First Person Singular:

Individualism and Punk Art

Daniel Novak
Dept. of History of Art and Architecture
For: Prof. Laurie Monahan
Winter 2005 to Spring 2006

1
Harmful to Minors

In 1986, the LAPD raided the home of Jello Biafra, lead singer of the Punk

band The Dead Kennedys 1. The County of Los Angeles charged the band with dis-

tribution of obscene materials to minors. According to the County, the charges

stemmed from the inclusion of H.R. Giger's Landscape #20: Where Are We Coming

From (Penis Landscape) in the liner notes of the band's 1985 album Frankenchrist.

Why did Biafra (who produced and marketed the album) choose such a

disturbing image for his album jacket? The answer involves Giger's painting it-

self. Though not directly related to the Punk movement, Landscape #20 shares

certain visual qualities with Punk art. Consider the piece’s ability to upset some

viewers with its graphic depictions of sex. The work’s composition requires that

the viewer discern each coupled penis and vagina from an endlessly repeating

pattern. The painting confronts the viewer with its repetition of sexual imagery.

This forces the viewer to somehow reconcile themselves with a painting that

might offend them viscerally. This negative, gut reaction on the part of the

viewer is, in fact, shock. This desire to shock and offend the viewer has a long-

standing tradition in the Punk movement and explains Biafra’s inclusion of the

painting in the album art. Biafra asserted that “…shock is a way of ungluing the

insides of people’s heads,” 2 and, at this point in American history, Punks felt that

everyone’s head needed a bit of ungluing.

1
Band names (with the exception of individuals such as Elvis and Country Joe) in this essay appear in ital-
ics to avoid confusion.
2
Belsito, Peter and Bob Davis. Hardcore California: A History of Punk and New Wave. New York:
Last Gasp. 1983. 93.
2
More Than Shock

While shock played a significant role in the ideology and symbolic repre-

sentation of the Punk movement, it does not explain all of Punk’s appeal. Shock

merely served as a method of transmission for Punk’s larger goal: the reassertion

of the value of the individual within American society. Punk culture, unlike its

contemporary subcultures and countercultures, did not reject core American

values. On the contrary, the Punk movement attempted to revitalize the asser-

tive individualism that Americans have historically celebrated. By contesting

power, emphasizing individual importance, and fostering individual thought,

Punks re-explored individualism as a social value.

The Punk movement attempted to redefine the role of the individual in

society by actively responding to perceived failings and successes in other cul-

tural movements. These responses are most obvious in the relationships be-

tween the visual culture of the Punk movement and the visual culture of three

subcultural precursors. Reactions against these movements, both subtle and

overt, shaped the direction of Punk music and art. Thus, we will gain a better

understanding of Punk’s subcultural values by examining the Punk reaction to

the Rock and Roll Establishment, the Hippie movement, and the Yuppies as ex-

pressed through their visual arts,.

These three cultural entities served as foils for the movement. Each pos-

sesses a trait or trajectory that Punks found lacking and attempted to rectify.

3
First, Punk artists developed a photographic aesthetic that emphasized the close

interactions of performer and audience. This came as a response to the parity be-

tween the gulfs that separated the government and the governed and rock and

roll bands and their fans. Second, as memory of the Hippie movement faded in

the late 1970s, Punks began to question the communal attitudes of the move-

ment, finally opting for a more individual-centered culture. This break is evident

in the poster art of the respective movements. Third, young Punks found them-

selves at odds with what they saw as the conformity of the product of post-

World War II capitalism: Yuppies and Jocks. Punks set themselves in opposition

to these groups, characterizing them as conformist and brainless. Punks chose to

foster individual opinions and thought among the members of the movement.

Evidence of this practice appears in the diverse and idiosyncratic graphic repre-

sentations of bands on their posters. These three qualities, as demonstrated by

Punk graphic arts, represent a shift towards a type of individualism that Punks

found missing in their own time.

Why Individualism?

This paper will also use the concept of individualism in a slightly different

context. Rather than simply representing the degree of conformity to group

mores, the Punk strain of individualism is an existential state. This state of being

involves two key components. First, existential individualism provided Punks

with a way to declare their personhood. This property appears to arise from his-

4
torical circumstances. As Walter Capps, a congressman and professor of reli-

gious studies at UC Santa Barbara, notes:

In the aftermath [of the Vietnam War], with ideological assurances up for
grabs what Robert Lifton calls “the crisis in authority and mentorship” be-
came monumental. No one could be quite certain of being able to find the
“real America” until a certain segment of the populace, later called the
New Right, produced “I have found it” bumper stickers more than a dec-
ade later…It was in military terms, and with evangelical zeal, that the re-
discovered patriotism was expressed. 3

Most Punks grew up in the extended ideological conflict instigated by the Viet-

nam War in the 1960s. By the time they came of age in the mid- and late-1970s,

the Hippie counterculture had fallen away. This left the many young and unsa-

tisfied Americans with a desire to change their lives and their country, but with

no organized method of rebellion. Thus, the Punk strain of individualism arose

around a musical style that promoted aggressive self-assertion and self-

expression. Punk individualism thus gave Punks a frame for their rebellion and

a way to act it out.

Punks created a ‘scene’ (a social sphere) with common mores and accept-

able modes of behavior that existed outside of mainstream American culture.

This scene, despite outward appearances of uniformity, actually displays Punk

individualism’s second quality: the effect of human agency. Individuals, despite

their group affiliations, will work to impose their own desires on their world, of-

ten in accordance with an ethical code. The Punk belief in social change and the

importance of unity within the Punk movement come from this belief in an indi-

3
Walter H. Capps. The Unfinished War: Vietnam and the American Conscience. Boston: Beacon Press,
1990. 53
5
vidual’s ability to reshape the world. Thus, Punk represents an individual’s as-

sertion of existence as a rebel and the individual’s concerted desire to change the

world.

So, what is Punk? – The History and Sociological Definition

“I always thought a punk was someone who took it up the ass.”

-William S. Burroughs

“[Punk is an idea…] And what is this idea? Think for yourself, be yourself, don’t just
take what society gives you, create your own rules, live your own life.” 4 – Mark Ander-
son, Positive Force.

What kind of time could have produced such a complicated movement?

Different sources use different models to explain Punk as a phenomenon. None,

however, have properly analyzed Punk’s ideological reactions to previous social

phenomenon. How did the rich and uneasy environment of social protest and

crushing conformity in the decade up to 1975 produce this unique movement?

