Illustrious Icons of the Goth Subculture

Throughout modern history there have been certain characters that personify the very essence of Goth, for instance Theda Bara 1885-1995, Italian heiress Marchesa Luisa Casati 1881-1957, Carolyn Jones 1930-1983 who played Mortica Addams in the 1960s TV series The Addams Family, to more recent iconic Goths like Helena Bonham Carter and maverick dresser Daphne Guinness, who have helped inspire the movement, to create their own persona and sense of the gothic style. Punks and Goths have coexisted for decades and continue to be, distinct social movements built upon different music, films and fashion characteristics. The Goth subculture has survived much longer than others from the same era, for instance Mods, Skinheads, Hippies and Rockers. Dick

Hebdige argues that 'the punk subculture, then, signified chaos at every level, but this was only possible because the style itself was so thoroughly ordered". In this essay we will be analyzing the Goth subculture from the 1980s and 1990s in England, drawing attention to its stylistic characteristics, the issue of 'thoroughly ordered' and the reasons for its existence in the first place.

In the early days of the movement in the 1980s and 1990s Goth fashion draws heavily upon the early fetish, S&M and bondage style from subcultures like the Punks and New Romantics, however the Goth clothing is mostly in the colours black, burgundy, blood red or purple. Traditional Goths standard fashion characteristics include satin bodices, corset belts, lace skirts, black fishnets tights, post punk gothic rock band t-shirts, bell sleeved blouses, either self made or found in a second hand shops. The whole outfit often completed with black leather thigh high boots or stilettos, black leather jacket and costume jewellery with religious iconography and occult themes for example jeweled crucifixes and rosary beads (Roberts, Livingstone and Baxter-Wright, 2014: pp.179-180). Both men and women in the Goth subculture tend to use makeup such as pale white foundation to wipe any trace of colour from the face giving the appearance of death. The use of black or very dark crimson red lipstick, dark eye shadow and black eyeliner intensify the sunken deathly dramatic look. Lead vocalist from the rock band The Cult, Ian Astbury in 1997 describes the early fashion characteristics for the beginning of the Goth culture; “For the male ... black spiky hair and a black leather jacket. For the women ... black fishnets, black leather thigh high boots ... dark makeup and the big black spiky hair” (Scathe, 2016).

It could be argued that the fashion at the beginning of the movement was thoroughly ordered as there wore similar clothes and dark colours such as black, purple, blood red, and heavily influenced by the Punks and New Romantics although creating their own version of the aesthetics. However over time the Goth subculture branched out into various sub-genres around the world with their own inspirations and sense of the gothic style, for example Goth Punk, Fetish Goth, Cyber Goth, Neo Victorianism, Steampunk Goth and Gothic Lolita (Asphodel, 2015). The sub-genre Cyber Goth combines elements of cyber punk, Goth and rave fashion. The stylistic characteristics include neon reactive theme colours such as pink, blue red and green set against a basic black Goth outfit, fishnet tights, five inch black platform boots are compulsory. The look is often accessorized with bright jewellery, gas masks and industrial type aviator goggles (Roberts, Livingstone and Baxter-Wright, 2014: p.210).

Gothic music became an important part of the subculture that proliferated during the 1980s and 1990s and often deals with thought provoking topics, concentrating on religion, death and the issue of societal evils such as racism and war. Carl McCoy front man of the band The fields of Nephilim told Classic Rock magazine about how the word Goth came into the music scene; "When we started, the whole Goth tag did not exist. Goth meant architecture to me. The whole gothic rock thing stated in the late 1980s, but in fact it is the fans who are categorized as Goths" (Roberts, Livingstone and Baxter-Wright, 2014: p.160). The first music genre defined as a separate movement from the post punk scene was Gothic Rock, due to its darker music accompanied by haunting sounds, guitars with a more apocalyptic flair, drums, lyrics about death, religion and love. Bands in this genre included London After Midnight, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Christian Death, Bauhaus, Rosetta Stone, Joy Division and The Cure. Joy Division and Peter Murphy, former Bauhaus front man were two of the first bands described as being 'gothic', Peter Hook describes the characteristics of Joy Division; " Use of high bass lines, tackling melodic roles and, of course, Ian Curtis's stentorian/pseudo-operatic low voice"(Roberts, Livingstone and Baxter-Wright, 2014: p.149) and Bauhaus first single 'Bela Lugosi's Dead' released in August 1979 were to influence the future Goth bands and the Goth subculture in general. Some other Gothic songs within the beginning of the movement include "This Corrosion" by The Sisters of Mercy, "Release The Bats" by The Birthday Party, "Romeo’s Distress" by Christian Death, "Disintegration" by The Cure and "Atmosphere " by Joy Division (Media/Communications Group, 2016).

