Roosevelt University

The Vice Generation: Subculture, Consumerism and Third-

Wave Feminism

A Thesis Submitted to

the Faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences

in Candidacy For the Degree of

Master of Arts

in Women’s and Gender Studies

by

Maria C. Jenkins
Chicago, Illinois

May 2010
 UMI Number: 1475628

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 Abstract

This thesis addresses the politics and aesthetics of Vice magazine and clothing

company American Apparel’s brand of “punk entrepreneurship” as it relates to changing

notions of feminism and consumerism. Both of these companies have gained

considerable financial and cultural success using subcultural authority as a basis for their

rhetorical strength, and both function as cultural provocateurs whose sexually explicit and

anti-politically-correct messages have raised a considerable amount of controversy. They

rely upon generational difference and authenticity as key concepts in establishing

subcultural capital and economic growth. The use of sexually charged imagery and

claims to authenticity reflect larger ideas in contemporary advertising, emphasizing the

right to sexual freedom and empowerment. The linguistic and visual strategies of Vice

and American Apparel correlate with certain third-wave feminist claims and reflect

debates within the feminist movement.

i
 Table of Contents

Introduction……………………………………………………………………………….1
Defining Subculture……………………………………………………………………… 3
Community v. Society…………………………...………………………………………. 7
Hebdige, Feminist Critiques and Subcultural Capital…………………..……………..… 9

Rhetorics of Vice and American Apparel………………………………………………. 16

Third-Wave Feminism…………………………...……………………………………... 29
Empowerment and the Female Consumer…………..………………………………….. 39

Rhetorics of Authenticity………………………………………………….……………. 44
Conclusion: Cultural Tourism, Anhedonia, and the “Loss” of Community……………. 51
Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………. 60
Biography………………………………………………………………………………. 66

ii
 1

The Vice Generation: Subculture, Consumerism, and Third-Wave Feminism

I. Introduction

Subculture and consumerism have always held a tenuous relationship; their

connections have been debated by academics and scene participants alike. In many

instances, consumerism is branded as a diabolical transgression of subcultural norms.

“Selling out,” particularly within the punk movement, meant compromising one’s

subcultural legitimacy in order to join forces with a vision of capitalist soullessness and

greed, abandoning community relationships for the pursuit of individual accumulation.

However, buying and selling have always been integral to the development of subcultural

communities, even if only through their intended negation. Markets shift and new

methods of consumer trade are developed according to changing needs and desires;

formative symbolic elements of subcultures are absorbed into consumer culture, and in

their place new transgressive styles are formed. Discarded cultural icons are brought back

to life with renewed meaning, and meaningful subcultural styles change context in a

constant recycling between capitalist growth and resistance.

This thesis addresses the politics and aesthetics of punk entrepreneurship1 as they

relate to changing notions of feminism and consumerism. The questions that I am

concerned with include: How do representations of gendered bodies and “deviant”

sexuality function in the branding of subcultural transgression and innovation? What

specialized roles do gender and sexuality play in the commodification or legitimization of

1
This term, as I use it, refers to money-making enterprises within or from punk subcultures and
participating members. Matt Mason uses this term as well in describing Vice and American Apparel. I am
isolating punk subculture in reference to the primary sources I will be analyzing; I argue that this is the
subculture from which a considerable amount of their language and aesthetics derive.
 2

subcultural communities and products? How does the subcultural rhetoric of resistance

and empowerment relate to third-wave feminism? How have changing marketing

methods and consumer expectations affected subcultural ideologies, and what importance

does this serve in light of feminist goals?

I hope to explore these questions through an analysis of two successful capitalist

enterprises with subcultural roots: Vice magazine and clothing company American

Apparel. Both of these companies have witnessed exponential growth financially and

culturally in the past several years and have come to stand in as both authorities and

scapegoats in the worlds of fashion, music, journalism, and cultural criticism. Vice

magazine is the original publication of what has become a conglomerate of Vice products

and sponsorships, including a record label, website, DVD series, and retail locations. The

Brooklyn-based magazine includes a variety of articles and photo spreads, as well as

reviews of recently released albums and fashion “do’s and dont’s” aimed at young

urbanites. American Apparel has made its name through the wholesaling and retailing of

basic clothing items, which are produced domestically and aggressively marketed in

urban areas using controversial visual methods.

As a resident of a large American city and as a graduate student and musician, I

have found it difficult to ignore the pervasiveness of both Vice and American Apparel

and their influence among young urban students, musicians, artists, writers, and hangers-

about. While some feminist responses to American Apparel and its sexually charged

advertisements have been published, feminist analyses of the linguistic and aesthetic

strategies of these two companies remain few and far between, if not altogether absent.

The goal of this thesis is to open up dialogue about the ways in which subcultural
 3

entrepreneurship and contemporary feminist theory interact in these (relatively) new

popular culture forms.

First, I will explore several definitions of “subculture” and its roots as a category

of grouping. This will include a discussion of “community” as a feature of subcultural

identification and its relationship with the “mainstream.” It will also address the roles of

gender and consumerism in subcultural theory, while providing a look at Sarah

Thornton’s concept of “subcultural capital.” Section three provides an overview of my

primary sources and several of the debates surrounding their policies. The following

section expands on some of these debates and places them in relationship to third-wave

feminist theory. The last section concerns itself with the importance of authenticity in

both contemporary marketing practices, particularly those aimed toward the female

consumer and those in subcultural contexts. I will discuss the ways in which authenticity

is invoked as a marketing method of American Apparel and as an editorial tactic of Vice

in establishing its subcultural authority. I will conclude by positing some ideas as to the

function of gender roles and sexual expression in the visual and written texts of Vice and

American Apparel, as well as by considering the role of subcultural consumerism in

feminist theory and strategy.

II. Defining Subculture

In order to reference certain texts as “subcultural” in their language and aesthetic,

it is necessary to investigate the origins and meanings of this term. Subculture has been

defined in various ways throughout its categorical existence. I would like to briefly trace

the study of subculture, originally rooted in the field of sociology, through to its

adaptations in the emerging field of cultural studies in the mid-twentieth century. The aim
 4

of this is not to provide an exhaustive discussion of the meanings and uses of subculture,

but to provide background for my employment of this term in further sections. I also aim

to provide an emphasis on discussions of subculture that consider notions of

“community.” Community is often cited as a progressive effect of subcultural distancing

from the capitalist mainstream and as a potentially productive site for young women’s

political and social empowerment, particularly in regards to the punk movement.

Community is also posited, in certain subcultural theories, as opposed to the values of

capitalism and consumerism. Embracing community and rejecting consumerism fosters

notions of subcultural participant’s authenticity. This is important to consider in light of

the nature of the primary sources I will be analyzing, which attempt to combine capitalist

entrepreneurship with punk or otherwise subcultural authenticity.

Subcultural studies scholar Ken Gelder writes simply that “subcultures are groups

of people that are in some way represented as non-normative and/or marginal through

their particular interests and practices” (1). Gelder outlines perceptions involved in the

classification of subcultures, where subcultures are viewed as “sites of excess” (48), and

subcultural participants are addressed in terms of vagrancy and refusal to work.

Subculture is seen as a site of over-abundant leisure time, denoting a heightened level of

sexuality and other physical over-indulgences such as drug use (48).

In his genealogy of subcultural studies, Gelder traces the origins of subculture to

the “rogue studies” of sixteenth century Elizabethan London. During this time, a

“proliferation of imaginative narratives” about subcultures and underworlds became

manifest, spurring a “performative act, the creation of a fictional self” (5) on the part of

deviant group identities. Interest in criminality and urban underworlds increased due to
 5

the growth of major Western cities and the decline of traditional rural life; as people

attempted to make sense of rapidly changing social conditions, they were confronted and

intrigued by the visibility of marginal groups. Subculture and criminality remained

inextricably connected through the early twentieth century in literary and academic

accounts.

Subcultural studies as an academic field is historically rooted in sociological

studies of deviance and exercises in ethnography, most of which took place in urban

environments. These urban environments may be seen as sites of multiplicity and

fragmentation, confrontation and change, in contrast to the static nature of rural life and

traditional kinship. Movement and transition are key to understanding the new types of

sociality that subculture permits, in fact “migration and immigration are […] often the

foundational events for subcultural identity” (Gelder 7). The Industrial Revolution

created a new class of working children and adolescents - semi-independent urban

dwelling “youth” (Savage 13) whose new situation presented them with economic

uncertainty and the deterioration of traditional familial ties. However, “the anonymity of

the huge cities also offered its own opportunities” (Savage 14) in the form of such

phenomena as bohemian enclaves and subcultural social networks that perhaps violated

the normative values of the youth’s working class and immigrant backgrounds. The

historical period in the nineteenth century when these groups were forming also

coincided with an increased academic and public interest in the category of “youth” itself.

As Jon Savage articulates, cultural fascination with youth extends well before the post-

World War II solidification of “teenager” as a category of classification. Ethnographic

studies of youth subcultures in the second half of the nineteenth century reflect the
 6

growing concern with urban youth and the increase of delinquent behavior as a method of

coping with new social relations. As new forms of mass media developed, they continued

the process of fostering “youth” as a demographic:

youth was associated with the drive toward mass inclusion, if not true
democracy. The full inception of the mass age in the second half of the nineteenth
century gave rise to the realization that no section of the population should be
overlooked in the new social order. That resulted in fresh attention being paid to
hitherto neglected classes like the urban working poor or youth itself. The growth
of the mass media accelerated that process. (Savage 14)

The link between hegemonic literature/media and the formation of coherent subcultural

categories, which Gelder claims originates in this (Victorian) period, is instrumental in

the development of “subcultures” and the way in which they have been viewed.

Journalistic and sociological attempts to describe the inner workings of young urban

gangs at the end of the nineteenth century “helped to confer status” (Savage 35) upon

these subcultural deviant youth: “Just as their extravagant dress brought them to public

attention, new types like the hooligans and the Apaches used their startling appearance as

a badge of honor. In doing so, they broadcast the very plumed defiance that their

exposure was attempting to curtail” ( Savage 35-36).

The examples provided by Gelder and Savage suggest that the boundaries

dividing “subculture” from the “mainstream” may be inscribed through the narratives that

either side employs in their respective struggles for self-definition. Under this premise, a

cyclical process occurs in which the efforts of subcultural groups to distance themselves

from the mainstream create a discourse within the mainstream which labels the group as

deviant; this in turns enhances or amplifies the performative efforts of the group to
 7

establish their distance. 2 In this way, mainstream reactions are just as important as non-

normative actions in constituting the development of subcultural groups.