Dick Hebdige’s Subcultures: The Meaning of Style grapples with this ques-

tion by looking at the synthesis of stylistic elements that occurred in London’s

Punk scene. The book traces English Punk’s evolution in the diverse streets of

London in the mid-1970s. There, Hebdige observed working-class British youths

adopting attitudes, clothing, and music from different ethnic groups and creating

a new subculture that stood in opposition to the larger British culture. One of

the earliest scholarly texts to deal with Punk, the book dissects the symbolic inte-

2
O’Hara, Craig. The Philosophy of Punk: More Than Noise! San Francisco: AK Press, 1999. Mark Ander-
son, Positive Force handout, 1985. Quoted on 36.
6
raction of Punk as it relates to other subcultural movements. It also addresses

Punk style, an idea that remains problematic. Hebdige notes that

Much of the available space in the book will therefore be taken up with a
description of the process whereby objects are made to mean and mean
again as ‘style’ in subculture. 5

Hebdige does an excellent job of tracing the origins of the look of Lon-

don’s Punk subculture, but the look itself does not reveal everything. Though

style represents an important part of Punk subculture, it does not necessarily

render all of the meaning contained within Punk. Style, as a concept, is at the

whim of the market. People buy and sell it, mold it and package it. While the

study yields an excellent analysis of the symbolic choices that individuals made

within the British Punk subculture, the study of style cannot move beyond a de-

gree of superficiality, as well as time and location specificity.

Sociologists such as Curry Malott and Milagros Peña have moved in a dif-

ferent direction. Their book Punk Rockers’ Revolution: A Pedagogy of Race, Class,

and Gender posits that Punk reflects a deeper social drive. The study characteriz-

es Punk as an early post-modern counterculture based on dissensus instead of

consensus. They sum up their central model for describing Punk as follows:

…through dissensus punk rock created and continues to create a space for
social discourse excluded by society’s expectations in giving in to consen-
sus and conformity. 6

Malott and Peña then create a matrix for gauging the degree of sexism, homo-

phobia, racism, and class conflict in Punk lyrics. The study’s most intriguing ideas

5
Hebdige, Dick. Subculture: The Meaning of Style. London: Methuen & Co. Ltd. 1979. 3
6
Malott, Curry and Milagros Peña. Punk Rockers’ Revolution: A Pedagogy of Race, Class, and Gender.
New York: Peter Lang Publishing. 2004. 35.
7
also become its faults. Classifying Punk as a separate space for social discourse

removes it from its cultural context. If Punk exists as a ‘social place’ apart from

the “consensus and conformity” of the larger culture, then it cannot directly en-

gage the larger culture or even other subcultures. While the idea fits many of

Punk’s qualities excellently, it fails to explain the movement for the opposite rea-

son of Hebdige’s study. If Subcultures’s ‘style’ is time- and place- specific, then

Punk Rockers’ Revolution’s ‘cultural space’ removes Punk from any cultural con-

text.

Craig O’Hara’s The Philosophy of Punk: More Than Noise takes a third ap-

proach to Punk. O’Hara, like Malott, spent many years participating in the Punk

scene. He wrote the text as response to the changes he observed in the Punk life-

style in the late 1980s. Like Hebdige, O’Hara treats Punk as a living culture

based on opposition to the mainstream culture. Unlike Hebdige, however,

O’Hara maintains an interest in a ‘perfect type’ description of the Punk social or-

der. That is, O’Hara recognizes that Punk appeals to many people with varying

attitudes and ideals, yet he still attempts to describe the larger cultural ideas and

concerns that spawn these attitudes. The result has little nuance, but provides

bird’s eye view of Punk that allows the reader to begin to understand the worm’s

eye view.

This paper relies more on Hebdige and O’Hara’s methods more than

those of Malott and Peña. Hebdige’s study of the symbolic meaning of Punk

style provides a method for understanding the symbolic meaning of art.

8
O’Hara’s work allows us to examine the beliefs that drive Punk art. Malott and

Peña’s more Marxist text removes the cultural context from their study to such a

great degree that it loses its ability to describe the individual’s role in the move-

ment. After all, individuals (not movements) produce art based on their ideas

and emotions.

In the interest of making this paper’s scope manageable, I have drawn

most of the examples from the West Coast part of the Punk movement. Though

the individualistic qualities present in these examples appear throughout Punk,

West Coast bands tended to produce large bodies of coherent work. The Dead

Kennedys and Black Flag, for example, produced five and six major albums and

many volumes of spoken word from 1978 to 1985. These albums outline the

bands’ political and social philosophy as well as their thoughts on American so-

ciety. This differs significantly from the histories of East Coast and English

Punk, where bands often maintained shorter careers and spoke less seriously

about their socio-political leanings. West Coast Punk’s social concern and vocal

anger carry over into the photography and graphic arts that accompanied the

music. These arts demonstrate a painful rebirth of individualism that did not oc-

cur in elsewhere. Through the examination of these arts we will gain a better

understanding of the context and the origin of West Coast Punk’s place in Amer-

ica’s subcultural history.

9
No Authority: The Punk Scene and the American Music Establishment

Punk’s history as both a musical, visual, and social phenomenon really

begins with the rise of Rock and Roll in the 1950s and 1960s. Two decades before

The Ramones appeared on stage, Elvis Presley, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and

others helped to establish Rock and Roll as a profitable youth-centered industry.

These musicians merged African-American musical styles (such as R&B) with

country and folk rock to create new sounds and a new musical identity. Young

people across America consumed this music with fervor, despite the stigma at-

tached to it. As historian David Farber points out, “Rock ‘n’ Roll, to a degree,

broke down the wall that monitors of conventional morality had raised between

what they considered acceptable and unacceptable forms of music.” 7

Farber also describes the emergence of a ‘youth culture’ during the 1960s

that had not existed in the previous generation. The baby-boom generation, he

asserts, had greater access to money, cars, and entertainment than any generation

before. Also, the delay in entering the work force (caused by the completion of

high school and increased college attendance) allowed young Americans more

leisure time among people their own age. High schools and universities bred a

new age cohort that partied together, listened to the same music, watched the

same television shows, and saw the same movies. This cohort also did not expe-

rience the Great Depression, and so knew only affluence. This affluence, howev-

er, had a dark and unfulfilling side that young people began to question.