However, in 1961 Havergal Brian [1876-1972] from Stroke-on-Trent a classical music composer wrote the longest symphony ever composed called 'Symphony No.1 in D Minor' also known as 'The Gothic' (Roberts, Livingstone and Baxter-Wright, 2014:p.130) that addresses spirituality and humanity which could relate to the Gothic movement revelatory subtext manifesto "it is all futile, everything is pointless, death not love conquers all" (Roberts, Livingstone and Baxter-Wright, 2014:p.133). As the subculture grew contemporary Goths created various music genres within the movement for example Dark Ambient, Goth Neo-Classical, Goth Folk, Goth Industrial, Goth Metal, Dark Wave and Ethereal, have their own unique sound, characteristics and style. The subset Dark Ambient often consists of evolving dissonant harmonies of resonances and drones, low frequency rumbles, gongs, percussive rhythms and distorted voices. Gothic folk music stylistic characteristics can be solely acoustic folk music or accompanied with instrumental sounds such as pianos, strings or elements of industrial music (Whatisgoth.com, 2016).

Gothic authors such as Susan Hill's 1983 novel The Woman in Black, Mervyn Peake's 1970 fiction The Atrocity Exhibition and Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula, use macabre images, horrific monstrosities and supernatural forces as incarnations of abstract principles to question the importance and validity of science's fanatic obsession with rational orderly laws and their implications.

In 1987 The Daily Mail claimed Dracula as the classic of horror fiction " in seeking a parallel to this weird, powerful and ... story, our mind reverts to such tales as The Mysteries of Udolpho, Frankenstein and The Fall of the House of Usher - but Dracula is even more appalling in its gloomy fascination than any more of these"(Roberts, Livingstone and Baxter-Wright, 2014:p.73). The common film characteristics include vampires, ghosts, werewolves, bats, cobwebs, monsters, old dark houses, sublime castles, dungeons, graveyards and secret passages. The vampire embodies both life and death taking the life of others to sustain itself and in so doing living immortally, has been adopted by part of the Goth subculture as a cultural icon the Goth subculture is, metaphorically, if not actually, drawing power from others, with self-sustenance being the ultimate goal. Vampires in general have finessed their way from hideous ghouls however, such as Dracula and Nosferatu the Vampyre from 1979 however, in the 21st century there can become sensuous heartthrobs for example the Cullen's from the saga Twilight.

Horror film fans would say that the Goth film genre bravely faces issues such as death, mortality, mystery, cruelty, violence, insecurity, loneliness and guilt head on. Some gothic actors and actresses’ known to be related to this genre include Angelina Jolie, Christina Ricci, Helena Bonham Carter, Fairuza Balk, David Bowie and Johnny Depp. The interconnection between Goth and horror was to become the main focal point of the at the beginning of post punk films such as The Howling 1981, The Hunger a 1983 vampire film which continues to modern films we see today in the 21st Century for instance From Hell 2001 and The Woman in Black 2012 (Roberts, Livingstone and Baxter-Wright, 2014:pp.114-115). Tim Burton an American film director is well known in the Goth Subculture for his storybook film atmosphere filled with darkness and shadow, for example, from the 1980s and 1990s some of his films include Beetlejuice 1988, Batman 1989, Edward Scissorhands 1989 and Sleepy Hollow 1999 to modern horror films like Sweeney Todd The Demon Barber of Fleet Street 2007 film starring Jonny Depp (Roberts, Livingstone and Baxter-Wright, 2014:pp.118-120) who is well known in the Goth culture.