III. Community v. Society

In many early sociological accounts, the social networks of subcultural activity

are described as an attempt to grasp onto a form of the traditional social world that was

lost through the alienating forces of city life. “Community” is invoked in many

definitions of subculture to describe social relations that transcend the alienating forces of

modernization. A prominent example of sociological work that utilizes this distinction is

provided by Ferdinand Tonnies. Writing in 1957, Tonnies makes a distinction between

community (Gemeinshaft) and society (Gesellschaft), where community functions as a

natural, rural, and apriori form of social organization and expression: “all praise of rural

life has pointed out that the Gemeinschaft among people is stronger there and more alive;

it is the lasting and genuine form of living together” (Tonnies 35). Society, on the other

hand, is associated with the conditions of industrialized production and urbanity –

inauthentic and alienating in its methods of relation:

The theory of Gesellschaft deals with the artificial construction of an aggregate

of human beings which superficially resembles the Gemeinschaft in so far as the
individuals live and dwell together peacefully. However, in the Gemeinschaft they
remain essentially united in spite of all separating factors, whereas in the
Gesellschaft they are essentially separated in spite of all uniting factors. (65)

Arguments against positing “community” against “society” claim that this duality

assumes the naturalness and precedence of one over the other. A paradox within

subcultural studies is that by using the term “community” a move away from home,

family, rural ties, and domesticity is required – the very areas which assume the

2
Stanley Cohen, in his 1972 study on mods and rockers, calls this a “deviation amplification sequence”
(142) in which “such escalation […] affects the way in which deviance itself develops” (143).
 8

naturalness of “Gemeinschaft” or community. Gelder illustrates this paradox, writing that

“community, although often useful, remains a problem for subcultural definitions. Its

origins in the rural village or neighborhood can be at odds with a subculture’s

metropolitan ‘career.’ It can work to produce ‘anthropological’ narratives about

subcultures that are […] nostalgic or idealized” (26). The community said to be found

through subcultural participation may take on qualities of authenticity that are perceived

as no longer available in everyday urban interactions. Interactions indicative of societal

or economic necessity may then be viewed as the inauthentic construct placed upon the

individual, who by nature desires a more cohesive and unified social world. This notion

leaves the “naturalness” of community untouched. Splitting community and society also

posits that the search for community is in some sense a form of resistance, when in fact

nostalgia for “the simpler life” is a common trope in mainstream Western media and

culture.

An example of subcultural studies research that invokes both Gelder’s assertion

that subcultures are less concerned with traditional work ethics and Tonnies’

differentiation between community and society may be found in John Irwin’s 1977

publication Scenes. Irwin’s work is significant in its shift from subculture as built around

activities of deviance to subculture as an identity-building social world surrounding

activities of pleasure and leisure. Irwin makes the claim that post-1960’s counterculture

generations reject the formation of their identities based on “society,” such as the

institutions of school, work, and organized religion, and instead form their identities

through “communities” based on their leisure interests. Traditional activities such as

work or those related to “conventional institutions” are viewed by youth culture as a mere
 9

means to an end. This explanation seems mystifying but is an attempt, as I interpret it, to

invoke Marxist alienation in relationship to the lives of urban youth. This alienation

stems from a human need for collective activities and interactions that individual

entertainment will not provide (25). In light of their removal from the means of

production vis-à-vis societal institutions, urban youth is presented as a class striving for

the restoration of community through leisure groupings. Lifestyle identities formed

around the social worlds of “expressive and leisure activities” (22) are of primary appeal

to younger generations who are attracted to the city. Again, in this case, urbanization

plays a large role in subcultural formation. Irwin uses the term “social world” (23) to

describe the fluidity and semi-permanence of the subcultural body. Thinking about

subcultures as “social worlds” is useful for describing terms of subcultural

“membership,” indicating flexibility rather than dogmatic adherence.3

IV. Hebdige, Feminist Critiques and Subcultural Capital

Most chronological accounts of subcultural studies posit a split between the

sociological approaches of the nineteenth and early twentieth century and the semiotic

approaches of the 1970’s, as exemplified by the work produced in association with the

Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies at the University of Birmingham in England.

Arguably the most popular of these works is Dick Hebdige’s Subculture: The Meaning of

Style, originally published in 1979, in which the concept of “bricolage” is introduced as a

method of subcultural resistance against hegemonic cultural norms.

Hebdige’s work places significance on fashion and style to determine new, hybrid

identities that he argues might serve as a challenge to cultural hegemony. He writes of the

3
The flexibility of “social worlds” is helpful for this project, which takes a critical approach towards the
dichotomies of “community” and “society” and “subculture” and the consumerist “mainstream.”
 10

power of style in subcultural practices; in his examination of punk, style functions

through inversions and re-appropriations as a “symbolic violation of the social order”

(19). Objects such as safety pins worn as earrings or symbols such as the swastika were

removed from their original contexts and given new meaning within the subculture. He

writes:

Style in subculture is […] pregnant with significance. Its transformations go

“against nature,” interrupting the process of “normalization.” As such, they are
gestures, movements towards a speech which offends the “silent majority,” which
challenges the principle of unity and cohesion, which contradicts the myth of
consensus. (18)

Bricolage refers to the circulation of style signifiers functioning as a sort of collage;

elements from vastly different eras and contexts may be pulled together in order to create

new meanings. In the case of punk, Hebdige argues that stylistic resistance is more or less

consciously executed, even if not every member of the subculture knows exactly why or

how their counter-hegemonic message is being conveyed. Hebdige’s work, along with

the work of his contemporaries at the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies,

indicates a shift toward a postmodern approach toward subcultural studies that has

influenced feminist work in this area.

Women were largely absent in subcultural studies in its early forms as deviant

studies, continuing through the change in academic discourse on subculture in the 1970’s.

The masculine individual or community of deviant men functioned as the original central

focus of subcultural studies. Sexual licentiousness was often described as a characteristic

of subcultural bodies, but in the case of female participants, it became one of the few

ways in which non-male subjects entered the “scene.” When women were mentioned in
 11

the context of subcultures, they were prostitutes, call-girls, or otherwise sexually

affiliated with, but meaningfully peripheral to, the male subjects of study.

In a 1977 essay, Angela McRobbie and Jenny Garber ask the questions, “Are girls

really not present in youth subcultures? Or is it something in the way this kind of research

is carried out that renders them invisible?” (105). They conclude that “Girls’ subcultures

may have become invisible because the very term ‘subculture’ has acquired such strong

masculine overtones” (106). According to McRobbie and Garber, researchers looking for

the most extreme, most public displays of subcultural status overlooked the domestic

contexts in which girls more often formed their own social worlds.

In a later essay, McRobbie argues that buying, shopping, and choosing consumer

goods are arenas in which subcultural research was scarce, partly because these activities

were seen as antithetical to what cultural studies scholars defined as subcultural, but also

in part because of their feminine connotations. Consumerism as a feminine practice is a

topic I will return to in a later section, but currently I would like to remain focused on the

perceived contradictions between subcultural participation and buying/selling practices.

In reference to interpretations of punk style, McRobbie writes:

Sociologists of the time perhaps ignored this social dimension because to them the
very idea that style could be purchased over the counter went against the grain of
those analyses which saw the adoption of punk style as an act of creative defiance
far removed from the mundane act of buying […] to focus on a designer
[Vivienne Westwood] and an art-school entrepreneur [Malcolm McLaren] would
have been to undermine the “purity” or “authenticity” of the subculture (133).

But, as she continues “Clothes have to purchased, bands have to find places to play,

posters publicizing these concerts have to be put up…and so on” (138). Consumerism

emerges not merely as an antagonism to subculture, but in fact plays an integral part in its

development and sustenance. According to McRobbie, the exclusion of buying and

 12

selling from interpretations of subcultural movements such as punk belies the role of

profit-motivated individuals and methods of cultural distribution. Hebdige and his

sociological contemporaries are critiqued for their adherence to values of subcultural

authenticity despite the important role of consumerism.

In another critique of semiotic interpretations of punk style, a la Hebdige, Stanley

Cohen writes:

There is also a tendency in some of this work to see the historical development of
style as being wholly internal to the group – with commercialization and co-
option as something which just happens afterward. In the understandable zeal to
depict the kids as creative agents rather than manipulated dummies, this often
plays down the extent to which changes in youth culture are manufactured
changes, dictated by consumer society. I am not aware of much evidence, for
example, that the major components in punk originated too far away from that
distinctive London monopoly carved up between commercial entrepreneurs and
the lumpen intellectuals from art schools and rock journals. (xii)

Although Hebdige lauds the transgressive possibilities of punk style, he neglects the

meaningful connections these styles have with consumerism. Even as this approach

widened the scope of subcultural opportunities and possibilities, it also continued to make

exclusions and privilege the masculine, “heroic” subcultural subject. Some elements of

punk attire were indeed handmade or found, but most were purchased- either from the

boutiques of punk entrepreneurs or from what McRobbie writes of as the second-hand

“rag market.”

As evidenced by McRobbie and others, entrepreneurship existed within the punk

movement since its inception. Malcolm McClaren and Vivian Westwood’s SEX shop

provided the guidelines for the controversial fashions which defined the London punk

style in the eyes of the Western media. DIY products were made for purchase, even if the

profit margins were intentionally low. As McRobbie argues, small-scale economies

 13

within subcultures were underemphasized in academic subcultural studies because of

their perceived impurity or inauthenticity. The goals of scholars such as Hebdige and his

contemporaries were to prove theories of symbolic resistance on the part of subcultural

youth; this resistance is in part a reaction against an alienating capitalist system of

exchange and a return to community values of mutual production and trade.

Acknowledging the role of entrepreneurship would undermine these discursive goals by

linking the movement with the values of mainstream consumer culture and capitalist

growth. Here, consumerism stands in as a representative of a structured and inauthentic

“society” in contrast to subcultural “community.” However, the call for a return to

“community” is an effect specific to the perceived alienation of modernity and the rise of

global capitalism; “society” provides the grounding from which the “community” critique

emerges. In this way, the two are inextricably connected, thereby complicating arguments

that posit them as radically different. As the nature of marketing and consumerism has

adapted to and subsumed certain subcultural methods of resistance, punk rhetoric has

become more visible in the larger cultural sphere, making the paradoxical nature of the

community/society and authentic/inauthentic split more apparent.

The concept of subculture that most closely aligns itself with the goals of this

paper, one which extends McRobbie’s critique of earlier semiotic theories, is outlined by

Sarah Thornton in Club Cultures: Music, Media and Subcultural Capital. Like Gelder

and Savage, Thornton emphasizes the importance of the interactions between the

descriptions provided by mass media sources and the self-definition of subcultures. She

writes that subcultures “are best defined as social groups that have been labeled as such,”

where “communications media create subcultures in the process of naming them and
 14

draw boundaries around them in the act of describing them” (162). She complicates the

binary divisions drawn by earlier subcultural theorists which pit subculture against the

“mainstream,” claiming: “Academic writers on youth culture and subculture […] have

relied on binary oppositions typically generated by us-versus-them social maps” (92)

invoking “the chimera of a negative mainstream” (93). For example, she calls Hebdige’s

concept of the mainstream “abstract and ahistorical” (93), writing: “Hebdige’s multiple

opposition of avant-garde-versus-bourgeois, subordinate-versus-dominant, subculture-

versus-mainstream is an orderly ideal which crumbles when applied to historically

specific groups of youth” (93).

Thornton calls for a more historically situated and plural vision of the

“mainstream” within subcultural theory, one in which “mainstream” and “subculture” are

not opposite and neatly defined categories but interact with each other on a variety of

complex contextual levels. This conception becomes useful in discussing the subcultural

entrepreneurship described by McRobbie, where punk style is not separate or outside of

the larger consumerist market but is interwoven with discourses of avant-garde fashions,

spatial proximity to student and artist communities, and the economic conditions of

Thatcher-era Britain. I intend to carry forward this notion in my analysis of the rhetoric of

Vice and American Apparel in order to make the claim that under 21st century conditions,

subculture and consumerism continue to act together in new and shifting ways.

Thornton’s analysis also provides clues into meanings of the terms “authenticity”

and “community” that are critical to the arguments provided in this thesis. Club Cultures

concentrates primarily on the subcultural sphere of music, where:

Music is perceived as authentic when it rings true or feels real, when it has
credibility and comes across as genuine. In an age of endless representations and
 15

global mediation, the experience of musical authenticity is perceived as a cure for

both alienation (because it offers feelings of community) and dissimulation
(because it extends a sense of the really “real”). (26)

In music subculture, as well as in other subcultural forms, the notions of community and

authenticity are interrelated; authenticity is perceived as a quality of the desired social

grouping that contemporary urban life makes difficult to find. The “real” or “genuine”

stands in for “real connections” with other like-minded individuals. A community is seen

as an authentic form of social interaction in light of the alienating and superficial nature

of high-capitalist urban sociality.