7
Farber, David. The Age of Great Dreams: America in the 1960s. (New York: Hill and Wang, 1994.)
10
 The youth culture of the 1960s adopted Rock and Roll as a mode of ex-

pressing its concerns about the direction of American culture. The Hippie

movement, for example, idolized performers such as Jimi Hendrix, Jefferson Air-

plane, and The Doors for their rejection of cultural norms in favor of greater artis-

tic and experiential goals 8.

Some of these performers even used their music to confront social issues.

For example, The Mothers of Invention, on their album Freak Out!, sang about so-

cial inequality in LA during the Watts riots:

And it’s the same across the nation

Black and white discrimination
Yell and you can understand me
And all that other crap they hand me
In the papers and T.V.
And all that mass stupidity
That seems to grow more everyday
This time of year some asshole say
He wants to go and do you in
Cause the color of your skin
Just don’t appeal to him 9

In addition to decrying the ubiquity of racism in the country, the song’s lyrics

show a profound distrust of the media and its perceived falsities. The album also

makes itself clear with an urgent (if ironic and comedic) reminder: “This is the

voice of your conscience, baby… Suzy Creamcheese, honey, what’s got into

you?” Though much of the album relies on irony and humor, it also raises some

important questions about the priorities of the young and the old in America.

8
One should also note that these performers became millionaires in the process of creating music.
9
Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention. Freak Out! Rykodisc. Copyright Frank Zappa, 1966.
11
 Musicians such as Country Joe and the Fish used more aggressive language

to demonstrate this divide. According to these bands, the ‘old’ (such as Presi-

dent Lyndon Johnson) had lost touch with America’s core values and promoted

only self-interest. A severe cynicism developed in Rock and Roll after years of

governmental promises that the United States only sought to protect nations

such as South Vietnam from Communist threats. Country Joe and the Fish ex-

pressed it best in their I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-to-Die Rag. The song, sung at Woods-

tock in 1969, attributes the War to military ambition (“Well, c’mon generals…”),

business interests (“Well, c’mon Wall Street), and jingoism (“Well, c’mon moth-

ers…”). Their lyrics aggressively and directly confront the issue of the Vietnam

War’s purpose. Rock and Roll fully adopted the drive for social change that gal-

vanized young people all over the country.

Yet, by the late 1970s, many music fans felt the drive towards social revolt

that existed within Rock and Roll had disappeared. The perceived spirit of rebel-

lion and the passion of Rock and Roll gave way to excess and commercialization.

Rock and Roll icons became saleable commodities, and the LA clubs that once

housed concerts gave way to massive stadium shows. At these shows bands

stood on stages far from their fans. That physical distance demonstrated the dis-

connection of the fan and the band.

Punk bands in the 1970s challenged this distance. The differences be-

tween bands and fans became a subject of debate in the following decade. Mark

12
Perry, who published an early, influential fanzine called Sniffin’ Glue, expressed

distaste for the elite Rock ‘n’ Roll star:

…I’d always had this feeling that there was a gap between us, the fans,
and them, the bands, that you couldn’t cross. It was like a special club
that had The Beatles and the Stones as founders, and the only way to be-
come a member was to sit for years alone in your bedroom learning how
to play guitar. People in bands seemed somehow special, in so much as I
thought of myself as ordinary. 10

One might think it unusual that a rebel counterculture such as Rock and

Roll could come to seem establishmentarian. However, Punks recognized the

enormous influence of power and money in the music industry and the divisions

caused by these elements. For Punks, all traces of mainstream Rock and Roll’s

rebel attitudes had disappeared. The Beatles, much maligned by parents as a bad

influence after their debut, became part of a larger cultural establishment that

represented a lack of concern for the individual. The broad business interests

that controlled the music industry came to represent the same types of interests

that controlled the government. In a few short years, powerful Rock bands had

transformed into a subject of the same type of scorn that young people heaped

on the US government.

In the late 1970s, Punks began to see the breaks between fan and band,

government and governed, as artificial divides between those with power and

those without. Thus, at the same moment that Punks rejected the authority of

record labels and bands, they began to reject the authority of the government. In

California, Punks began to express their desire to reduce the role of authority

10
Mark Perry. Sniffin’ Glue: The Essential Punk Accessory. London: Sanctuary Publishing, 2000. 11
The quote refers to a period around 1974.
13
figures in the political arena. In 1979, Jello Biafra of The Dead Kennedys publicly

expressed this disaffection with the American government. In October of that

year, Biafra announced his candidacy for mayor of San Francisco.

Biafra’s platform involved such issues as requiring that police be elected

to office, legalized squatting, and using vagrants to collect money to replace the

funds lost through the state’s Proposition 13.11 These promises, although ton-

gue-in-cheek, represent a direct challenge to the same types of artificial authority

found in popular Rock and Roll concerts and the government. Biafra collected

6,591 votes during the election, taking enough votes away from the two front-

runners to cause a run-off in November. This impressive turnout (for an inde-

pendent candidate) proved that many citizens during this period felt removed

from the American power structure.

This feeling of alienation and suspicion of the powerful (be they musician

or politician) permeates the Punk movement’s value system. Punks developed

an intense desire to have their voices heard by the government, a force that

seemed both remote and unreachable (as with Richard Nixon and Ronald Regan)

and oppressively close (as with the police) as well as by their fans. Punk, espe-

cially in West Coast cities such as San Francisco and Los Angeles, demanded a

return to the recognition of the power of the individual.

11
Belsito and Davis, 194. California voters approved Proposition 13 in 1978. The proposition capped and
reduced property taxes in the state. This caused an enormous budget shortfall in all cities and counties that
relied on the property taxes from land that appreciates in value (such as housing, corporate offices, and
shopping centers).
14
 Some members of the movement even subscribed to anarchy as a social

doctrine, hoping that such a system would increase the level of equality in the

country. Anarchy, as a social system that lacks a central power, challenges the

rights of powerful institutions to supersede the will and thought of the individu-

al. Many Punks, like Jello Biafra, sought to reform Rock and Roll, society, and

government. In order to realize these reforms within their subculture, Punks

promoted the direct access of the individual to the band at their shows as well as

in their photography.

