Punk is Dead: The Body-Message That Denies Meaning

 “God save the Queen, the fascist regime/They made you a moron, a potential H-bomb/God save the Queen, she ain’t no human being/There is no future in England’s dream/No future, no future, no future for you…”  (“God Save the Queen” – The Sex Pistols)

“Having little access to dominant means of discourse, punks displayed their disaffiliation and their subcultural identity through such adornment [tattoos and piercings], which was for them an accessible and direct channel of communication.” (Wojcik)

It has been argued that the tattooed body exists as a coded means of identification; that ink-stained skin serves an explicit communicational function for members of a particular cultural subset.  This discourse is most explicit in texts based on the  various punk movements of the late eighties and early nineties.  It has been argued, quite redundantly, that the tattoo exists as a means by which members of the same cultural group can identify or relate with one another, while distinguishing themselves from the larger populous.  This is where the tattoo is most often attributed its subversive connotation:

This early punk subculture was characterized by anticommercialism, antiromanticism, and a lack of distinction between musicians and fans.  it also quickly became renowned for a style of adornment calculated to disturb and outrage: dyed hair, studded leather jackets, torn clothing, bondage wear, profaned religious articles, tattooing, clothing defiled with obscenities and swastikas, and safety pins piercing the nose, lips, and cheeks (Wojcik 7)

The body as the physical as a site of social or cultural distinction is not an uncommon image in literature and film.  Much has been written or filmed in reference to the specifica physical characteristics of particular groups.  In the film Spartacus, gladiators associate with other gladiators by means of a traditional hair-cut.  Literature on  tribal cultures, repeatedly identifies the significance of face paint or piercings, and their communciational functions.  Twenty years ago, according to Sweetman, tattoos were a unifying attribute of a particular social class.  Sweetman’s discourse is provocative due, in part, on his insistence on placing the body into discourse.  Like Rotman, it appears that he is disinterested in those distinctions which perpetuate a void between mind and body; on arguments which do more damage than good, as they connote something to be achieved rather than something which already exists.  It is not that Sweetman is focusing on the cultural messages of a particular social group, the oppressed/the working classes, but rather, that he is suggesting a certain bodily connection. The corporeal informs.  The body, as the primary means of interaction, is, inevitably, a significant site for communication.

Despite many positive efforts to insert the body back into the cultural discourse, it is quite evident that tattoos no longer provoke the same connotations they once elicited.  The social dispersement and diversification of tattoos propelled the impotency of this ”art form.”  That is, the tattoo is no longer a suitable means of differentiation between different social classes.  One can no longer, effectively interpret the tattoo as a symbol of unity or camaraderie, as it has permeated nearly every social stratum.  Ironically, it is as though a certain body system has anticipated the move of the socially repressed or disadvantaged body.  What better way to denigrate social unity than to take on the very body codings of a particular class?  This is not an issue of ideology, but, rather a move intimately affiliated with the body.  Perhaps, it is this, in turn, that propels the disembodiment of discourse concerning different social groups. 

Although it is evident that tattoos no longer exist as viable ear marks of a particular social subset, the ramifications of this form of boding coding are still, as of yet, rarely considered.  It is very possible that the very system on which the tattoo is predicated debilitates cultural connotations.  One could, quite effectively, argue that the tattoo in and of itself, is actually debilitating to culture: 

“If it is the case that cultural identity relies on boundaries as ideological and psychological structures designed to individuate the self, dress would seem to challenge boundaries.  It frames the body and insulates private fantasies from the Other, yet it simultaneously connects the individual self to the collective Other and fashions those fantasies on the model of a public spectacle, thus questioning the myth of a self-contained identity.” (xvi) 

If the dress, in this case the tattoo, is both boundary and non-boundary, both self and non-self, it might be argued that the tattoo also questions the myth of the self-contained identity.  Since cultural identity relies on boundaries that are quite fluid, the tattoo effectively disrupts cultural associations.  Here, the tattoo can be understood to contribute to the very denegration of its meaning.