Authenticity also contributes to what Thornton deems “subcultural capital.”

Subcultural capital is derived from the theories of Pierre Bourdieu, who coined the phrase

“cultural capital” to express the accumulation of tastes and knowledges that act as social

markers of class and upbringing. In defining subcultural capital, Thornton writes:

Subcultural capital confers status on its owner in the eyes of the relevant beholder
[…] Subcultural capital can be objectified or embodied. Just as books and
paintings display cultural capital in the family home, so subcultural capital is
objectified in the form of fashionable haircuts and well-assembled record
collections […] Just as cultural capital is personified in “good” manners and
urbane conversation, so subcultural capital is embodied in the form of being “in
the know,” using (but not over-using) current slang and looking as if you were
born to perform the latest dance styles. Both cultural and subcultural capital put a
premium on the “second nature” of their knowledges. Nothing depletes capital
more than the sight of someone trying too hard. (12)

Subcultural capital, then, is a way of acting, owning, and being that acts not as surface

construct on the individual but is deeply embedded in one’s sense of self and physical

presence. It hovers between the conscious and subconscious, where knowing is required

but trying is detrimental. It is a reflection of taste and social status but less concerned

with issues of class than Bourdieu’s conception of cultural capital.

 16

Thornton asserts that cultural capital has often been viewed as convertible into

economic capital. Because it de-emphasizes class, subcultural capital differs slightly in

this respect:

While subcultural capital may not convert into economic capital with the same
ease or financial reward as cultural capital, a variety of occupations and incomes
can be gained as result of “hipness.” DJ’s, club organizers, clothes designers,
music and style journalists and various record industry professionals all make a
living from their subcultural capital. Moreover […] people in these professions
often enjoy a lot of respect not only because of their high volume of subcultural
capital, but also from their role in defining and creating it. (12)

While subcultural capital may not be used as a pretense or expression of socio-economic

class, it may still work to provide economic opportunities for those who acquire it. Those

who work to define what ‘hipness’ entails are given additional rewards, both subcultural

and economic, in response to their productive efforts. The correspondences between

subcultural capital and systems of buying and selling connect to examples of punk

entrepreneurship such as Vice and American Apparel. Subcultural capital is a currency

which is of primary importance to these companies and their growing consumer base, and

is a concept which I will turn to in the textual analysis that follows.

V. The Rhetorics of Vice and American Apparel

Companies such as Vice and American Apparel continue the tradition of punk

entrepreneurship but broaden the scope of its audience, marketing its language of

contestation to a mass consumer base. While both of these examples are widely

distributed and continue to act as growing businesses, their original interest base lies in

the ideologies of youth subculture, rebellious innovation, and sexual freedom. They

continue to differentiate themselves from “mainstream” publications and companies

through their advertising and editorial language. Vice magazine built its image around the
 17

triumvirate of sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll (and in fact has a guide to these very things

published in book form). Explicit language and female nudity are paired with irony and

sarcasm; topics range from U.S. foreign policy to how-to guides on selling dirty

underwear online. American Apparel takes an explicitly progressive stance in advertising

campaigns such as “Legalize LA” and “Legalize Gay,” promoting immigration rights and

gay rights respectively. The company is also (in)famous for featuring highly sexualized

voyeur photography and its candid rejection of “politically correct” policies concerning

sex in the workplace. These companies make no attempt to disguise their profit-driven

motives, but do try to establish themselves as something outside of hegemonic culture by

breaking the rules of acceptability and positing the formation of new modes of business

and visual representation.

Several thematic elements are found within the mission statements of Vice and

American Apparel. These include qualifying commercial interests, speaking for or

representing marginal populations, and claiming generational difference. I hope to begin

a dialogue regarding these commonalities by exploring the rhetoric of controversy and

defense on the part of American Apparel and Vice.

First I would like to clarify the connections between the two sources I will be

referencing. Vice and American Apparel work in collaboration with one another on

several levels, both financial and aesthetic. Vice magazine is distributed free of charge in

selected retail outlets, firmly anchoring its place within the boutique landscape and

requiring urban readers to search out their copies in this context. The retail placement of

the magazine compliments its advertising content, as the primary source of revenue for

the magazine comes from fashion advertisers. American Apparel is a regular sponsor of
 18

Vice magazine; the back cover is usually reserved for a full page advertisement and

banner ads proliferate on Vice’s website, [Link]; in return, American Apparel

carries free copies of Vice magazine in its retail stores. Vice and American Apparel also

share aesthetic sensibilities, choosing airbrush-free amateur photography and (slightly)

less than traditional models over the glossy page sensibility of “mainstream” newsstand

fashion magazines. They also both function rhetorically as cultural provocateurs whose

sexual and anti-politically-correct messages challenge conceptions of ethical business

practices.

Vice magazine was formed in 1994 in Montreal by Canadians Gavin McInnes,

Shane Smith, and Suroosh Alvi. Operations were moved to Williamsburg, Brooklyn in

1999 in order to garner more advertising revenue in this temporal geographical locus of

hip consumerism. Vice has since expanded to include a record label, a television station

([Link]), and several retail locations. It is a multi-national, multi-million-dollar-making

empire of satirical cool.

At the heart of Vice’s success is an irreverent disregard for almost everything,

which is often attributed to the punk rock roots of its founders. Smith and McInnes grew

up in Ottawa playing in punk bands. They claim that the attitudes they acquired through

this DIY coming-of-age experience informed their original editorial methods:

When you start doing music for just you and your buddies, you don’t care […]
It’s the same doing the mag. We don’t do the mag for like an audience, it’s not
like “what demographic are we gonna go for?” “Should we put extreme sports in
there?” Cos we don’t actually care. We put in whatever we think is interesting
[…] We’re not like Details or GQ where we have to do one certain kind of thing.
That definitely comes out of the old punk thing of we’re just gonna play this small
thing for ourselves and if it gets big, fine, but if it doesn’t, it doesn’t. (Smith
quoted in Mason 20)
 19

In the case of Vice, doing things for themselves and their friends often puts them at odds

with both the progressive left and the moralist right, and the editors are content with

taking shots at both. This critical tone is defended for its political and cultural value as

satire and criticized as provocative sensationalism that reiterates racist and sexist

ideologies.

As Vice’s UK editor Andy Capper stated in an interview, "We don't say things

purely to be controversial […] We take the mick out of everybody because that's the way

satire should be; everyone's a target” (quoted in Philby par. 2). Arguments for Vice

contend that it is a broad-scope, equal opportunity detractor; no group or individual is

safe from its coverage. Vice’s topical coverage varies widely, from exposes and critiques

of “heavy” issues such as the war in Iraq and identity politics to humorous fashion “do’s

and don’ts.” The stereotypes, racial slurs, and misogynistic statements that are recycled in

Vice’s editorial language are defended in the name of satire; the use of stereotypes and

offensive language may be interpreted as a response to a culture already imbued with

such ideologies. Company representatives and cultural supporters claim that it exposes

our reliance on categories of race, class, gender, and sexuality in order to critique that

very reliance.

Feminist responses to the discursive debates surrounding Vice are mostly found in

popular culture sources, as little academic attention has been paid to the publication.

These responses range from outright rejection on grounds of sexism4 to more nuanced

reflections taking into account the use of irony. Venus is a music and culture magazine

4
See Indian and Whitney.
 20

with a feminist slant; its response to Vice both applauds its journalistic methods and

questions its language:

I don’t want to completely knock Vice — after all, the media empire should be
recognized for shaking up the traditional model of social and political journalism;
in some cases, their coverage of war, gangs, and other global issues is straight-up
real. However, the publication sometimes throws around bigotry and sexism like
it’s no big deal. You can argue that the editors are using irony to get readers
thinking. Problem is that some readers never get around to the thinking part. As
could be the result, there’s a growing trend for white kids and men to throw
around the “n” and “c” words like it ain’t no thing. (Schroeder par. 32)

Vice anticipates that the reader acknowledges the racist, sexist, and heterosexist dialogue

that may be present, but also expects the reader to understand the “politically correct”

arguments against these ideologies. In order to “get” the irony of Vice, one must

understand both. This is in part its method of differentiating itself from the Baby Boomer

generation it seeks to piss off. Whereas previous generations had to live through the

struggles that established “politically correct” models of equality and restraint, much of

the Vice generation was born and raised in a liberal multicultural milieu. This

generational difference aligns itself with the generational differences that are said to exist

within feminist theory and struggle. For example, Comedian Sarah Silverman, who plays

on racial and religious taboos in her performances, comments on Vice’s controversial

status, particularly within feminist discourse:

If you think Vice is misogynistic, then you are a self-centered white woman.
Because Vice is so much more. It harshly makes fun of men, women, all races,
nerds, hipsters, the elderly, the short, the tall, the fashionable, the hopeless. It's
without boundaries, which is what makes the playing field even. (Silverman
quoted in Wilson)

Her invocation of the “self-centered white woman” seems to reference the quintessential

“second-wave” feminist: the white, educated, middle class subject that has since been

challenged as the only form of “woman” involved in feminist struggles. But while the
 21

shift towards pluralism implied by her statement reads as more inclusive of difference

than previous models of feminism, inclusivity occurs only through the universal

marginalization of every category of identity.

Her statement also forecloses the possibility of critique, which is a tactic that Vice

uses frequently in their editorial statements. If one finds something ethically problematic

with the content of the magazine, then they simply don’t get it. The front of each issue

usually features a write-in section where readers’ correspondences are posted and

commented upon by editorial staff. Letters are often published complaining that Vice’s

nude photographs and language towards women is abusive or disrespectful. These letters

are usually given short, non-reflective responses which poke fun at the writer, often in

sexual or intellectually condemning ways. For example, in “The Mexican Issue,” a

female reader’s morally infused condemning e-mail is responded to with “Dust the

cobwebs out of your sad, neglected vagina and join the human race.” Another reader,

Lucy Shachter, writes:

I just wanted to complain on behalf of all the women out here that women suck. If
I see one more letter in your Vice Mail section from some whiny-ass pseudo-
feminist rich girl I think I may explode. I am so very sick of all these women
complaining about how demeaning you are to women and how showing naked
girls is a bad thing and that tits are for private use only […] Anyway, have none
of these women actually thought about what they have to complain about?
Nothing, that’s what. We can vote, we have rights, and having a few naked girls
in a magazine isn’t gonna change that. And besides, what kind of guy is attracted
to a bitchy, controlling, and very complainy [sic] man of a woman?

Vice responds with: “We’re with ya, Lucy. Now show us your tits and we’ll give you this

string of shiny plastic beads.” Lucy’s letter was written as a response to other reader’s

“feminist” responses; it was meant to consolidate Vice’s stance on the use of female

nudity. However, Vice’s response was half-congratulatory and half-condemning. Her

 22

over-enthusiastic embrace of raunch culture5 and post-feminism belied her “trying,” a no-

no in the acquisition of subcultural capital. Even if Vice agrees that some women need to

dust the cobwebs out of their vaginas, they are not willing to agree wholeheartedly with

Lucy, partly because of her wholeheartedness. Her enthusiasm for female nude display is

written off as cheapness. Also, through this response, Vice acknowledges feminist

critiques of Girls Gone Wild style claims to sexual empowerment which may in fact

result in the economic exploitation of its participants. Although Vice may not always

subscribe to feminist ethos, they are aware of its messages and influence, something that

Lucy fails to prove or acknowledge. In this way, the magazine continues to maintain its

authority in the areas of cultural fluency and self-awareness.