Guerilla Camera Work: Capturing the Shows

Punk photography demonstrates this desire to break down the distances

between an elect (of sorts) and the rest of society. Some Punk bands encouraged

their audiences to start their own bands so that fans could express themselves

and enlarge the scene. This desire also appears prominently in the capturing of

band-audience interactions via photography. Photography operates as an ideal

medium for understanding the interactions between Punks and Punk bands be-

cause the photograph forces the photographer to include only the essential in-

formation about those spontaneous interactions. As W.J.T Mitchell points out,

“Photographs, similarly, seem necessarily incomplete in their imposition of a

frame that can never include everything that was there to be, as we say, ‘tak-

en.’” 12 However, photographers such as Ed Colver utilize photographs to focus

the kinds of information transmitted by their photographs. Their photos de-

12
W.J.T. Mitchell. Picture Theory. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994. 289
15
scribe a social sphere where the crowd asserts its existence in a bodily manner to

the musicians.

The change in band-audience interaction serves as a controllable, micro-

cosmic version of the changes that Punks wanted to see in all of American socie-

ty. Bands experimented with the dissolution of power structures during their

shows by allowing their crowds to approach them, touch them, and even fight

with them. For example, Henry Rollins, the lead singer of the band Black Flag in

the 1980s, became famous for jumping off the stage and fighting with fans during

concerts. The other members of the band continued playing the song and Rollins

would return to the stage, often covered in blood to continue singing. These

kinds of interactions appeared as a result of the lack of proximity to the estab-

lishment. Few bands, celebrities, or government officials allowed their crowds to

come so close during this period, especially those with mainstream popularity.

In this brief survey of rock and roll concert photography, the differences fostered

by the decreased power distance in the Punk subculture will become clear.

First, consider the qualities of rock and roll photography before Punk. In

traditional rock and roll concerts, the relationship between the audience and the

performer is simple. The band entertains the crowd, and, in turn, the crowd

showers the band with affection and praise (or, conversely, with taunts and

boos). While the crowd creates the demand for the show, it maintains a relative-

ly passive role during the performance itself.

16
 This passivity made photographing traditional performers such as The

Beatles or Elvis relatively simple: a photographer simply had to show up, take

pictures of the performer in action, and select the most exciting ones for publica-

tion. The photographer did not have to consider the audience, as audiences were

interchangeable and notable only for the amount of noise they produced and

their animation. For example, most people recall televised images of girls

screaming and reaching out to touch the Beatles during their famous 1964 appear-

ance on the Ed Sullivan Show. The show seems less exciting when one examines

the still photographs taken by the press photographers during the broadcast.

Nearly all of the famous images from the show capture The Beatles frontally or

from slightly below. While the television cameras and many of the photographs

lead the viewer to believe that the band was addressing an audience that stands

somewhere in front of them, this formal quality actually comes from a the physi-

cal relationships of the photographers and the musicians. The television studio

only allowed press photographers and producers onto the ground floor of the

stage. All of the photographers at the Ed Sullivan Show stood in front of the band,

unobstructed by crowds. What space, then, did the fans occupy? As Figure 1

demonstrates, the theater’s crowd was situated on a second floor balcony, well

out of reach of the band.

Television, through its magic, has convinced most viewers that The Beatles

actually had some sort of relationship to the crowd at the famous show. The still

photographs tell a completely different story about the relationship between the

17
band and the audience. The connection seems quite staid compared to the highly

physical relationships of future bands and crowds.

This, of course, does not mean that musicians never interacted with their

audiences. In one famous photo, Elvis reaches from the stage to touch the hands

of the audience members in the front row (Fig. 2). 13 However, the image shows

Elvis reaching down from above, like some sort of benevolent visitor from the

heavens. To further emphasize this idea, the photographer burned the edges

around Elvis’s dark clothes to increase his contrast with the sky. This creates a

halo effect around Elvis. Thus, despite the fact that Elvis actually interacts with

his audience, the photographer has separated him from the crowd through a

photographic process.

Between the roots of Rock and Roll and Punk lies a period now known as

“Classic Rock 14.” This era, now remembered for its extravagance and largesse,

saw a change in the kinds of venues played by Rock and Roll bands. Mega-

bands such as Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, and KISS played primarily stadium

shows. The stadium, as a venue, increases the physical distances between bands

and their fans to an absurd degree. Stadiums typically hold between 30,000 and

100,000 people, and bands usually play on raised platforms in the center, re-

moved from the audience itself. Thus, the physical arrangement and the size of

the audiences precluded any meaningful interaction with or reaction to the band.

13
Photo taken from the Graceland Archives.
14
“Classic Rock” is primarily a commercial term used by radio stations to identify a period that predates
contemporary Pop Rock. Unfortunately, the dates for “Classic Rock” change from station to station. For
the purposes of this paper, the term will refer to the period from 1965 to 1975.
18
 The physical separation of band and fan during this period manifests itself

clearly in the photos of Classic Rock mega-bands. The Photographers who shot

concerts for bands the band Led Zeppelin often took the pictures from the au-

dience’s perspective. Robert Plant and Jimmy Page (the band’s singer and the

guitarist) (Figs. 3 and 4) were often photographed from below, removed several

feet from the audience. These images portray the musicians as something greater

than the norm, elevating them to the level of idol. Here, Jimmy Page appears

backlit in blue with his hair covering his eyes and obscuring his face. The photo-

grapher has also waited for Page to complete the stroke of his guitar, indicating

an ease or mastery of his instrument. In the other image, the photographer

shows Robert Plant, frontlit on a red background, in an intense moment of a

song. As he belts out the song, Plant makes a gesture of effort and force, demon-

strating his passion for the music and a kind of internal power. Though the for-

mal properties of these portraits seem quite different, they come from a similar

source.

The Classic Rock era shows a distinct interest in the differences between

and amongst the characters of the musicians. As David Shumway, a cultural

critic point out in his essay Rock and Roll as Cultural Practice:

Rock performers are never merely musicians. They are to a greater or

lesser extent also actors playing characters they have invented. Rock au-
diences do not come to appreciate nor merely to listen to the music per-
formed; they come to participate in an event to establish some kind of re-
lationship with those characters.15

15
DeCurtis, Anthony, ed., David Shumway. Present Tense: Rock & Roll and Culture. Durham: Duke Uni-
versity Press, 1992. 123.
19
This relationship, however, did not manifest itself physically. Shumway de-

scribes a Rock show as a time when audiences “sing along, shout, whistle, stomp,

and clap regarding it as much their right to be heard as the performers.” 16 The

musicians, though, retained their station, removed physically from the audience

and elevated beyond their reach,

In the mid-1970s and 1980s, the Punk movement destroyed this hands-off

relationship between the audience and the performer. Tricia Henry, a scholar

who studies Punk, offers this description of a Punk show:

…performers were known to include in their performances behavior such

as vomiting on stage, spitting at the audience, and displaying wounds that
were the result of self-mutilation…The audience’s role often included
throwing ‘permanently’ affixed seating, beer bottles, glasses, and anything
else that made itself available at the performers. 17

These complete changes in the relationship between bands and their crowds

point to a decreasing power distance.

