Saturday, July 22, 2017

FLAPPER QUEENS, BEATS, MODS, AND PUNK HEROINES



Part 1




War, crises, and economic recovery may pose challenges to established social norms and bring about groups that defy conventions and live by their own norms. These groups create what is generally called—albeit a much debated term—a counterculture. Throughout time, history has seen many countercultures. In this post I will discuss about past countercultures in the US and the UK, particularly the flappers, Beats, mods, hippies, and punks, and look at the contexts in which they emerged from and its influence on gender. This post is written in two parts. The first looks at the periods of flappers, Beats, and mods; the second looks at the era which gave rise to the hippie and punk countercultures.

The Flappers

The flapper culture in the US only survived for a brief period. Even with its lack of philosophical depth, flappers caused a major controversy during their time. From a moralist point of view, flappers were seen as women with loose morals and a sign of a collapsing middle-class morality. On the other hand, some see the flapper period as a sexual revolution—however brief—where urban middle-class women gained economic independence and turned against existing norms. On their own terms, these women lived the rebellious life that they desired.

A flapper posing after a drive (pinterest)


The late 1920s was when the flappers became well-known, but the term has been used since the early 1900s. The flappers were born out of the conditions brought about by the First World War. During the War, women were taken out of their homes to work in the frontline or to replace men in their jobs. This gave the justification for women to leave their homes, secure economic roles, and become independent. Even when women were geared back towards the home after the war, some women continued to work. It seemed that traditional moral values have been somewhat affected by the War and many young-single women in the cities began to lead independent lives rather than submitting to marriage. As a result of the War, there were more women than men. This fact greatly contributed to women’s decision to postpone marriage as there were not enough men available anyway. Moreover, the suffragist movement which had gained strength at the time, also contributed to the changing perception of women’s role.

Hence the flapper queens established themselves. Young and independent women, mostly single, determined, smart, and wild—rebelling against the conventional passive and chaste female image. These women can easily be identified by their short bobbed hair and shorter, loose dresses—they refused to be constrained in corsets. Flapper women benefited from this era of rapid progress in automation and electrical products, they drove their own cars, smoked, drank, loved coffee, and went café hopping and hanged out in speakeasies until the morning light. Flappers also enjoyed cultural pluralism. On their night outs they listened to jazz and danced the Charleston, cultures which have their roots in the African-American communities. Some perceived flapper women as simply hedonistic creatures, while some respect them for being well-informed in politics and the arts.

Flappers were considered promiscuous for their time because they did not fear scandalous relationships. It can be argued that flappers sparked a sexual revolution way before the term “sexual revolution” even existed. But even after causing intense public controversy, the flapper lifestyle—which extended to the arts, literature, and films—grabbed so much media attention that it became more and more ordinary and less unconventional. Nevertheless, the fall of the economy in the 1930s and the Great Depression turned all this freedom a few women had into a mere momentary sensation—they lost it as quickly as they gained it. The Depression ended the flapper culture and the following periods to come simply chose to forget much of the flappers’ earlier gains.

The Beats

Following the postwar economic boom and population expansion of the 1950s, newly married US middle-class couples were moving from the overcrowded city space into new housing areas in the suburbs. A new image of the happy white middle-class family emerged along with new efficient home appliances and weekend shopping activities. All this gave rise to a consumer culture and at the same time strengthened the male breadwinner and domestic wife gender role. In the face of postwar disillusionment, tradition and conformity became the norm. It was against this setting that the Beats counterculture movement was born.

Café Wha in New York, where the Beats used to meet (Pinterest)


The Beats were born during the Great Depression. Like flappers, the Beats (from the phrase beaten down) came out of a postwar generation which became critical of traditional morality. The Beats were from an academia and middle-class background, but instead of embracing the establishment, they went against it and rejected the materialistic and secure life that it offered them.

The Beats were revolutionary in the sense that they changed conventional ways of writing and expression. The Beats replaced the traditional structure of poetry with disjointed and free verses and literature with spontaneous and expressive language. They also had the fearlessness to confront taboo subjects, such as sexuality.

These changes also constituted changes in lifestyles and values. The Beats lived a Bohemian lifestyle in parts of the city, mainly in East Village, New York and later San Francisco. A nonmaterialistic world view, a nonconformist attitude, Eastern spirituality, jazz underground music, and experimentation with drugs were important elements of this lifestyle. Furthermore, they supported sexual freedom and homosexuality. Coffee houses became the regular places where the Beat founders have their intellectual discussions, poetry readings, and book discussions. 

As much as the Beats appear to offer a kind of sexual revolutionwomenhowever, were onlookers who were excluded from serious intellectual and artistic exchange; at best they were there to be available to the men. Nevertheless, it would be unfair to generalize. Yes, they were prominent female Beat figures, but it is commonly observed that women did not play a pivotal role in the Beats’ “boy’s club movement”. As confirmed in the memoir of one female Beat, Joyce Johnson, the Beat literary movement with its male founding members—Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and William S. Burroughs—had “a very masculine aesthetic.”