Another reader in “The History Issue” expresses his discontent at the lack of

visible erections in the pages of the magazine. Vice writes in response: “Look, we’re not

mad at hard, throbbing, turgid penises. We just want to keep advertisers in the magazine

and that’s the one thing all of our clients fear. It’s a shame because, in our opinion, each

and every cock is a work of art.” In a self-reflexive move, Vice both blames its sponsors

for censorship and exposes its reliance upon them in establishing content. Interestingly,

this statement implies that the nude female body is less offensive to its sponsors than the

shape of a penis, even if concealed beneath clothing. This would explain the dearth of

sexualized male imagery, but also suggests that appropriate sexual deviation, in light of

consumerist values, remains tied to a female gendered body.

A Vice response featured in “The Homo Neanderthalensis Issue” addresses its

tenuous political stance, often diagnosed as conservative due to the controversial public

5
See Levy.
 23

statements of co-founder Gavin McInnes. A reader claims that a featured article in Vice’s

previous issue was typical of liberal media. Vice writes: “Sorry, couldn’t hear any of your

blah-blah-blah’ing because it feels so weird to be accused of being a part of the liberal

media. Vice hasn’t been lumped in with that whole rigmarole since forever.” McInnes’

anti-“pc” comments have raised eyebrows in the mainstream media, and Vice at large

understands its position within this discourse. The shock value of these statements,

however, is tempered with the boast of irony. Statements on race such as “I love being

white and I think it's something to be very proud of. I don't want our culture diluted. We

need to close the borders now and let everyone assimilate to a Western, white, English-

speaking way of life” were later retracted and posited as joking statements meant to make

the interviewer uncomfortable. On feminist interventions in defining sexual assault and

bodily integrity, McInnes stated: “‘No means no' is Puritanism. I think Steinem-era

feminism did women a lot of injustices, but one of the worst ones was convincing all

these indie norts that women don't want to be dominated.” McInnes also contributed

writing to Pat Buchanan’s magazine American Conservative in which he claims it has

“become fashionable to link liberalism with weakness and conservatism with honesty”

(all above quotes, McInnes quoted in Wilson).

The “honesty” of conservatism breaks through the facade of politically correct

multiculturalism and aligns itself with authenticity. Truthfulness, “telling it like it is,” is

not going to safeguard anyone, and no apology letters will be issued. Vice can be viewed

as both progressive and conservative, left and right, but it is meant to be viewed as honest

and sometimes painfully so. Irony and humor are Vice’s methods of choice for delivering
 24

this message; it is satirical, but only to those who are discursively fluent enough to

understand.

Richard Rorty purports that the ironist is immersed in a constant cycle of

redescription, rejecting any cohesive and singularly meaningful language or set of self-

beliefs. This characteristically postmodernist world view finds itself in opposition to

common sense and metaphysical systems of belief, where the truth lies in wait to be

uncovered. The ironist, as a fragmented and temporary subject, rejects “Truth” and may

use this language in describing and redescribing others, which may prove hurtful:

most people do not want to be redescribed. They want to be taken on their own
terms – taken seriously just as they are and just as they talk. The ironist tells them
that the language they speak is up for grabs by her and her kind. There is
something potentially very cruel about that claim. For the best way to cause
people long-lasting pain is to humiliate them by making the things that seemed
most important to them look futile, obsolete, and powerless. (Rorty 89)

Vice uses these very techniques of irony, often humiliating those who do not subscribe to

ideologies of redescription. “Feminism” or “sexual empowerment” (via Lucy) is but one

set of beliefs which can be adopted, rejected, or reoriented; letter writers who subscribe to

these beliefs systems as their “final vocabularies” (73) are challenged. What Vice is

often charged with, however, is not its criticisms of readers’ ideas, but the failure to

articulate any ideological platform of its own. Perhaps, in the case of Vice “what the

ironist is being blamed for is not an inclination to humiliate but an inability to empower”

(91). The magazine refuses to give the reader anything to believe in besides the inability

to believe in something. Part of this refusal could be attributed to the nature of irony; the

sarcasm of Vice is dependent on a larger culture and a set of beliefs from which to react.

As Rorty writes, “Irony is, if not intrinsically resentful, at least reactive. Ironists have to

have something to have doubts about, something from which to be alienated” (88). Using
 25

this logic, it could be said that through its editorial voice, Vice is forced into a political

stance and rhetorical tone of reaction.

American Apparel founder Dov Charney is no stranger to controversy, having

faced potential buyer boycotts over union busting, legal battles over more than one

billboard advertisement, and several lawsuits by female employees for sexual harassment.

His main product, however, is rather innocuous – plain colored t-shirts. These, along with

clothing and accessories ranging from jeans to headbands, are sold wholesale and in retail

stores internationally. American Apparel’s branding strategy has been incredibly

effective in mobilizing a young, urban, “hip” consumer base to embrace its products.

These young trend setters, deemed “early adopters” by the advertising industry, set the

pace for larger consumer patterns. By tapping into this market, American Apparel set

itself on the course to enormous growth in the apparel industry.

Charney purposefully sets his company apart from competition by means of

progressive production methods: “American Apparel is an industrial revolution” (“About

Us” <[Link]>). The company is “vertically integrated,” meaning that

all aspects of production and distribution are handled by the same entity. Whereas most

U.S. t-shirt companies outsource their manufacturing for less expensive labor, production

at American Apparel is based out of a factory in downtown Los Angeles. Workers are

paid a living wage ($12-15 hourly) and enjoy benefits such as optional health care plans

and English classes (Ko par. 10). Despite the positive work environment, American

Apparel has come under fire for its backlash against worker organizations; attempts by

the outside labor rights group UNITE to unionize in 2003 were thwarted by Charney and

other management (Straub par. 11-15).

 26

But keeping the labor-rights left satisfied is not part of American Apparel’s

business plan. Nor does American Apparel align itself with right-wing protectionism in

regards to its “made in the USA” policy. Similar to Vice, the employment of generational

difference combined with an anti-“pc” approach characterize Charney’s corporate

mission:

Basically we are taking on the establishment at various levels. We're taking on the
Left and we're taking on the Right. A lot of politics are defined by [baby] boomer
ideologies that have been advanced mostly by the boomers and the Eisenhower
generation. So I'm coming to you and saying that many parts of boomer ideology
are becoming totally antiquated now. In some ways they're sort of like the old
feminist guard. For example, there are certain photographs that a young person
might see as art, or essential or sexual, and those same pictures, to an old guard
feminist, might seem offensive. An MBA guy that works within the establishment
might see the only answer in the apparel industry as off shore production, because
that's the boomer ideology. That's what's happening right now, low wage jobs go
off shore. I'm generalizing all this, I know, but I really think that American
Apparel is challenging the Right and the Left on a lot of terms. Boomers basically
think that businesses should fight, and that greed is good […] But then the Left
says workers have to unite to fight corporate greed. And then you have the
feminists in there that say everything is offensive. We're in very suffocating times
right now. (Charney quoted in Stanton)

The “old guard” becomes generalized; baby boomers, feminists, the business

“establishment.” This language paradoxically sets the company outside of traditional

(right vs. left) political discourse but is making a challenging political statement in doing

so. It separates itself from capitalist values of competition and corporate greed, yet does

not deny that these are driving forces in its own practices. American Apparel posits itself

as a breath of fresh air in the stifling (and very un-fashionable) world of political

correctness:

Political correctness is nose-diving, it’s really not popular. There's a negative

reaction to the politically correct packaging, circa 1993. Nobody likes p.c.
anymore. I've had friends that couldn't have sex with their girlfriends in certain
ways, five or so years ago, but now those same girls, whether they're with the
 27

same guy or not, are into bondage and all kinds of crazy shit. (Charney, Compania
Rebelde)

Political correctness is associated with restrictions on sexual and creative expression.

Feminist responses based on the “objectification” debates are immediately cached into

the company waste bin, marked as out of touch from the desires of the new, young

consumer. Ethics become individualized, and following the trends of feminism, “woman”

as an identity category of oppression has been written off. The focus of American

Apparel is on a renegade individual, leading the renegade individual consumer to

fashionable sexual liberation. This idea is hardly new, as American Apparel’s industrial

structure can in fact be construed as a throwback to capitalist paternalism (see Clamor),

and the marketing of individual choice has a lineage of its own. The labor practices of

American Apparel, however, work to establish it as something different from models of

individual consumer choice exemplified by corporations such as Nike (“Just Do It”) that

still rely on cheap foreign labor.

The simplicity of its apparel items could be considered a form of anti-fashion,

which also works to distance itself from other corporate models. While some of

American Apparel’s products, such as its gold lame leggings and full body lace suit, are

quite eye catching in comparison to mainstream casual fashions, the majority of its

consumable goods fit within the parameters of late-twentieth century Western sport and

street wear. Rather than establishing the wearer as unique and individual, American

Apparel’s brand of basic t-shirts places them firmly within the crowd, undifferentiated

through appearance. The wearers are “not trying” to stand out through appearance, but

have made their individual ethics clear through their initial purchase. The wearer supports

the cause of labor reform, and is concerned with the comfort rather than the individuality
 28

of their appearance. Authenticity emerges in this context as the signified quality of both

the comfort and the ontological ease of the wearer. This correlates to claims of

subcultural capital, where the naturalness of style provides evidence of the credibility of

subcultural participants.

A paradox exists between the subcultural roots of Vice and its position as a

capitalist agent, partly because subculture and entrepreneurship have largely been

formulated as inherently oppositional in academic and pop cultural discourse. Qualifying

the profit-driven motives of companies with subcultural claims is an assurance of their

integrity and their difference from the “mainstream.” American Apparel uses issues such

as immigrant rights and environmental health to prove that its capitalist efforts are

culturally beneficial and politically progressive. Matt Mason connects the business

strategies of Vice and American Apparel, arguing that “The future belongs to a new breed

of change agents – punk capitalists putting purpose next to profit. Abstract economic

constructs have long told us that we are governed by nothing but self-interest, but reality

has consistently proved this notion wrong” (Mason 24). This view is closely aligned with

the stated business policies of the companies in question. American Apparel, for

example, is a fashion retailer and wholesaler but insists on the domestic production of its

goods rather than relying on foreign sweat shop labor. This ethical standpoint has been its

selling point to a (largely) urban consumer base that practices progressive buying habits.

Speaking for marginalized groups and generational difference are used in

combination to produce the effect of divergence from the norm. Vice Magazine speaks

for a generation that wants to know what the “baby boomer” mainstream media will not

account for. It brings marginal subjects to light by its journalistic coverage of areas and
 29

individuals neglected by the mainstream (i.e. the Vice Guide to Liberia, coverage of

Mexican child mascot workers in public parks, Hasidic Jews finding spiritual

enlightenment through acid, etc.). American Apparel explicitly advocates immigrant

rights, which despite the large number of immigrants in United States could still be

considered culturally marginal. The marginal and the authentic are correlative in much of

the discourse surrounding these young companies; exploring or representing the “real”

often entails looking past the mainstream. Vice and American Apparel both pit their

authenticity against the older generation of corporations that are perceived as selfish,

unethical, conservative or otherwise blind to new trends and knowledge.