The Dead Kennedys, who would eventually dominate the Punk scene, en-

couraged the involvement of the audience in their shows. Belsito and Davis re-

call that “In the early days, Jello [Biafra, the lead singer] would spice up the act

by letting the crowd shred his clothing, leaving him naked in their midst.” 18 Bia-

fra regularly put himself in harm’s way to engage the audience and demonstrate

their importance, and photographer Ed Colver captured everything on film.

16
Ibid. 15.
17
Tricia Henry, Break All Rules! Punk Rock and the Making of a Style. (Ann Arbor, Michigan: UMI Re-
search Press, 1989.), 4.
18
Belsito and Davis, 89.
20
 Ed Colver (who covered the LA Punk scene) took a great interest in Bia-

fra’s interactions with the audience. Colver’s images have a spontaneous and

chaotic composition that come directly from the audience’s desire for closer, less

formal interactions with the bands. Unlike photographing government officials

or rock-stars, photographing a Dead Kennedy’s show did not require press passes,

or any meaningful security clearance. 19 One simply needed a camera and a fan-

zine that would buy the images. The movement’s reduced power distances

created an aesthetic of spontaneity, where photos capturing the energy produced

by the interactions of bands and fans signified more, and held greater value, than

formal excellence.

Two of Colver’s photographs specifically demonstrate the importance of

the band-audience interactions in Punk culture. In one photograph, Colver

stands on the stage as the crowd returns Biafra after a bout of crowd surfing (Fig.

5). Biafra looks drained by his experiences in the crowd, but the audience seems

energized by the singer’s presence. At another show, Colver records Biafra’s

reactions as the audience claws at him from the edge of the stage (Fig. 6). Several

audience members have jumped onto the stage in an effort to start crowd surf-

ing, and a security guard throws another off the stage. Biafra, either feigning

fear or actually scared, crawls away from the audience as they pull at his legs.

19
A photographer for a Santa Barbara, CA newspaper recently once described the process of photographing
Christina Aguilera to a photographic history class at UC Santa Barbara. His contract stipulated that he
could take pictures only during even numbered songs, from the third row. Older bands, such as U2, re-
quired that he stand further back, so as to obscure the signs of aging. Needless to say, no Punk band in the
1970s or 1980s would enforce such stipulations.
21
 The crowd itself takes on a central role in the photos. The accessibility of

the band to the audience changed the whole dynamic of the community. Both of

Colver’s photos draw attention to the wildness of the crowd, pictured as a con-

fused sea of people pushing one another around. The audience seems close to

riot in both pictures, spurred on by the band’s performance and Jello’s stage di-

ving. This excitement comes from the prospect of connecting to their heroes, a

feat impossible with presidents, movie stars, and traditional rock bands. Punk

crowds craved this physical and mental connection to the band. It allowed

Punks to feel connected to the larger movement through access to the Punks with

the most power.

By blurring the distinctions between fans and bands, Punks created a so-

ciety responsive to the general population of Punks. Unlike the US government,

the Punk subculture did not keep secrets, or keep officials out of the public

sphere. Instead, Punks such as Jello Biafra forged close relationships with other

Punks, creating small, tightly knit communities. These relationships filled the

void caused by the post-World War II American government’s lack of accessibili-

ty and attention. They resembled the lower power distance societies of early,

pre-Cold War America: a time, Punks may have perceived, when the govern-

ment and the primary culture taught the powerful to work for and with the less

powerful.

22
The Mantra is “Disharmony”: The Punk Scene and the Hippie movement

Hey, people now,

Smile on your brother.
Let me see you get together,
Love one another right now.
-Jefferson Airplane, Let’s Get Together

Gimme, gimme, gimme

I need some more
Gimme, gimme, gimme
Don't ask what for
-Black Flag, Gimme, Gimme, Gimme

At the same time that the Punk subculture blurred the distinctions be-

tween the fan and the band, Punks began to position themselves in terms of their

countercultural predecessors. The Hippie movement, above all, became the

Punk foil. Punks did not associate the Hippies with the Days of Rage, the civil

rights riots, or the violence associated with the radical anti-war groups. Rather,

they thought of Hippies as an agent of societal transformation that turned away

from individual importance and towards communal attitudes. As Todd Gitlin

remarks,

The other utopia that swooped into popular music at the same time was
that of the hippie as a communard: the ideal of a social bond that could
bring all hurt, yearning souls into sweet collectivity, beyond the realm of
scarcity and the resulting pettiness and aggression.20Punks believed that
these values gravitated to the communal and the harmonious, the oppo-
site of the aggressive and individual-centric qualities that are often asso-
ciated with America. The Hippie community emphasized togetherness,
cooperation, and nurturing.

Punks developed a special hatred for what they perceived as a series of impotent,

ineffectual values, and so reacted violently against this sense of communality

and the stagnation they associated with it.

20
Gitlin, 203
23
 For example, in Penelope Spheeris’ famous documentary The Decline of

Western Civilization, one young Punk rants about his dislike for Hippies. When

asked why he hates them, the young man replied that Hippies only did drugs.

They wanted to change the world, but they never accomplished anything at all.

This perception, more than any reality, affected the individualistic values of the

Punk movement. Punks asserted that the Hippie’s movement’s inability to effect

change came from the stagnation caused by conformity and communality.

Punks did not hate drugs, world peace, or the ideas associated with the Hippies.

Rather they hated what they precieved as the movement’s homogenizing effects.

Thus, the individual’s concrete goals, desires, and identity became more

important to Punks than any abstract desire for harmony and peace. Thus,

Punks considered ego-centrism and ego-fulfillment a type of virtue. Punks va-

lued their selves and self-identity more than the communal values that they be-

lieved the Hippies espoused.

Punk graphic arts offer visual proof of this emphasis on ego-centric val-

ues, especially when compared to Hippie graphic arts. In Punk graphics, the art-

ists used collage to combine different individual elements into a larger whole.

These elements, however, never fit together perfectly and always maintain a de-

gree of autonomy within the larger image. This method of combining materials

embodies the beliefs and self-perception of the Punk community as a whole.

