Course:WMST307: Student Pages: Counterculture Susan Reifsteck

A counterculture is defined by the class text as a "group that expresses antagonism toward the existing social and political order and proposes alternative ways of organizing society." (O'Brien and Szeman 355) The text traces its lineage through the 1960s as groups actively involved in critiquing and opposed to mass culture, with its origin in As well the authors work to construct countercultures as overlapping but distinct from subcultures which less directly antagonistic. Thus rather than individually defining counterculture they construct in opposition to subcultures. Counterculture and subculture are defined as distinct versions of a similar concept. Within this understanding, the two are fundamentally intertwined and defined by one another. The text importantly highlights that both take culture seriously although countercultures explicitly want to "change the world." It tries to indicate that counter cultures are not necessarily more serious or influential, but its a daunting task when these two opposing but related definitions have been created.The text also explores the concept of counterculture through the representations in film of countercultures rather than discussing any realities of counterculture. The text is far more considered with how pop culture understands counterculture and exploring how countercultures become integrated and commodified within mass culture. We might consider "Fifty Shades of Grey" as an example of this phenomena where subcultures and countercultures are displayed back to us through media. Although though the bdsm subculture still holds the appeal of the forbidden, in the form of the text has become well known and reflected back to many. The text holds that, most likely, once we are aware of a counterculture it is no longer counter, but appropriated into the 'mainstream'. Although this relationship between counterculture and media representations also allows a depiction of the relationship between these groups while distorting perhaps the the original culture.
The text's particular definition of counterculture suggests that perhaps we can never know a genuine counterculture but that they are both opposed to the mainstream but also located within it and represented back to itself through the mainstream.

Works Cited

   James, E. L. Fifty Shades of Grey. [New York]: Random House Large Print, 2012. Print.
   O’Brien, Susie; Szeman, Imre. Popular Culture: A User’s Guide. Toronto: Nelson Education Ltd. (2010) p. 354. Print.