VI. Third-Wave Feminism

The claims of generational difference that proliferate within the rhetoric of Vice

and American Apparel echo debates within feminist theory. “Second wave” and “Third

Wave” are generationally divided terms employed to describe the differences between

(what is perceived as) the largely white, educated, and upper middle class front of 1970’s

feminism and the post-modern multiplicity of the feminisms that followed.6 In this

section, I connect the language of Third-Wave feminism with the rhetoric of sexual

empowerment and individuality used by Vice and American Apparel. I also address the

conflicts in feminist theory surrounding objectification and agency through an analysis of

the visual texts produced by these sources. “Objectification” as a derogatory and harmful

effect of the “male gaze” is largely ascribed to second-wave arguments against certain

6
Although some scholars have revised the thinking surrounding “second-wave” and “third-wave” in order
to view these terms in a more continuous and less divisive manner, I mean to employ them as general
attitudes attributed, but not limited to, particular eras of feminist thought often described as generationally
different. My goal is not to adhere to these divisions, but to present them as they have been previously
articulated by those who claim generational difference.
 30

forms of visual culture, particularly advertising. Agency, which is associated with

subjecthood, is thought to be removed by objectification under certain second-wave

feminist rubrics. Third-wave feminism, however, has made certain claims to the retention

of women’s agency despite the powerful effects of “the gaze” and has questioned the

usefulness of the categories “object” and “subject” altogether.

Third-wave feminist theory was formulated in response to perceived

discontinuities between generations of feminists. It signifies multiple forms of feminism

and multiple types of feminists, with a focus on the individual’s right to determining her

own paths to happiness, freedom, and feminist empowerment. The demarcation of “Third

Wave” coincides with the inclusion of a larger variety of voices, including those of

women of color and those of transgendered people. The historical breaking point between

the “waves”, however, is disputable, and the grouping of them as such has been regularly

criticized in feminist theory. I intend to use the term “Third Wave” to reflect the

postmodern sentiments in recent popular feminist texts that only occasionally refer to

themselves as such but contain a shared emphasis on individuality and plurality.7

However, I agree with Claire Snyder’s assessment that “it would […] be more accurate to

describe third-wave feminism as a tactical response to the conditions of postmodernity

rather than to portray it as a new postmodernist stage of feminist theory” (187). I do not

mean to describe third-wave as postmodernist, but rather operating in response to

postmodern critical theories within the academy and postmodern cultural products.

7
By postmodernism I mean either the set of critical ideas or the characteristics attributed to certain cultural
products that move away from the linear unification of modernism, instead embracing fragmentation and
difference.
 31

Snyder details the ways in which the third-wave articulates itself in relation to the

crises feminism faced in the 1980’s. She writes: “third-wave feminism emphasizes an

inclusive and nonjudgmental approach that refuses to police the boundaries of the

feminist political […] and replaces attempts at unity with a dynamic and welcoming

politics of coalition” (175-176). Snyder claims that instead of disposing with second-

wave goals and projects entirely, the third-wave instead seeks “to rid feminist practice of

its perceived ideological rigidity” (176), embracing “the messiness of lived

contradictions” (177).

For example, in Rebecca Walker’s anthology To Be Real, a formative text in the

redefinition of feminism which could be considered “third-wave,” Walker’s sentiments

reflect a fear of a “feminist ghetto” (xxiv), in which internal policing creates a feminist

ideal that in many ways can be just as restricting as traditional ideals of femininity. She

finds her solution in a diversity of voices; advocating that the admission of complexity

into feminist discussion will lead to a more just and tolerant state of being:

I prefer personal testimonies because they build empathy and compassion […] I
believe that our lives are the best basis for feminist theory, and that by using the
contradictions in our lives as what Zen practitioners have called the “razor’s
edge,” we lay the groundwork for feminist theory that neither vilifies or deifies,
but that accepts and respects difference. (xxxvii)

Personal storytelling and the recounting of female experiences that are perceived to have

been excluded from earlier feminist accounts are emphasized in this anthology and others

within the third-wave genre.8 In this way, the “personal is political” guidelines of the

second-wave carry over to new feminist forms. What is defined as personal experience,

however, does not become universalized under the category “woman,” but retains its

8
See Baumgardner and Richards.
 32

individual contradictions and complications based on hybrid forms of race, class,

sexuality, religion, career choice, etc.

According to Snyder, one of the ways in which the third-wave distinguishes itself

from the second-wave is based on its attitudes towards pornography, sex-work, and

sexual practices such as sado-masochism. The third-wave posits itself as a “sex-positive”

and “fun” movement, pitting itself against the stereotypes of second-wave feminists as

“dour, frumpy, and frigid” (Snyder 179). This could be viewed as a response to the “sex

wars” of the 1980’s in which the aforementioned topics caused a rift in the second-wave

movement (179). A “sex-positive” attitude under a third-wave rubric demands an

acceptance of sexual desires and gratifications that may contradict certain second-wave

arguments against the value of pornography.

The media have played a significant role in the development and expression of

third-wave feminism. Much of the writing that may be defined as third-wave has been

published in popular forms such as magazines (i.e. Bitch or Bust magazines), blogs, and

zines. Third-wave has also been described as a response to popular representations of

second-wave feminism; in this way the media serve as a constitutive element in its

formation. Ednie Keah Garrison writes that “The media is a central site of consciousness

formation and knowledge production in the U.S. and it plays an important role in the

cultural knowledge production of feminist consciousness” (186). Media portrayals during

and after the “sex wars” of the 1980’s served to solidify stereotypes of feminists as

authoritarian and restrictive. Garrison argues that these oversimplified representations of

feminism are often the basis of third-wave claims rather than the actual historical figures,

debates, and variations that comprised the second-wave.

 33

Objectification, the gaze, the power of visual texts to influence actions, and the

politicization of individual desires are all key concepts in differing feminist viewpoints

regarding pornographic representations and sexualized imagery. The feminist anti-

pornography camp of the “sex wars” suggested that mainstream sexualized imagery

stripped women of their subjectivity and wholeness, leaving them in parts and pieces and

setting a cultural precedent for their abuse. According to these theories, the male gaze

guiding pornography and sexually suggestive visual representation rendered women as

objects. This both reflected male fantasies and desires already in place through

patriarchal control and was constitutive of their reproduction. Their opponents in the sex

wars of the 1980’s claimed the right to desires and pleasures outside of the established

feminist framework, partly through their invocations of agency and empowerment-

sexual, economic, and otherwise. Individual accounts of feminist empowerment

complicate arguments that would otherwise pin down women’s participation in

pornography as complicity towards the objectification of women (Snyder 189).

Additionally, the lines drawn between object and subject in these scenarios were

challenged. If one can be seen as a sexual object by some but choose to represent

themselves in such a way (claiming agency and subjecthood), then one is not merely an

object or a subject, but can in fact be both. Agency and subjecthood, then, are linked to

individual choice, personal choice and consent.

Third-wave attitudes towards pornography fit within its larger goal of individual

empowerment. Melanie Waters tackles this subject, claiming that pornography is more

public and viewed as more acceptable than ever within the Western mainstream media

(251). According to Waters, this shift has made pornography more difficult to define:
 34

“the representational praxes of pornography are increasingly convergent with the

aesthetic operations of Western visual cultures” (251). Because of its increased visibility,

the borders between pornography and mass media imagery, including advertising, are

porous and debatable. Raunch culture is commonly found in contemporary marketing

campaigns, and pornography has come to be viewed as mainstream material. In this

pervasive social climate and in lieu of feminist debates over pornographic censorship, the

third-wave “focuses less on the political implications of pornographic representation than

on the personal ambivalences to which it gives rise” (252). Individual sexual desires and

pleasures are prioritized and a direct political stance is avoided. Maria Elena Buszek

writes of a similar ambivalent response to the resurgence of the pin-up phenomenon:

“young feminists approach the pin-up with a simultaneous dose of criticism and affection

that seems to have emerged as a defining trait of the third wave itself – its typically

postmodern refusal to accept either/or, and reservation of the right to claim both/and”

(Buszek 348). The advertisements of American Apparel and the controversy surrounding

their ubiquitous presence confronts one with the difficulties in establishing the

boundaries of pornography. American Apparel’s aesthetic is most certainly related to that

of amateur pornography and pushes censorship to its limit. It is met with opposition,

accolades, but mostly ambivalence. It is not either pornography or popular advertising,

but “both/and,” and feminist popular culture responses to it have been largely individual

and quite varied.9

9
To my knowledge, very few significant collective efforts have been gathered in opposition to American
Apparel’s advertising imagery. Collective efforts have been made, however, to address and correct some of
American Apparel’s labor policies, particularly in regards to its lack of unionization. Parodies of the
advertisements have been used in some of these campaigns. Also, collective efforts were used in the
removal of the previously mentioned billboard.
 35

In a postmodern context where images circulate rapidly and profusely, it has not

only become more challenging to discern what pornography entails, but has also become

more difficult to establish an identity category in opposition to it. Although the third-

wave’s deconstruction of the unified category “woman” paves the way for a more

contextual and individualized approach to desire, pleasure, and pornography, the value of

individual relativism has also been contested in recent feminist theory. While the

flexibility of both the categories “woman” and “feminism” allows for their extension and

increased possibilities of engagement, it has also been cited as problematic in the

formation of political coalitions and social movements. This critique has been launched

within the third-wave movement, particularly from feminists of color, and this sort of

hyper-individualism has been associated with a white middle class perspective. I would

like to make it clear that from here forward, any references to the individualism of third-

wave feminism refer to strains of third-wave feminist theory that have been adopted by

my primary sources of study, which are often launched from a white, middle-class

perspective despite the inclusion of marginal subjects in their textual and visual language.

The individualist approach to empowerment, as exemplified by certain forms of

third-wave feminism, can be found in the arguments and policies of Vice and American

Apparel. This would suggest an engagement with mainstream forms of contemporary

feminist theory and mediated representations of feminist history. As outlined previously,

one thematic element in the source material I have chosen is the claim to generational

difference in company policies and corollary consumer desires. Vice eschews baby

boomer journalism, which it views as clouded by political correctness and corporate

interests. American Apparel presents itself as a new breed of corporate arrangement, led
 36

by its brazen entrepreneur Dov Charney. Both appeal to young, urban, consumers who

make their own choices regarding purchases and media believability. This consumer is

assumed to have been raised in an environment saturated with messages advocating

diversity and acceptance. As “third-wavers consider themselves entitled to equality and

self-fulfillment” (Snyder 178), the generation that Vice claims to speak to has been born

into the rights and privileges associated with post-civil rights America. This self-

fulfillment comes largely through individual choice, and sexual “empowerment” in these

sources and in the language of the third-wave arrives largely through the framework of

agency. This is reflective of a rhetorical, generational shift in both contemporary

consumerist practices and feminist theory away from group identity politics towards

individual difference and choice.

The right to sexual freedom and empowerment, particularly for women, is found

throughout the rhetoric of contemporary advertising, and American Apparel is no

exception. Sexualized imagery (and its partner, controversy) has proved a successful

marketing plan for the company. Partial female nudity is featured regularly in American

Apparel website ads. Breasts are often visible through the sheer fabrics of bodysuits or

barely covered by a topless model’s hair. Featured print advertisements are often taken

from an implied penetrative angle. The camera either aims upward between the legs or

focuses on the prostrate poses of its models; barely covered “money shots” are a frequent

sight on the back of American Apparel sponsored publications, such as Vice or local

alternative weeklies. The photographs are reminiscent of seventies pornography with

grainy texture and haphazard poses, lacking airbrushing and polish. The captions often

provide the model’s name, such as “Miho in Polaroids, wearing the Bullseye Print Tank
 37

Thong Bodysuit” ([Link] 10 Jan 2009), further evoking the pin-up,

porn spread implications of the imagery.

The American Apparel website allows viewers to virtually flip through dozens of

photosets, complete with pause and skip buttons. While men are occasionally represented

in print and on the websites photosets, sometimes only wearing tight briefs, women are

the overwhelmingly majority of models. In Miho’s case, the photo set, captured on

Polaroid film as stated in the caption, alternates between reclining poses on a bed and the

model standing against a wall. Another photo set, captioned “Alanna in the InvisiThong,”

features a thin brunette model wearing only the “InvisiThong” curled up on a glass table

covering her breasts with her hands. Another advertisement featured on the American

Apparel website shows a racially ambiguous woman in a body suit with her legs spread,

paired with the text “Now Open” in celebration of a new retail location.