Punk collage, as embodied by posters employed by the Dead Kennedys, demon-

strates the movement’s perception of itself as a patchwork of individuals who

24
coalesce into a meaningful social unit. From this belief in the fundamentally in-

dividualistic nature of community, Punk graphic arts emphasize the aggressive,

the bold, and the disharmonious.

Ill in the Head: The Disharmony of Punk Graphics

The taste for disharmonious graphics that differentiates Punk and Hippie

art stems from the two movements’ differing views about the nature of commu-

nity. The Punk movement understood itself as a collection of individuals who

sought to assert their individualism despite their involvement in the Punk

movement. This contrasts with Hippie culture’s sense of obligation to one

another and to the rest of the world, as demonstrated by their desire to end the

Vietnam War and promote worldwide peace.

In summarizing the Hippie view of America’s future, Country Joe Mac-

Donald once sang, “Gonna tell ya ‘bout some new times a-comin’/’bout all us

Americans sittin’ ‘round lovin’/one another, playin’ games, workin’/and singin’

together." 21 In the same song, Country Joe calls on all Americans to aim towards

a future of harmony, love, and acceptance. Though he identifies pitfalls and

dangers, the song possesses an optimism about the ability of all people to live

together. This desire for harmony is thus expressed formally in Hippie art but

remains conspicuously absent Punk art.

Hippie art, in general, relies on the formal idea of planar contrasts.

That is, the visual interest in the movement’s graphic arts comes from the con-

21
Country Joe and the Fish, Talking Non-Violence. 1967.
25
trasting elements arranged over a single, continuous frame. For example, the

cover of the seventh issue of Oz magazine 22 features a large drawing of Bob Dy-

lan (Fig. 7). Dylan’s face appears in the center of the frame, covered in a splash

of yellow. Inside the right circular frame of his glasses appears the phrase “Blo-

win’ in the Mind.” The artist has filled the left frame of his glasses with repeat-

ing black and white circles. Even Dylan’s face, streaked with yellow lines, is

covered with dots that continue the larger pattern. Circles echo the circled-

square shape of his glasses, but also repeat across the entire frame. The circles

unite the frame into a larger whole, contrasting with one another, but never

creating any jarring changes in pattern. Although some appear closer to the fo-

reground than others, the circles never suggest a hierarchy or an inequality.

They simply suggest an ample depth and space that all circles equally inhabit.

They also hint at a larger pattern that continues off the page and into infinity.

The seamlessness of the work (as well as the relationships of the circles in

this particular work) reflects the desire for unity and harmony within the Hippie

culture. The desire for a unified world, where no individual dominates or dis-

rupts the field, exists both as the organizing principle and underlying message of

much of Hippie art. Thus, no individual part of the work disrupts the plane’s

harmony.

This even visual flow over a single frame often appears as the guiding de-

sign principle in psychedelic posters and artworks. Artists such as Wes Wilson,

22
Found via the internet. The issue apparently dates from October 1967.
26
who produced posters for The Grateful Dead in the 1960s and 1970s, composed

their images to avoid conflict between the textual, figural, and psychedelic ele-

ments. In a poster from 1967, Wilson has warped the text to create the frame’s

contours. He then composed the figures within the contours so that they would

appear to flow together. Some of the figures’ lines, such as the three faces on the

bottom right, require lines from the rest of the poster to make sense. The poster‘s

overall composition implies a wholeness caused by the summation of the parts.

This relates to the idea, as identified by Country Joe, Bob Dylan, and countless

others, that human strength comes from unity and an obligation to every other

person.

Punk art, however, uses a different organizational scheme. Punk graphic

arts rely heavily on collage as a means of formal organization, and collage by its

nature negates the smooth-lined integration that appears in planar art. The crea-

tion of art through the integration of disparate objects implies a completely dif-

ferent method of envisioning the poster. Whereas Wilson’s posters imply an in-

terest in how lines integrate smoothly with one another, posters for Punk bands

use collage to show their interest in how uneasy and fractured the picture plane

can appear.

For example, a poster from a Dead Kennedys/Avengers/Sudden Fun/Young

Adults concert uses collaged elements to create a ruthlessly absurd image (Fig. 8).

In the image, a skeleton (possibly a reference to fellow San Francisco natives The

Grateful Dead) with comically long arms and lungs still intact stands in front of a

27
dehorned rhinoceros.23 The artist has pieced the band names together from vari-

ous sources (in different sizes and fonts), referencing the intentional confusion of

ransom notes. The textures of the black and white images overlap and imply dif-

ference, as in the juxtaposition of the bones and the rhino’s flesh. Every contrast

within the image sets the viewer’s teeth on edge, refusing to allow the viewer a

moment of comfort.

This unsettling conglomeration of images seeks to remind the viewer that

the graphic plane is composed of many parts that the artist has joined together.

Every individual element within the plane takes on an importance and asserts its

difference even as it conforms to a larger whole. The graphic plane itself comes

to represent the fractured social fabric, the friction, and the disharmony that

Punks embraced in their shows, interactions, and music.

Much of this disharmony created by the work comes from the competition

of individual elements within the image. The artist has arranged the text, for ex-

ample, to conflict with the image in several places. The words “Dead” and

“Kennedys” (taken from three separate sources) block out the neck portion of the

rhinoceros. Unlike the more balanced interactions of the circles in Blowin’ in the

Mind, the text and the rhinoceros vie for viewer’s focus. This comes from a deli-

berate tension created by the artist through the arrangement of the elements. De-

spite their presence and juxtaposition on the same page, the elements assembled

23
One should not that The Dead Kennedys
28
by the artist never appear to belong together. Rather, they act like the Punk ex-

perience itself.

At first glance, Punks look like a unified group of people, perhaps like the

Hippies in their counter-cultural ways. After close examination, however, one

recognizes the individual nature of each Punk. As with the elements assembled

for the collage, the similarities between each Punk underscore the differences.

Thus, major differences in Punk art and Hippie art stem from different

understandings of the relationship of the individual to the group. The Hippie

creation of harmonious images comes from the movement’s emphasis on the uni-

ty of humanity. Conversely, the Punk movement’s obsession with disharmony

comes from the movement’s complicated understanding of the individual’s place

as a free entity within a group. Each individual retains their own style (within a

culture-specific set of parameters), their freedom to associate with different

groups within the Punk scene, and their ability to directly engage other groups

and individuals within the subculture. This contrasts in degree and importance

with the qualities espoused by many leaders, artists, and musicians within the

Hippie movement. As such, the formal qualities of the graphic arts of the two

movements adhered to two different modes of representation: plane and collage.