There is the view that women were not intentionally left out, but that there was a lack of female writers and poets at the time, especially good ones. Even if we were to buy this explanation, it must be noted that this was a period where women were expected to submit to the role of housewife and mother. This was the age of conformity. Women who simply could not conform were seen as having some kind of disturbance and were taken to mental institutions—electric shock being a common treatment. Thus, this condition laid the obstacles for women’s substantial participation and inclusion in the Beat movement. 

So, it is not surprising that women who had a high profile in Beat circles were those who had personal connections with their male peers/lovers and who held supportive roles. A number of these women, such as Hetti Jones and Diane Di Prima, organized the publication and distribution of the work of their male Beat partners. As established publishing houses were not interested in printing Beat work due to their lack of commercial value, the Beats had to develop ways and a DIY attitude to get their work out there.

Some Beat women, such as Jones and Johnson took on the role of breadwinner so that their Beat man can focus on his artistic career. So they sacrificed their own creative potential for the men in their lives. However, some did write in their own right, such as Di Prima, Joyce Johnson, and Joanne Kyger. 

Beat literary style was influential on the emerging pop culture of the late 1950s and 1960s, which was predominantly masculine. Bands like the Beatles as well as a number of 1960s folk-rock song writers such as Bob Dylan acknowledged the Beats’ influence on their music. With their influence expanding to pop culture, Beat hat, black leotard, and coffee house book reading became stereotypes which later were commercialized, exploited, and turned into a mere fad by the media through the phrase “Beatnik”. Ironically, the Beat became part of the mainstream culture they were against in the first place.

The Mods

Shortly after the Beats became the buzzword of the US, in the UK, a new urban youth culture called the mod (from the word modern, because these youths were into modern jazz) was grabbing media attention. The mods would cruise around the city on their scooters and hang out in coffee houses, listening to jazz and ska out of the juke box until the morning light. Some say mod came out as an influence of the Beatnik fad. But unlike the Beats, the mods started from working-class communities, who because of better economic conditions and job opportunities after the Second World War, were able to live a somewhat consumptive lifestyle of fashion and clubbing. 

We are the mods (Pinterest)


Like the Beatniks, the mods had a distinct taste for clothes, but they were very fashion conscious. While the Beats’ attire was more laid back, the mods who were influenced by French and Italian art films, wore tight suits and pointed shoes. Buying clothes was an important part of their lifestyle and they did this using most of their wage.

Women were quite visible in the mod culture. As working women, their economic independence allowed them to participate in the mod lifestyle. In fact, the mods altered gender roles—English men do not normally shop, but mod men do their own shopping. As with the flappers, independent mod women rode through the night; looking stylish on their scooters while wearing masculine leather jackets—sporting androgynous fashion. 

At a glance, the mod lifestyle may appear to have no political relevance. But it was a political statement in itself, a rebellion against the conventional postwar English life of hard work and conformity. 

The music scene of the early ‘60s also promoted the mod culture. Performers such as The Who, the Small Faces, and David Bowie sported the mod style (while female musicians were almost nonexistent). At this point, not surprisingly, top designers saw the potential of the mods as consumers. It did not take that long until the fashion industry exploited the mod fad. Model Twiggy’s tomboy posture represented the mod look and altered previous standards of beauty. While women became more independent beings, they were turned into objects of the industry. The mod became so commercialized that it became mainstream and lost its edge.

David Bowie during his mod days (Pinterest)


During the hippie generation, the mods became less visible, but mod fashion and music associated with mods experienced a series of revivals, especially in the ‘80s. Instead of being too fashion conscious, the mods of this era took a lot more interest in social and political issues.

From Nonconformity to Mainstream

Flappers, Beats, and mods started as a form of resistance against conformity. Their discontent with postwar values affected how they saw traditional morality. Economic prosperity instigated a new sense of freedom and need for a new moral code and lifestyle; however, this resistance soon lost to mainstream co-optation.

The flapper culture altered norms on sexuality and gender. Flapper image and style became so widespread and influenced films, fashion, and art that amidst all the controversy surrounding the flapper trend, it grew mainstream and lost its meaning. This appears to be similar to what the other countercultures experienced. 

The Beat image through the beatnik fad ended up becoming a commodity for middle-class consumption—everything the Beats stood against. Despite its nonconformist stance, the Beats lack interest in fundamentally challenging the gender norm of their time. Patriarchal features which excludes most women and treats female peers as object of desire remained a part of the Beat movement. 

On the other hand, women were more visible in the mod youth culture. But the mod style was soon co-opted by the media and fashion industry and became part of popular culture—losing its working-class essence and the significant role women had. It later intertwined with other cultures, such as the hippie counterculture, which I will discuss in the second part of this post.


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