When faced with criticisms of objectification, American Apparel is quick to cite

the fact that many of its high-ranking employees are women, and many of the women

featured in the advertisements are American Apparel employees. American Apparel’s

press team is also quick to state their evolved feelings towards female sexuality, pitting

their ideas against the “old guard” feminists whom they characterize as restricting and

dogmatic. One particularly large and controversial billboard displayed in Manhattan

depicted a woman from behind, her legs spread, wearing only American Apparel sheer

tights. The woman in question, however, was a photographer for the company and had

arranged the shot herself. After complaints from the local community, the company

replaced the billboard with a less explicit one, but not before someone had tagged “Gee, I
 38

wonder why women get raped” boldly across the top of the advertisement (Bennett

par.2).

This graffiti statement sheds light on both the meaning of “objectification” and

the significance of intent on the part of the cultural producer and participant. “Gee, I

wonder why women get raped” could be interpreted by the viewer in several ways, the

most relevant (for this project) of these interpretations being: 1) women who dress

provocatively or display their bodies publicly encourage the sexual use and abuse of their

bodies, 2) sexualized advertising encourages viewers to think of the represented identity

category, in this case “woman” as something to be used and abused. In either case,

objectification plays a role. Either the woman who chooses to portray herself as an object,

to be gazed upon (by men) through a sexualized lens, remains an object regardless of her

intent, or intent becomes irrelevant once an image is widely circulated by means of mass

advertising. These interpretations/arguments also assume that becoming an object

removes the possibility of asserting oneself as a subject in an empowering way (in fact,

this assertion becomes dangerous).

The female photographer and model who staged this photograph was aware of its

imminent wide circulation. Arguments in favor of her sexual and financial empowerment

through the advertisement privilege her agency and choice as a subject. Anticipating the

objectification of one’s own body becomes a form of subjectivity. This could be viewed

as a return to the essentialized category of “woman,” where an image takes on an altered

meaning depending on the gender affiliation of its author, or a reliance upon individual

choice as the ultimate ethical answer. Her agency through choice either overrides any

cultural interpretations of the image, or objectification is no longer a relevant claim.

 39

Either way, choice becomes the predecessor of empowerment. The photographer’s ability

to transcend the subject/object binary, under these arguments, is reflective of third-wave

conceptions of subjectivity at large, where the fragmented and shifting self may occupy

several (even contradictory) positions at once.

VII. Empowerment and the Female Consumer

Although American Apparel makes claims to a new business model, its

advertising techniques reflect larger trends within the industry. Changing ideas as to the

needs of the female consumer led to marketing strategies that emphasize choice as a form

of empowerment. Following the feminist strides made in the 1970’s regarding women’s

autonomy from men and equality in the workplace and home, advertising moved away

from formal demands towards a passive female consumer. Advertisers realized that

women no longer saw themselves reflected in the submissive forms of (white) feminine

beauty that had previously saturated the marketplace. In its place, representations of

women became more dynamic, presenting the female model and consumer as a knowing

subject. As Susan Douglas argues, this change in advertising strategies also reflected a

cultural shift towards personal decision-making and gain in the 1980’s and 1990’s:

Women’s liberation metamorphosed into female narcissism unchained as political

concepts and goals like liberation and equality were collapsed into distinctly
personal, private desires. Women’s liberation became equated with women’s
ability to do whatever they wanted for themselves, whenever they wanted, no
matter what the expense. (267-268)

These changes took place within the historical context of the Reagan era, where

individualism and economic competition merged with a-politicism: “elitism and

narcissism merged in a perfect appeal to forget the political already” (Douglas 268).

Personal empowerment became an ideological selling point, having co-opted certain

 40

elements of the women’s movement that encouraged sexual autonomy and economic

independence.

While sex had long been a selling point in advertising, changing advertising

methods began to posit both the female model and consumer as desiring individuals. As

Rosalind Gill writes:

Where once sexualized representations of women in the media presented them as

passive, mute objects of an assumed male gaze, today women are presented as
active, desiring sexual subjects who choose to present themselves in a seemingly
objectified manner because it suits their (implicitly “liberated”) interests to do so.
(42)

Agency becomes a crucial concept in sexualized marketing language, and the body acts

as a visual representation of the active, choosing subject. A toned, firm, well maintained

female body is indicative of the self-control and autonomy demanded from an admirable,

independent woman. Although regulatory practices are required for the maintenance of

such an appearance, they are framed in terms of free will and empowerment10:

A crucial aspect of both the obsessional preoccupation with the body and the shift
from objectification to sexual subjectification is that this is framed in advertising
through a discourse of playfulness, freedom and, above all, choice. (42)

As the billboard example suggests, the advertising strategies of American Apparel both

invoke the “obsessional preoccupation with the body” and the shift from sexual

objectification to subjectification.

While the models of American Apparel assume distinctively passive poses and

expressions, they are presented in the company’s rhetoric as active agents making a

choice to act sexually passive. They support the company’s mission statements to

broaden the acceptable limits of sexual desire and behavior, and in doing so are presented

10
Gill’s ideas, as well as many other feminist theorists working in this area, are indebted to the work of
Foucault in establishing the workings of self-discipline and growth in consumer culture.
 41

as transgressors of feminist “old guard” arguments. They are portrayed as bold

provocateurs, comfortable with their own bodies and the sexual desire their bodies may

invoke in others. In the case of American Apparel, although the women may appear

vulnerable, the company’s rhetoric suggests that these women are more than willing to

place themselves in this position in the name of sexy progressive marketing. In the

discursive move from objectification towards subjecthood, the models (or

model/photographers) could be said to hold agency through their active decision-making.

The agency that American Apparel models may be granted, however, is

complicated by other factors. Because the models are traditionally beautiful in most ways

(albeit their untouched presentation as “real”) they are granted a level of sexual autonomy

and assertiveness that may not be as culturally acceptable coming from a less-than-

beautifully embodied individual. The toned bodies of American Apparel are visually

evocative of control and discipline; they suggest a thinking and self-commanding model-

subject. It is a slightly deviant sexuality in its boldness, but remains within the bounds of

an acceptable desiring body. It is unlikely that their agency could be shared or granted to

all women universally if sexual empowerment through choice is culturally permitted only

for appropriately embodied, self-controlled individuals.

Vice also takes an approach to feminism that coincides with certain third-wave

ideas. One article featured in Vice’s “Girls Issue,”11 entitled “Omigawd: The Vice Guide

to Girls,” features an A-Z list of topics pertaining to girlhood. The topic chosen for the

letter “F” was feminism, and provides a definition as follows:

11
In order to explore the editorial policies of Vice and more closely examine the gender politics of its
voice, I am focusing my discussion on the “Girls Issue.” This issue explicitly addresses the topic of gender
and provides several perspectives regarding feminism and femininity.
 42

We get so mad when some nitwit says she’s not a feminist. I guess if you’re cool
with being raped all the time and having no options in life other than being a baby
machine or a prostitute, then yeah, you’re probably not a feminist […]
Somewhere along the way feminism got a bad rep, but it doesn’t mean you have
to be a sourpuss or that you can’t write tongue-in-cheek articles riddled with silly
gender stereotypes. All it means is that you don’t hate yourself. (Vice Girls 58)

In this passage, the authors reclaim the feminist title and poke fun at those who ignore the

strides made by feminist foremothers. They acknowledge earlier efforts at establishing

sexual autonomy for women and acknowledge the “bad rep” feminism acquired. It is

implied that this “bad rep” denotes a “sourpuss” attitude, most likely towards sex,

playfulness, and femininity. The authors do not claim to be post-feminist, but reduce the

various historical articulations of the movement to the simple yet extremely flexible

phrase, “all it means is that you don’t hate yourself.” This definition of feminism

coincides with common definitions of third wave feminism and its articulations of sex-

positivism, where “sexuality and its various expressive modes figure prominently”

(Waters 258). It also individualizes the meaning of feminism to the level of self-

reflection. Granted, these writers were aiming their words to a particular audience outside

of the academic Women’s and Gender Studies field, but their definition holds particular

merit in a third-wave context for this very reason.

Also featured in the “Girls Issue” is a photographic spread by artist/pornographer

Richard Kern (a frequent contributor to Vice), entitled “Best Friends,” and a how-to

article on selling dirty underwear online, “Working Girl: Selling Yourself By the Ounce.”

“Best Friends” depicts two young, white female models wearing featured fashions while

participating in activities such as playing board games, cuddling in bed, and bathing each

other. One model appears topless in several photographs. “Working Girl” features

amateur photos used by a young woman to sell undergarments, tampons, and other
 43

“products” to internet bidders. In one snapshot, she is bent forward in see-through

panties. In another, she is sitting on the toilet holding a bottle full of urine. One photo

shows an old pair of sneakers sold online to a fetishist with the caption: “I exchanged

these cheap three-year old sneakers plus a bag of used tampons for a new cute pink pair

of expensive running shoes” (Ceara 54). “Working Girl” verbally incriminates and

assaults the online purchasers but posts the digital clips meant to seduce buyers. It is

written by the expert panty-seller, Ceara, and fully asserts her control over the

interactions; she appears as both object and subject. This aligns itself with the

postmodern tenets of third-wave feminism as described by Buszek. Both articles could be

viewed as borderline pornographic, or at the very least, referencing pornographic themes

and visual techniques. Fashion and pornography are combined in “Best Friends.”

Grotesque humor, consumerism, and pornographic fetish are combined in “Working

Girl.”

The “gotcha snaps” of “Best Friends” and “Working Girl” are characteristic of a

common aesthetic used in both Vice and American Apparel. Kern’s work, as well as

American Apparel advertisements, posits the viewer as the voyeur – the stalker, the peep-

show patron, the casual walker-by. The model subject, although depicted as unaware, is

compliant with the terms of the photoshoot, as the photos are obviously staged to

promote a product. Irony is invoked through this juxtaposition of

knowledge/unawareness and its history in feminist discussions of agency and

subjecthood. This could be viewed as an intentional provocation to both previous

generations of feminists and their hostility towards the objectifying gaze, and to the

polished aesthetics of photographic journalism and advertising. It also presents itself as a

 44

more authentic form of representation, giving subcultural credit and marketing “edge” to

these sources for their presentation of the “real.”

VIII. Rhetorics of Authenticity

Authenticity is an important concept in subculture; it functions to define and

regulate membership while providing a means by which subcultural capital can be

accrued. Often, authenticity is pitted against consumerism in a subcultural context. In this

way, participants in youth subcultures, particularly in regard to punk, are encouraged to

reject the consumption of capitalist goods in order to garner credibility within their given

scenes. Certain buying practices are considered inauthentic, and as mentioned previously,

buying has often been associated with femininity. Because of this, corresponding

categories have been drawn between authenticity/inauthenticity and gendered identities.

Subcultural authenticity in early cultural studies theories carries with it strong masculine

connotations. Feminist subcultural scholars such as Angela McRobbie have worked to

challenge the masculine nature of the traditional subcultural subject by studying the

relationships between authenticity, consumerism, and gender. I hope to extend this

conversation by integrating recent feminist scholarship on the “real” bodies of

contemporary advertising and the ways in which the “other” functions as a marker of

authenticity in visual cultural texts.

Feminist scholarship, along with postmodern and poststructuralist theories, have

worked to challenge the idea of consumption as a passive act, positing instead that the

consumer produces and changes the meaning of the products and ideas that they

consume. Under this rethinking, consumption acts as a “signaling [of] desires and

aspirations yet to be achieved” (Arnold 209). Fashion, in both its mainstream and
 45

subcultural forms, has increasingly stood as an important identity-making phenomenon.