Though they both fall under the label of “counterculture,” the two cul-

tures attempted to create two different visions of the future. The Hippie move-

ment envisioned a future where all people joined together into a seamless socie-

ty, whereas the Punk movement saw a future full of individuals bound together

29
by common purpose and simultaneously embraced the idea of inter- and intra-

cultural conflict. Punks felt that a coalescence of individuals need not lead to

harmony, and that individual elements must still emerge from a larger pattern.

30
 Be Who You Are: Jocks and Punk Art

Ever since I can remember, the fight to maintain individuality has been the driving force
of my existence…High School was a major lesson in social retardation. The only escape
from that banality was music and art. - Dez Cadena, original lead singer of Black Flag 24

Jocks verses Punks

Make your whole life revolve around sports/Walk tough-don't act too smart
Be a mean machine/Then we'll let you get ahead…
Pep rally in the holy temple/And you're forced to go
Masturbate en masse/With the favored religious cult
Cheerleaders yell-"Ra Ra Team"/From the locker room parades the prime beef
-Jock-o-Rama, The Dead Kennedys

While the Jock culture of the 1970s and 1980s did not leave behind a cohe-

rent body of visual art, we can infer its impression on Punk culture from the mu-

sic and writings from the time. In fact, the idea of this idealized, ‘all-American’

culture as an enemy owes much to the Punk perspective. Whereas Punks re-

garded themselves as individuals who came together of their own free will to

create a new cultural movement, Punk culture portrays Jocks culture in the op-

posite light.

Most accounts of Jocks (usually in song lyrics) portray them as highly con-

formist, sports-playing dullards. In their song Jock-o-Rama, The Dead Kennedys

describe a culture of coerced support for the school and the system of conformity

that the school represents. Jocks, they say, represent a dampening of individual

spirit and agency. In essence, Jock culture aimed to produce more Jocks who

24
Brian Ray Turcotte and Christopher T. Miller. Fucked Up + Photocopied: Instant Art of the Punk Rock
Movement. Hong Kong: Kill Your Idols, 2002. 90. Cadena sang for Black Flag from 1980 to 1983.
31
could further support the system in an endless and (to Punks) inane-seeming

system.

Books such as Fast Times at Ridgemont High 25 by Cameron Crowe also

paint Jocks (and would-be Jocks) as completely self-involved and unconcerned

with the outside world. For example, this youth-oriented culture based its social

hierarchies on employment by fast food restaurants. Brad, a main character, los-

es his social status when he loses his job at a Carl’s Jr. and becomes a social out-

cast. Many popular Jock characters spend their hours planning school events,

spirit days, and attending Associated Student Body meetings. While all social

hierarchies are a bit arbitrary, Punks refused to allow the institution to determine

their worth. In a strange irony, LA Punks responded to this not by changing the

system but by reacting against it. If Jocks wear immaculate clothes, Punks must

then wear torn clothes; if Jocks avoid piercing, Punks must pierce their noses,

ears, and eyebrows.

This opposition and reaction led Punks to feel ‘otherized’ by Jock culture,

and to a degree they were justified in this feeling. Bret Easton Ellis’ book Less

Than Zero, for example, tells the story of a disaffected Jock named Clay who re-

turns from the East Coast to LA for winter vacation. Much of the book paints a

bleak picture of the drug abuse and the lack of direction that many Jocks, now

out of high school, feel without the social structure and hierarchy imposed by the

school system.

25
Crowe, Cameron. Fast Times at Ridgemont High. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1981.
32
 The book also depicts the LA Punk subculture of the mid-1980s as a popu-

lation that existed outside of the rich and pathetic world of the Jock. A minor

character, Spit, shows the ‘otherness’ of Punks as perceived by Jocks. Spit, a to-

ken Punk invited to all the Jock parties because of his connection to the band

Fear, never connects with the Jocks. In one scene, the narrator gives us his first

impression of Spit: “…and Spit has really pale skin…and short greasy hair and a

skull earring and dark circles under his eyes…” 26 This description of the charac-

ter shows that the narrator’s first thoughts turn to the Punk’s the obvious differ-

ences in appearance. By virtue of his style, Spit consciously places himself out-

side the Jock world. Though the cycle is self-inflicted, Punks never the less felt

otherized by the Jock world.

Fig. 9 27 illustrates the Punk view of the Jock culture. According to the

poster, Jock men wear iZod shirts and boat shoes, and Jock women wear too

much makeup and jewelry. The fact that Punks could identify these elements as

a type of uniform indicates that the clothing symbolically represented affluence

to other Jocks. This method of communicating with one’s in-group and out-

group through clothing often occurs in collectivist cultures. Punks attempted to

distance themselves from what they perceived as a stifling of individual agency.

Punks thus attempted to create a subculture that promoted individual expression

and individual involvement.

26
Ellis, Bret Easton. Less Than Zero. Toronto: Penguin Books, 1985. 79
27
Apparantly a poster for a band called Justified Hate, produced in 1980.
33
 Of course, most students who played sports during that time were not

drug abusers, failures, or mindless conformists as Ellis and The Dead Kennedys

suggest. However, this ‘reality’ has little to do with the way Punks perceived

Jocks. Whatever the accuracy of the Punk accounts of Jock life, the idea of the

Jock (much more than the actuality) influenced Punk culture and art. Many

Punks remembered, above all else, the boredom and unhappiness of their high

school years clearly, especially as they related to more popular in-groups.

Brian Brannon, of the Arizona group JFA, recalls that his high school’s en-

tire football team stood in line to beat him up for wearing a shirt that said

‘JOCKS SUCK.’ “By third period, they had gathered in roving packs which I ca-

sually avoided contact with….The ruckus finally subsided when the shirt was

ripped completely off my back.” 28 This kind of antagonism and social stratifica-

tion left its mark on the Punk visual arts. One can trace the intense desire to ex-

press the individuality of a band through graphic arts directly to the impact of

Jock culture on the young Punks. This section will examine the reactionary indi-

vidualism that manifested itself in Punk graphic arts.

