episode where he was interviewed on his thoughts regarding the censorship of music. He expressed how the Secret Service visited his house because of the lyrical content of the ST song “I Shot the Devil” (1983). He explains that there are different interpretations within the definition of law and morality and he can fight for what he believes in (Donahue – Obscenity and Indecency 9.10min http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXkzWkx- TUs). This self belief aligned itself with notions of authenticity and Giddens’ reflexive self. As the Donahue show displayed, the artists (including Mike Muir) that were represented as being controversial were demanding their right to free speech and the freedom of artistic expression, hoping that these ideologies would become influential and prevalent within the society in which they lived (Donahue, 1990). The opposition towards these artists and the censorship of bands and their music during that period signified the conservative nature of the sociopolitical society in which they lived.
The band name Suicidal Tendencies is controversial, also raising the ire of conservative elements in Southern Californian society. However, Muir explains that the name Suicidal Tendencies came about from the perspective of taking risks, being crazy, having fun and a passion for life, explaining that “Suicidal” is just a term. “A lot of times you think you can’t do something and the reason you can’t do it is because you haven’t tried…That also goes right along with skateboarding, with the tricks…Do you think I can do it? And friends would say, “Yeah, go for it man, suicidal. Go, go!” It’s just giving it the extra shot, trying to do something, but not in the sense of actually killing yourself.” (Fo, 1987, p57). The meaning behind Suicidal is a feeling and a belief, as the lyrics to “Suicidal Maniac” (1987) express, “A birth that came from more than sound that rages on from town to town, the giant grows more every day, now the maniac is here to stay.” The lyrics, “rages from town to town” displays their intentions of proliferating their political thought and ideology throughout their city, America and indeed the world. This threatened conservative elements in society; the band name, plus the perceived aggressiveness of their fans who slam danced and caused apparent violence outside of gig venues, meant that ST were not granted a permit to play in the Los Angeles greater area all through the 1980s (MTV Headbangers Ball, 1990).
Conservatism permeated through life in the 1980s, including the media. “Institutionalized” was released as a music video in 1984 during a period in which there was a contentious dichotomy playing out, mostly perpetuated by the media of the division of punk teenagers versus parents, exemplified in the KABC-TV News Special Report called “We destroy the family: Punks versus Parents” aired in 1982. (See We Destroy the Family: Punks vs Parents for further insight into the medial representation of teenage punks relationship to their parents in the early 1980s. This was a documentary aired on LA’s KABC channel in 1982 and received widespread attention. The entire documentary can be seen on You Tube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zW1SGnB9TiQ). Media interpellation over a period of time had informed the American public that punk and skateboarding were both rebellious and risk taking activities.
The music video “Possessed to Skate” parodied some of the elements that were displayed in the News Special. For example, the Winnebago parked out the front of the suburban house is exactly the same as the parent’s that were interviewed in the KABC-TV News Special. The dichotomy of the white middle-class suburban parents versus the punk teenagers. The metaphor of the devil smoking out of the skateboard pokes fun at the perceived overreaction by the parents in regards to punk music, skateboarding and it’s associated lifestyle, which seems to be considered by the conservative parents as the work of the devil! The imagery of the skateboard smashing the television in both of the music videos signifies the way in which the representation of subcultures such as punk by the mainstream media was an issue of great frustration for those who affiliated with these alternative subcultures. “Television has been attacking us all our lives, now we can attack it back” (Elwes, 2005, p5) was the quote from Korean artist Nam June Paik.
From the symbolic imagery of smashing TV screens that appeared on the video, this was obviously a view shared by the skate punks. As Gelder expressed in his six ways subculture can be understood: skate punk refused “the banalities of ordinary life” (2007, piii), Muir and his music were rebelling against the domination of thought by conservative society and also the labelling and negative stereotyping of youth by the mainstream media.
REFERENCES
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Frith, S (1981) Sound Effects: youth, leisure and the politics of rock n roll,
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[This is an excerpt from my Bachelor of Arts (Sociology) Honours Thesis, submitted to the University of Wollongong Arts Faculty in 2013. I am publishing excerpts from this thesis in multiple posts. The thesis aimed to explore the youth subculture of skate punk, how its expression perpetuated authenticity through the aesthetic form of the music video, and how this was reflexive of society at a deeper social level].
[copyright 2023]