According to Rebecca Arnold, the “revision of attitudes about fashion’s potential is in

part a response to the postmodernist breakdown of overarching theories, which enabled

previously marginalized (and often female-dominated) areas like fashion to be re-

evaluated as having equal significance in reflecting, and indeed constructing, cultural

ideas and identities” (210). In its shift towards specificity, the increased concern with

fashion in feminist theory reflects third-wave cultural trends. Third-wave texts have paid

particular attention to developments in popular culture and the individual’s play with or

resistance to the trends in question. Bold individualism and autonomy are both trends in

women’s fashion advertising and in third-wave cultural products. Often, these claims to

individualism lean heavily upon larger cultural norms which place particularly high value

upon the self-directed and controlled individual.

Anne Cronin argues that consumer practices have been largely ignored in

academic consideration and “seen in derogatory terms as feminized, superficial and

frivolous” (274); this, she argues, is partly based upon the Western Enlightenment

reliance on the “rational man.” This conception of the individual emphasizes the mind as

a controlling force over the matter of the body, where the specificities of physical

characteristics are ignored or viewed as obstacles to be overcome. Traditional accounts of

the consumer point towards an easily swayed, impulsive subject, whose weakness is

demonstrated through their lack of self-control in the face of advertised goods. This

consumer is then feminized in light of historical factors such as early twentieth century

trends of the woman as the purchaser of household goods, and deeply entrenched

conceptions of the woman as the weaker sex. Women functioned as an “other” to the
 46

enlightenment’s ideal man – one whose ideas and choices remained free and self-

controlled. Cronin concludes that these ideals have translated into the goals of the

twentieth century female consumer and her role in contemporary advertising strategies

(274-275).

Cronin writes that contemporary advertisements take as their starting point “an

authentic inner self which can be expressed through consumption practices as

technologies of the self” (275). Contemporary advertising aims to explore the need for

personal expression, autonomy, and individuation, and these factors are seen as

generating from an authentic, interior space removed from consumerist demands and

social restraints. As the profile of the female consumer has shifted, the desires that

advertisements speak to have changed as well. Buying practices can function rhetorically

as a way to become one’s true self: “If personal authenticity is achieved through the

exercise of individual choice, then consumer practices can be thought to enable its

expression” (Jolles 59). The “new” female consumer, much like the “rational man,” feels

empowered by making uninfluenced decisions, and as consumerism provides new outlets

for self-discovery, purchasing choices are ways in which the individual may express their

authentic differentiation.

Not only has authenticity become a concern for the directed audience of

contemporary corporate marketing, but authentic bodies have increasingly been presented

visually in its campaigns. Marketers have been keen to the “new” female consumer’s

dissonance with the polished and toned feminine models of advertising past, and have

launched campaigns accordingly. The Dove “Real Beauty” campaigns of the late 1990’s

were one well publicized example. These advertisements featured women of various
 47

sizes, ages and ethnic backgrounds, wearing white undergarments, posed against simple

backdrops. These bodies are rhetorically posited as authentic by their categorization as

“real,” as in “Real Beauty,” and by their visual lack of artifice. This campaign was

targeted towards women who viewed themselves as intelligent and singular – wise

enough to make their own decisions about what beauty means to them, and who are

invested in the idea of a true self that is both inherently possessed yet requires work to be

found.

The market for which American Apparel aims shares a similar assumption with

other “real” campaigns – that of the consumer who has lived in or been born into a

culture imbued with feminist concerns. The female consumer of contemporary marketing

demands inclusion into the world of consumerist choice based on self-discovery. She

breaks taboos associated with prior feminine restrictions in her search for individual

realization. The early adopters of American Apparel and other Vice advertisers not only

demand this inclusion into the discourse of self-improvement, but strive for individuality

based on their desire for subcultural identification. The ways in which the visual texts of

American Apparel and Vice appropriate notions of authenticity rely both upon third-wave

redefinitions of feminine beauty and subcultural exclusivity. The discourses of third-

wave sex positivism, punk aesthetics, and urban consumerism collide and interact within

these sources to provide a model of striving-for. This model not only sends messages

about sexual desire and behavior that deviate from “mainstream” liberal attitudes but

establishes a standard of high subcultural capital. The maintenance of subcultural capital

is built upon the grounds of authenticity, and Vice and American Apparel work

symbiotically in differing ways to continually establish their authenticity.

 48

American Apparel presents its visual “realness” by eschewing professional

models and photographic techniques. Its models are “real” girls - most are employees of

the company. American Apparel models are often ethnically mixed or racially

ambiguous. The cohesion between an immigrant positive stance and the featuring of

Mexican-American and Asian-American models adds to the perceived authenticity of

their company aesthetic. It also differentiates American Apparel advertisements from

“mainstream” glossy fashion ads, whose models are still predominantly white despite the

increased inclusion of models of color. In this way, the marginal is posited as the “real,”

where the inclusion of bodies often excluded from fashion aesthetics are made front and

center. Marginality could be said to reflect the “reality” of American Apparel’s young

“early adopters,” who view themselves as both politically progressive and marginal

because of their difference from “mainstream” values. Ethnicity functions in a way to

establish a realer-than-real representation of marginality in its reflection of difference.

Even if the intended consumer does not come from a multicultural or multiracial

background, their vision of futurity includes a more integrated and ambiguous society as

a necessary result of weakening national and cultural borders. American Apparel further

builds on this sentiment in its more explicitly political ad campaigns, such as “Legalize

LA,” where the tattered Resident Alien card of founder Dov Charney is presented next to

quotes advocating flexible immigration policy.

Vice photography varies in form and technique, and similar to American Apparel

ads, often includes common and accessible formats such as 35mm snapshots and

Polaroid. Vice has featured several articles and photosets categorized by men and women

of various ethnicities and nationalities (i.e. “Mexican Twinkies” featured in “The

 49

Mexican Issue” and “Swedish Girls Talk About Their Tits” in “The Girl’s Issue”), but

does not depend heavily on racial or ethnic difference to establish its authenticity in the

way that American Apparel does. Instead, Vice employs an editorial language both

fragmented and inflammatory, aligning itself with postmodernism and punk “bricolage”

as described by Hebdige. Instead of seeking to find a singular inner truth of self through

consumerist choices, the Vice generation is seeking a model of inner non-truth – a

plethora of contradictory messages about themselves and their world which, ultimately,

add up cohesively only through their disjuncture. One common editorial technique is the

juxtaposition of disparate topics in ways that violate mainstream journalistic norms. For

example, in “The Girl’s Issue,” an expose on Female Genital Mutilation and its impact on

African immigrant women is paired with (all white) young women sharing their

memories of “The Most Popular Girl When You Were in Junior High School.” Vice

presents topics in a fragmented method, and in doing so, acts out “authentic”

representations of the conditions of postmodern life for its readers.

Vice, more often than American Apparel, represents its authenticity as a

divergence from the mainstream and associates itself with subcultural elements. “A Girl’s

Life: I Turned Normal for a Week” is an article featured within Vice’s “Girls Issue”

written by a guest columnist from Kansas City, Jaimie Warren. Warren describes herself

as “gross and weird” with “a horrible sense of style.” When approached by Vice to

become “normal” for a week, Warren shares her hypothesis that this is because she

“take[s] a lot of self-portraits [and] can come across as a pretty disgusting person” (65). A

“before” photograph is provided of Jaimie “dressed up all punk to wait tables” (64) in

garish makeup, a too-tight torn up shirt, and teased hair. The article reads as a photo
 50

essay, with average quality snapshots illustrating Warren’s transformation into a “normal

girl.” In imagining how a “normal girl” behaves and looks, Warren writes:

I pictured the kind of chick who works a boring job during the day, is kind of
quiet and opinionless, spends several hours getting ready to go out even though
she looks virtually the same when she’s done, is fit and image conscious, and
when the weekend rolls around she’s a party girl wearing Bebe clothes who gets
totally wasted with her girlfriends. (Warren 65)
Warren conceives “normal” as very connected to body image and style. Her normalizing

regimen including a trip to the salon, the nail parlor, the tanning bed, a make-up

consultant, the mall, and the gym. In contrast to her “before” picture, Warren determines

her new wardrobe should not individualize her in any way: “I […] had to look for some

seriously boring day-to-day attire – something in shades of cream and beige and fawn and

mushroom and taupe so I could blend in” (Warren 65). Her conception of a normal girl as

“fit and image-conscious” includes excessive disciplinary control over the body; normal

girls “Sweat and strain until they puke” (67).

Authenticity is framed as avoiding normalization through bodily discipline and

aesthetic conformity. This differs quite a bit from the image of disciplined (although

slightly unruly) bodies of American Apparel, but maintains the importance of

individualism. Whereas American Apparel encourages consumers to assert their

individuality through progressive buying choices reflective of sexual freedom and

industrial reform, “A Girl’s Life” promotes a sort of individualism found outside of

mainstream conformist fashion choices. “Dressed up all punk,” Jaimie was “gross and

weird,” but retained her individuality, and set this as the precedent for her authentic self.

Becoming “normal” required “blending in” and was an artificial construct she needed to
 51

adopt and perform. In the end, however, we are left with a puzzling postmodern

“both/and.” Jaimie concludes:

Overall being normal wasn’t that hard, I guess. I had fun, but probably because it
was temporary. I guess the main thing I learned is that I need to keep my new
look because I keep being told I’m better now – even by my friends who
purposely look like shit because it’s ‘in’ or whatever. I must say, I enjoy being a
girl – normal or not! (Warren 69)
IX. Conclusion: Cultural Tourism, Anhedonia, and the “Loss” of Community

True to Gelder’s descriptions of subcultural entities as urban, excessive, and

licentious, both Vice and American Apparel maintain distinctively urban roots and are

characteristically concerned with sexuality. They do not function as subcultures, but

instead reference subcultures. Their markets are the young, independent city-dwellers of

subcultural studies concern. But, instead of creating “social worlds” that harken back to a

more simplistic and less alienating form of sociality (community), these companies

encourage the individualism of contemporary marketing aims. Punk entrepreunership

may be seen as largely apolitical; its claims to the contrary are used not to mobilize or

organize groups but to sell to particular individuals. Under their guidance and in lieu of

general cultural shifts, individual choice is increasingly thought of as a political decision,

and the importance of choice is increasingly exerted through consumerist practices. The

search for the “real” in the urban social landscape, as embraced by these companies, turns

not towards community but inward towards the exploration of marginal subjecthood and

sexual expression through consumption. Ethnicity is invoked as realness, particularly in

the case of American Apparel. Presenting female nudes conveys a sense of “rawness,”

uncovering, revealing. The realness of this presentation is enhanced by an amateur

aesthetic and rejection of glossy commercial polish, as well as by the use of models

located slightly off-center from conventional advertising norms. The taboo-breaking of

 52

Vice and American Apparel lies in violating the norms of the previous generation, which

rhetorically consists of hippy feminist mothers and liberal professional fathers. Accepting

or even embracing the visual possibilities of women-as-objects establishes a generational

difference and acts as a form of rebellion. Although historical connections12 may be

drawn between subculture and pornography (Gelder 74), the Vice generation’s

relationship to pornography is contextually and historically specific, formulated in

response to earlier feminist debates and the cultural proliferation of pornographic images

in the mainstream. The power of their visual and textual rhetoric complicates and changes

the ways in which both subculture and consumerism may be conceptualized.