It Feels Good To Say What I Want: Punk and the Creation of Individuals

It wasn’t something we did on weekends, we had an agenda. Everyone’s was dif-

ferent, and no one knew quite what it was. We were all trying to ride the same
wild horse at once. – Jello Biafra 29

During the 1970s and 1980s, Punks saw the primary American culture as

an engine of conformity. Pressed to dress and act a certain way, but compelled

28
Turcotte and Miller, 149.
29
Turcotte and Miller, 9.
34
to adopt their own styles, Punks took their subculture underground. As Nathan

Gates, a member of the band The Big Boys, points out,

The only time Punk was even mentioned in the media was Mike Wallace
commenting sardonically on some footage of pasty, nail headed British
Punks sneering, dripping blood from the huge safety pin through their
cheek and spitting out teeth. 30

In an era without internet or cellular communications, the Punk scene communi-

cated largely through a highly-stylized graphic medium: the Punk poster.

Punk posters obviously contained important information about the show

(such as the date, time, location, etc.), but even more, Punks used these posters to

communicate the attitude of the band. Each individual poster became a unique

expression of the band’s criticism of politics, religion, and society. This ability

and desire to express a private opinion comes from a profoundly individualistic

streak in Punk culture. A collectivist culture, such as Jock culture, would insist

on determining an individual’s opinion for them. Punks refused to allow group-

decisions, opting instead for self-determined expression.

Punk posters thus featured many different themes, each designed to at-

tract a different type of audience with different tastes and opinions. Bands such

as The Misfits, The Necros, and The Mad had a penchant for featuring skulls and

morbid scenes on their posters. The posters reflected the type of lyrical content

or image that the band wanted to portray. This attracted a particular segment of

the movement that leaned towards more violent, energetic music. Smaller bands

such as San Francisco’s Regan Youth and Special Forces contracted a company

30
Turcotte and Miller, 160.
35
called D.M.R Productions to create hand-drawn posters that put the bands’ per-

sonalities on display. These posters appealed to Punks who liked do-it-yourself

bands that played for “a love of the music scene.” 31 For these fans, poorly drawn

and photocopied posters symbolized a freedom from the glossy New-Wave and

Disco posters that adorned venues.

Many Punk bands, however, used their posters to inspire critical thought

in their fans. Raymond Pettibon, for example, did much of the graphic work for

Black Flag during the late 1970s and early 1980s. His flyers not only communi-

cated the necessary information about the coming show, they also served as the

band’s only means of advertisement. In an interview, members of Black Flag re-

call frantically driving down empty Californian and Midwestern streets, stapling

their posters to telephone poles. The band used Pettibon’s distinctive posters to

announce the band’s arrival in town and energize the local fans. Every fan knew

what a Black Flag poster looked like, and that a new one signified a coming show.

This recognizability came from Pettibon’s distinctive visual style. One

might place Pettibon’s style within the modern “graphic novel” genre. However,

Kristina McKenna, an art critic who specializes in Pettibon’s work, offers another

description of Pettibon’s style: “grisly adult cartoons.” 32 Pettibon combined pur-

posely crude, pen-drawn comic book imagery with startling text. On many occa-

sions, Pettibon appropriated the images directly from the comic books of his

youth and inserted text that would recontextualize the image. This juxtaposition

31
Carol Cross, journalist, quoted in Turcotte and Miller, 45.
32
Claude Bessy, Ed Colver, et al. Forming: The Early Days of LA Punk. New York: Smart Art Press,
1999. 36
36
forces the viewer to confront the meaning of the work, the viewer’s relationship

to the implicit and explicit messages embedded in the work, and the band’s rela-

tionship to that meaning. The carefully chosen images require the viewer to per-

sonally interpret the meaning of each poster and hold an opinion on the meaning

of its content.

Each of these provocative comics attempts to challenge the viewer’s un-

derstanding of the poster’s subject by creating an ambiguous juxtaposition of text

and image. This challenge, and the growth of critical opinion that it inspires, be-

comes Pettibon’s and Black Flag’s main interest. The act of deciphering one of

these posters requires a series of individualized connections and interpretations.

Every reader will bring different information to their interpretation, and thus one

must digest and understand the posters from a personal stance. In essence, Pet-

tibon causes the viewer to exercise their agency by creating works that force the

viewers to generate opinions. Personal opinion, an outgrowth of a sense of self,

thus creates a more individual subculture.

His posters accomplish this by creating ambiguities that compel the view-

er to have their own ideas about the work’s meaning or subject, thus increasing

the diversity and complexity of the individual’s own thought. On one poster, for

example, Pettibon appears to have drawn an image from a romance comic. The

poster features the phrase “One of the best things about war is…LOVE” at the

top, and shows a cartoon navy serviceman about to passionately kiss a woman.

(Fig. 10). The drawing and text force the viewer to question the image in a num-

37
ber of ways. Based on the degree of ambiguity between the text and image, a

group of viewers might differ entirely on their meanings. First, one viewer

might contemplate the relationship between the text and the image. They might

ask if there really are “best things” about war, or if love and war are directly re-

lated. Another viewer might wonder about the source of the image. Did the im-

age come from a comic, or did Pettibon create the image from his own memory?

Did they see the same image in a comic book, or do they simply remember see-

ing the image? Another viewer can ask whether the poster is actually serious, or

whether it makes an ironic statement about the romance of war. Any of these

interpretations sufficiently address the visual information. Yet, by keeping the

relationship of the poster’s elements purposely confused, no individual can over-

ride the opinions of others, and no one can lay claim to the authoritative interpre-

tation that one might find in Jock culture.

Pettibon designed the poster to refuse to yield any clues about his in-

tended message, as this would preclude discussion and inhibit the creation of the

viewer’s opinion. If one knew how the artist felt about the piece, one might de-

fault to their interpretation instead of creating one’s own. The questions raised

by this poster allow the individual to exercise their ability to form opinions, a

quality that American’s prize as an individual right. The emphasis on self-

determined opinions in Punk art demonstrate the importance of free expression

and individual thought within the movement.

38
Conclusion
The Punk subculture during the 1970s and 1980s was large, diverse, con-

flicted, and riddled with irony. In a larger sense, though, the movement con-

cerned itself with reestablishing the individual’s relationship to society. In the

lull between the end of Nixon’s time as President and the start of Ronald Regan’s

second term, the people who participated in this movement asserted themselves

as individuals. Their reactions against Rock and Roll mega-bands, Hippies, and

Jocks represent the struggle of a group to identify their place in history, or even

embrace their lack of location in history. In either case, their subculture and vis-

ual culture made history.

39