What is most immediately striking about "The Savage Girl" is how it reads like anime. Perhaps it's because of Chas' warped perfection, the goofy good-guy humour of Javier, or the outsider perspective of Ursula, or the near-Apocalyptic vision of the near future. These are recurring sorts of characters and themes in anime (of certain types anyway), culminating with Chas' bastard vision of the Lite Age. It makes a more interesting and moving story when the conflicts, personal and universal, are placed against the backdrop of the real life scheme of mass consumer culture.
Shakar extends the notions Hebdige formulated about style: individual expression (even in subcultures where there is an oppositionist ideology) is, in practice, a pattern of consumption of goods. These patterns were first explored in Bordieu's piece, but take on new meanings when applied to the choice of consumption beyond food and into nearly every facet of everyday life. In Chas' presentation of the Lite Age, he claims that only by acts of consumption do we remain free. If our only free choices are seen as what we buy, then those who are truly in control of our identities are those that sell us these objects. The revelation that Shakar brings us to, and Hebdige describes, is that we no longer need convincing that we need the objects. The question barely arises in our minds - it is simply that part of who we are is exemplified in what we buy, and the absence of that is the absence of self.
In this system, art aside, where is authenticity? It seems clear that, because of the appropriation of the Savage Girl's image, authenticity lies outside of the system of consumption, and it is the job of the industry to sell off that authenticity via decontexturalization of that authentic image, then mass reproduction. This model leads us to believe that the aura of the Savage Girl is what lures consumers to purchase the goods associated with the reproduction of her image, despite that the original is unknown to them. It's implicit that somehow consumers sense aura in reproduced items deriving from authenticity.
I can name one well-known example of this phenomenon, although the 'original' was well known - the grunge fashion in the early 90s. Had high fashion appropriated that image before Nirvana started selling platinum, would it have still been accepted for the bit of aura still left through the processes of decontexturalization and reproduction? Perhaps not in those days. What I propose, and I think Shakar may be implying, is that now we're trained to decode and adopt a processed form of authenticity to an unprecedented depth.
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5 comments:
As an anime fan, I definately agree on your idea that it reads like one. While reading the excerpts I actually envisioned it in my mind as one (it even made the reading more interesting).
I found these excerpts to relate a lot with Hebdige's article. It was probably easiest to relate them together because they both dealth with the fashion world. In parts of it, it seems to me that Chas hones in on Hebdige's idea of style as revolt and tries to turn it around and make it work for the marketing world in his idea of the Lite Age and "individualism through consumption".
You have some very interesting thoughts on your blog. Your argument about how it reads like an anime makes sense. Hebdige's article and concepts do relate to this story in a very significant way. I do feel that the "Savage Girl" terms, and how the terms are presented, are more understanding, and easily read.
I found it really interesting that the article clearly expresses the fact that everything can be turned into a comsumption of goods. For example we saw the ad for diet water, which really is quite shocking when you first read it in this article. If we all think about ourselves, what are we but a society that consumes and continues to produce to feed that consumption.
Your parallel to anime is incredibly well-seen.
I suppose it was foreshadowed by the excerpts we read, and I sense it was an over-arching trope of the entire novel, but I wondered whether or not the savage girl, as a character, was not a version of subculture easily reproducible on a mass consumer scale. I say this with "Architecture After Coutre" in mind, in which Varnelis distinguishes hippie aesthetic as a point of departure from high-fashion to street-fashion. The savage girl is not a hippie, per se, but aesthetic has its parallels.
My point being, it seems impossible that any sense of style, be it bohemian, cro-magnon, squatter chique, or just Wall Street fashion, cannot maintain its integrity when surrounded by fashion-spotters and material conglomerates nearly as large as the universe. Woe is us, dudes.
Danniel Schoonebeek
"If our only free choices are seen as what we buy, then those who are truly in control of our identities are those that sell us these objects."
Your statement has a lot of resonance, especially in this day and age where advertisers have Ph. Ds in Psychology. It goes to show that as some people get more knowledgeable about humanity most people are dumbing down.
We think that we have some sort of control over our lives because we get to choose what we buy, but in reality we are not choosing anything, it is already chosen for us.
What is most striking is that more and more people make the claim that they express themselves through what they wear, but in reality, the joke is on us folks, because we are not being unique, beautiful snowflakes, but blind sheep, who can't see the person sitting next to us in class is wearing the same shoes we are.
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