Gothic Stereotypes

According to the book Key Concepts in Communication and Cultural Studies, Attitude is an opinion, belief or value judgement that is based on experience or shared knowledge. (O’Sullivan, Hartley, Saunders, Montgomery, & Fiske, 1994) The study of attitudes is particularly important when assessing stereotypes, bias, prejudice, persuasion, and survey material. It is therefore important to discuss this concept together with stereotype. Stereotype, on the other hand is defined as the social classification of particular groups and people as often highly simplified and generalized signs, which implicitly or explicitly represent a set of values, judgements and assumptions concerning their behaviour, characteristics or history. (O’Sullivan, Hartley,

Saunders, Montgomery, & Fiske, 1994) In my opinion, these concepts are vital in relation to Japanese and Western Gothic Lolitas. As previously mentioned I have touched on the views of people about Gothic.

It is usually perceived as evil, bad or dark. In fact urban dictionary defines its use in relation to the macabre or other darker elements. The black clothing and accessories create an atmosphere of fear, unease and horror thus gothic is stereotyped as evil and dark. Whereas Japanese Gothic Lolitas just want self-expression by means of dressing up, it does not connote darkness or something evil. For them fashion is both individual and collective, it is a way of communicating their economic status and social class, personality, sexual preference, character, political position to others around them. (Gatlin, 2014)
Also Goth Lolitas try to remove the sexual undertones connected with Nabokov’s novel. According to Perry Hinton, author of the book Returning in a Different Fashion: Culture, Communication, and Changing Representations of Lolita in Japan and the West, the term Lolita comes from the famous fictional work by Nabokov (1958, first published in Paris in 1955), detailing the story of a middle-aged pedophile, Humbert Humbert (Hinton, 2013) hence just the mention of the name Lolita signifies some sort of whore that has a very negative perception. (Stavros, 2008)

The initial reaction to their style especially the lacy clothes denotes eroticism. One question raised is that “Is it impossible that women might occasionally spend a lot of time in their appearance without it being for anyone else’s benefit?” (Stavros, 2008) There is also stereotype between Asian and Western Lolitas. Some people believe that Western Lolitas are more aggressive compared to their Asian counterpart because of cultural differences. Western women are more outspoken thus they can be perceived as more open to sex while Japanese are demure and modest. Different age groups perceive these stereotypes differently. Kids tend to like them because they see them as princesses while older adult especially women also like the way Lolitas dress-up because they think it is fun and cute. (Stavros, 2008) On the other hand, teenagers and young adults who love mainstream fashion find them unattractive. (Stavros, 2008) Lolitas are also known for brand and expensive outfit so they are stereotyped as rich teens especially in Japan where parents usually support the kids. Some people think of Goth Lolis as activist because they don’t wear the mainstream fashion and others think of them as snob. These stereotypes often develop into generalization thus people think that all of the things being said about gothics and Lolitas are true. People will then start to believe it, then the process of generalization occurs towards this subculture without even meeting them. People will then start judging them based on shared knowledge thus developing attitude towards them.