Authenticity is required to accumulate the subcultural capital necessary to provide

Vice and American Apparel with authority13 in the eyes of their target audiences. Being

“real” both provides them with subcultural capital and fits them into a larger consumerist

discourse where individualism and authentic difference are marketable qualities. Like

Thornton’s example of the economic benefits granted toward those with high subcultural

capital (tied explicitly to their authenticity within a scene), Vice has gained financial

success through its authority on the subject of “coolness.” Vice uses its language of not

caring as a way to establish its cultural fluency and subcultural capital, where “cultural

and subcultural capital put a premium on the ‘second nature’ of their knowledges” and

“nothing depletes capital more than the sight of someone trying too hard” (Thornton 12).

12
Connections may be drawn between the ‘hipster’ of the Vice generation and twentieth century American
beat culture, where subcultural rebellion allied itself with marginal subjects (i.e. African-American jazz
musicians) and extended the bounds of acceptable literary representations of deviant sexualities, remaining
largely introspective and privileging the masculine subject. The Vice generation could be seen as ironically
resurrecting masculine subjecthood, available to all genders, in the face of identity politics.
13
Note here the linguistic connection between “authority,” “authentic” and “authorship.”
 53

Vice effortlessly floats back and forth between high, middle-brow, and low culture, from

literary discussions to journalistic exposés to crudely executed cartoons about sex and

bodily waste. Its refusal to adopt a political stance and general air of provocation reflect a

punk subcultural ambivalence (see Hebdige); through this, “trying too hard” is avoided

and subcultural capital is accrued.

The presence of female nudity and sexual expression continues and extends a

discourse of revealing that connects itself to a search for “truth.” Its taboo-breaking

formula may be considered a revealing of the underlying “dirtiness” of contemporary

urban life, the truth that exists beyond the euphemisms of mainstream liberal media and

standard fashion advertising. “Real” women’s bodies, exemplified by women of color,

women with subcultural markings (such as tattoos or ‘hip’ hairstyles), and an unedited

aesthetic, come to stand in as a site of truth. I argue that, through its connection to the

language of the authentic, the revealing of women’s bodies has the potential to increase

subcultural authority. This subcultural authority thereby increases the economic viability

of companies such as Vice and American Apparel in the urban “young adopter” market.

The revealing of women’s bodies in the context of these sources, however,

potentially legitimizes forms of cultural tourism which continue to exoticize and “other”

certain bodies. American Apparel’s use of “ethnic” models could be seen as both

progressive in its embrace of difference and/or as a continuation of colonialist themes of

knowledge and power. The assumed primary readership of Vice and the typically “early

adopter” of American Apparel’s concern is white and middle class (or someone born into

a middle-class socio-economic stratum). Vice taps into the boredom and disillusionment

of contemporary youth fitting within this demographic. As Vice UK editor Andy Capper
 54

states, "We are bored and disenchanted by what is served up to our generation" (Capper

quoted in Philby par. 8). bell hooks writes that the solution for “anhedonia – the inability

to feel pleasure” (36) in American culture is often sought through the incorporation of

otherness and difference in consumerist practices:

The commodification of Otherness has been so successful because it is offered as

a new delight, more intense, more satisfying than normal ways of doing and
feeling. Within commodity culture, ethnicity becomes spice, seasoning that can
liven up the dull dish that is mainstream white culture. (21)

Consuming the Other, as hooks describes it, not only entails the buying of goods, but

sexual desire. The American Apparel consumer and advertising viewer is encouraged not

only to buy their product, but to enhance their otherness through consuming. Colonialist

and racist histories are undermined by desiring “not to make the Other over in one’s

image but to become the Other” (hooks 25). As a possibility provided by hooks’ logic,

these consumers, “not at all attuned to those aspects of their sexual fantasies that

irrevocably link them to collective white racist domination [..] believe their desire for

contact represents a progressive change in white attitudes towards non-whites” (hooks

24). By transferring elements of ethnic otherness onto oneself through sexual desire, the

American Apparel consumer avoids confrontation with histories of white domination and

colonialist exoticism. This desiring to transform through the sexual experience of

otherness also lends credibility to an identity outside of the mainstream hegemonic

culture:

[the] willingness to transgress racial boundaries within the realm of the sexual
[…] eradicates the feat that one must always conform to the norm to remain
“safe.” Difference can seduce precisely because the mainstream imposition of
sameness is a provocation that terrorizes. (hooks 23)
 55

This is not to suggest that sexual encounters with non-white or non-mainstream bodies

place one within a subculture, but their motivating desire may share with subculture the

desire to thwart alienation and operate outside of (what is perceived as) the hegemonic,

white mainstream. Transformation through desire, as described by hooks, shares the

flexibility and temporality of Irwin’s “social worlds,” where “to seek an encounter with

the Other does not require that one relinquish forever one’s mainstream positionality”

(hooks 23). The experience of deviation from the mainstream, in this case, is highly

personalized and based on consumption; no visible social community is imagined or

constructed.

The “Vice Guide to Travel” series of DVDs and web clips is an extension of

Vice’s prioritization of the marginal and dangerous. Promotional copy for the series

reads:

In the Vice Guide To Travel, correspondents from Vice magazine are dispatched
around the world to visit the planet's most dangerous and weird destinations. We
went to such far-flung locales as the Pygmy villages of the Congo, the radioactive
ruins of Chernobyl, and the bomb-pocked refugee camps of Beirut so that you
never, ever have to go for yourself as long as you live. (“Vice Guide to Travel”
par. 1-2)

“Realness” is emphasized through the choices of “tourist” locales presented by this

guide. Truthfulness is associated with danger, war, and distance – the places where

mainstream tourist guides would not dare to venture or promote. Sightseeing becomes an

experience of the authentic. Dean MacCannell writes that “sightseeing is a kind of

collective striving for a transcendence of the modern totality, a way of attempting to

overcome the discontinuity of modernity, of incorporating its fragments into unified

experience” (MacCannell 13). Sightseeing, in this sense, shares with subculture a

response to the alienation of urbanity and the fragmented conditions of postmodernity.

 56

According to MacCannell, it becomes a substitute for “authentic” forms of social

gratification and interaction: “the generalized anxiety about the authenticity of

interpersonal relationships in modern society is matched by certainty about the

authenticity of touristic sights” (MacCannell 14). This idea is similar to the path led by

Tonnies in distinguishing “community” from “society,” where community becomes the

authentic form of social life in opposition to the artificial and mechanical constructs of

urbanity and bureaucratic society. However, MacCannell allows for the substitution of

images and ideas in place of authentic social structure; actual community becomes less

important than the nostalgic idea of community or authentic social relationships

presented by touristic attractions. He writes: “The actual act of communion between

tourist and attraction is less important than the image or the idea of society that the

collective act generates” (MacCannell 15). It is not necessary, and in fact not encouraged,

for viewers of the “Vice Guide to Travel” to actually visit the attractions featured in its

videos. These tourist videos provide an idea of the “real” that challenges the mainstream,

meant to shock a generation of young travelers out of its disjointed and disillusioned

stupor. The images of war-torn Bosnia and Pygmy villages in the Congo function as

representatives of the “dirty truth” and “other” that is concealed in mainstream Western

life and the baby boomer media. MacCannell warns us, however, that the search for

authenticity may only provide us with its further alienating opposite:

The dialectics of authenticity insure the alienation of modern man even within his
domestic contexts. The more the individual sinks into everyday life, the more he
is reminded of reality and authenticity elsewhere. This structure is, I think, the
source of the social fiction that the individual’s personal experience is the center
of this, our most depersonalized historical epoch. (MacCannell 160)
 57

Although it agrees in many ways with Rorty’s postmodern ironist, Vice still uses the

language of “Truth” in certain contexts to prove its viability. The move from irony to

uncovering demonstrates the rhetorical shift from reaction to articulation in the

company’s policies, but does so at the cost of equating the “other” with the authentic

while still positing “community” against the inauthenticity of Western “society” in a

variety of ways.

I agree with Sarah Thornton in her critical assessment of Hebdige regarding the

breakdown of the dichotomy between mainstream and subculture, as the two are integral

in the formation and intelligibility of one another. This breakdown, however, creates a

somewhat paradoxical situation. Eliminating the boundaries of subculture and

consumerism integrated young women and femininity into subcultural discourse (see

McRobbie), but could also potentially be used to young women’s disadvantage by

channeling the desire for subcultural belonging into individualized consumerism and

away from community and solidarity.

The concept of community as an area in which fuller participation and more

opportunities become available for marginalized groups, such as women, has a history in

popular music and subculture, particularly in punk movements. Many of the first female

instrumental acts in rock began as D. I. Y. efforts with little musical training. Helen

Reddington reflects on the experience of the local growth of punk rock in its early days in

England, describing “an enabling attitude towards young women who wanted to play in

bands” (242) established through instrument loans and friend networks. Helen

Reddington also describes the way in which the locality of punk scenes and communities

was an opportunity for increased subcultural participation for women: “Undoubtedly, the
 58

ability to be a ‘big fish in a small pond,’ with a small a loyal audience of friends and

fellow band members, made it easier for young women to participate in rock music”

(248). The concept of DIY community as a local support network, in the case of early

punk, allowed women the chance to participate in formerly limited aspects of music

subcultures, such as performing as instrumentalists and holding women-only shows. This

sense of community was also extended during the Riot Grrrl movement.

So what does the increasing conglomeration of subculture and consumerism mean

for feminism, particularly if it entails a move away from “community” within

subcultures? If subcultural communities could be seen as sites of feminist, social and

artistic development, would their disappearance constitute a loss for contemporary

feminisms? The move toward individualism within feminist ideologies has been

contested for its lack of solidarity and its potential failure in accomplishing political

goals. These political goals become more important for those who have not only been

marginalized by a patriarchal society, but by earlier articulations of feminist movements

as well. Framing the “third-wave” as a move away from feminist community also

assumes that this community did indeed exist at some point; this ignores critiques based

on the exclusion of women of color, working-class women, lesbians, transgendered

individuals, immigrants, and “third-world” nationals from earlier feminist groupings.

“Community,” then, appears as a highly contestable concept within feminist movements

– “second-wave”, “third-wave” and in-between. “Community” has also been challenged

as a formulation of authentic sociality in contrast to “society,” having been exposed as

contingent and context-specific to postmodernist culture itself. Its decline in importance,

then could be seen as either a increasing lack of resistance to postmodern conditions or as

 59

a progression away from easy and romantic solutions to the economic and spiritual crises

of late capitalism.

The perceived loss of subcultural or feminist “community” does not necessitate

mourning, as “community” is a flexible concept in itself and serves as a reaction to a

specific set of social, economic and political conditions. As the nature of consumerism,

marketing, and social relationships change, so does the meaning of “community” as a

useful concept. Perhaps Vice and American Apparel are indeed more “honest” in their

acknowledgement of changing cultural trends and desires – their success would attest to

their nerve-hitting within the Western youth market. They rhetorically acknowledge the

fact that subcultural resistance and entrepreneurship may operate together, something that

feminist theory has also worked to elucidate. As much as these companies may be viewed

as forward-thinking, however, they also retain some potentially harmful vestiges of past

colonial and patriarchal ideologies. Although Vice and American Apparel may purport to

employ these linguistic and visual reminders ironically, it is worth considering that they

are perhaps operating in a political and social context that is not quite ready to divest

itself of discrimination based on identity factors such as gender, sexuality, nationality, or

race. The authority granted to punk entrepreneurs such as these through the acquisition of

subcultural capital places them in the unique position of being both forces of resistance

and acquiescence among Western youth markets.

 60

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Biography

Maria Jenkins is a Master’s candidate at the department of Women’s and Gender

Studies at Roosevelt University. Her research interests include gender and subculture,

feminist visual and critical studies, and popular culture analysis. She received a Bachelor

of Fine Arts through Kent State University in 2005 and studied critical literary theory and

conceptual art at the University of Leicester in Leicester, UK. Jenkins is also a Chicago

area songwriter and performer.