In The Subculture the Meaning of Style, Dick Hebdige uses the phrase 'thoroughly ordered' when describing the style of the punk subculture (Hebdige, 1979). However, recent readers and modern Goths would distribute Hebdige’s generalization as modern Goths are influenced by a variety of subcultures, fashion styles and use a variety of colours for example pink, blue, green, red, purple and black. The Goth subculture stylistic characteristics are as diversified as its adherents. There is a wide range of ages in the Goth subculture as not only teenagers linked with this subculture some people who were Goths at the beginning of the movement in the eighties and nineties are still Goth's to this day. The various Goth music sub genres within the movement is not thoroughly ordered as there all have different characteristics, bands and listeners within each subset for example the Gothic Rock was influenced by the surrealist movement and artists like David Bowie, whereas the Goth Folk genre is influenced by historical topics for example the 18th and 19th century and focusing on cultural, archaic and literature references. Mainstream society and horror fans that like gothic films such as Batman, Sweeney Todd The Demon Barber of Fleet Street and Twilight fans do not class themselves as being related to the Goth subculture. However all sub genres within the Goth movement are linked to the Goth manifesto "it is all futile, everything is pointless, death not love conquers all" and the defining characteristics which is to underline the issue of darkness. (Roberts, Livingstone and Baxter-Wright, 2014:p.133).

The Goth movement first emerged in England in the early 1980s and 1990s, (Smith, 2016) however some argue that the Goth subculture emerged around 1979 when Bauhaus considered one of the first gothic rock groups released the song "Bela Lugosi's Dead". The Batcave club located in London opened in July 1982 has had a major impact on transforming a small clique of city Goths into a larger international movement, which includes United States, South America, Canada, Japan and Europe (Christian Research Institute, 2016). The club itself was a parody of everything gothic for example the interior included plastic black bin bags stapled onto the walls, a coffin shaped sign above the entrance door and spider webs decorations glued across the ceiling and walls. There were three main strands of people who formed the Goth culture which were the Punks from the 70s, New Romantics from 1981 and post punk teenagers. However, not only these three strands of people have had an enormous influence and impact in developing the Goth subculture, bands such as Bauhaus, The Cure, Adam and the Ants, UK Decay, The Birthday Party, Joy Division and Killing Joke defined and embraced the gothic rock genre formed during the late 1970s and early 80s grown from the strong ties they had during the punk rock scene in the late 1970s and the emerging post punk gothic rock scenes.

In conclusion, when talking about the early days of the Goth subculture it could be debated that the stylistic characteristics was thoroughly ordered as although creating their own version of the Gothic style there wore similar clothing and colours such as black, blood red and purple. Modern Goths have created various subsets within the movement around the world which suggests that the Goth subculture nowadays is not thoroughly ordered, for example Goth Punk, Fetish Goth, Cyber Goth, Neo-Victorianism and Gothic Lolita which have their own social group, inspirations, beliefs, music and fashion characteristics. Goths are all so different there is no unifying stereotype or a standard dress code within the subculture as there can make their own version of the aesthetics. Not all Goths are depressed, wear black, listen to the same music, horror films or have the same modes of self-expression with others in the Goth subculture movement. It could be said Gothic punks like Siouxsie Sioux, Joy Division, Peter Murphy, Sid Vicious and bands from the eighties and nineties such as Siouxsie and the Banshees, Bauhaus, The Damned and Sisters of Mercy and The Cure have influenced the Modern Goth subculture fashion we see today in the 21st century.

Biblography
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(2016). The World According to Goth - Christian Research Institute. [online] Available at: http://www.equip.org/article/the-world-according-to-goth/ [Accessed 17 Apr. 2016].

Whatisgoth.com. (2016). Goth Music. [online] Available at: http://www.whatisgoth.com/pages/Goth-Music.html [Accessed 17 Apr. 2016].

Roberts, C., Livingstone, H. and Baxter-Wright, E. 2014. The Evolution of a dark subculture Gothic . 1st ed. London: Goodman, p.130.

Roberts, C., Livingstone, H. and Baxter-Wright, E. 2014. The Evolution of a dark subculture Gothic . 1st ed. London: Goodman, p.133.

Roberts, C., Livingstone, H. and Baxter-Wright, E. 2014. The Evolution of a dark subculture Gothic . 1st ed. London: Goodman, p.149.

Roberts, C., Livingstone, H. and Baxter-Wright, E. 2014. The Evolution of a dark subculture Gothic . 1st ed. London: Goodman, pp.179-180.

Roberts, C., Livingstone, H. and Baxter-Wright, E. 2014. The Evolution of a dark subculture Gothic . 1st ed. London: Goodman, p.160.

Roberts, C., Livingstone, H. and Baxter-Wright, E. 2014. The Evolution of a dark subculture Gothic . 1st ed. London: Goodman,

p.210.