Welcome to the world of ghouls
Subculture, also known as a counterculture or non-mainstream culture, refers to a niche culture in relation to a certain mainstream culture. Subculture is mainly composed of teenagers and young people.
Although the concept of “subculture” was first coined by American sociologists in the mid-1940s, in fact, the Department of Sociology at the University of Chicago had already been conducting related research prior to this, simply without using this term. As the earliest institution to systematically study subcultural groups, the Department of Sociology at the University of Chicago began systematic research on subcultural groups such as immigrants and delinquent youth in the 1920s, and by the 1960s, it had ultimately formed the renowned Chicago “deviant subculture” studies.
By the mid-1970s, some scholars of the Birmingham School had integrated Gramsci’s theory of cultural hegemony, Lévi-Strauss’s theory of bricolage, Althusser’s theory of ideological subject formation, and Barthes’s method of mythological semiotic analysis, viewing ‘subculture’ as the ‘meaningful forms’ through which a minority group represents everyday life, and as the symbolic system—’style’—that constitutes the specific lifestyle of a minority group.
By the end of the 20th century and the beginning of this century, the Western academic community had introduced terms such as ‘post-subcultures studies’ or ‘post-subcultural theory’. The concept of ‘post-subculture’ was proposed to explain the various identity confusions experienced by subcultural groups in the ever-changing and complex era of new media and the increasingly pervasive culture of symbolic consumption, such as virtual community identities in the global network era and the dissolution of resistance consciousness under the pervasive influence of consumerism. Influenced by postmodernist thought, these scholars reached the basic judgment that the clear distinctions of dual aspects such as global/local, virtual/real, commercial/independent, and everyday/marginal during the Chicago and Birmingham school periods have become more interwoven and mixed in today’s era of symbolic consumption, presenting a highly varied cultural landscape.
The emergence of Taiwan’s “small fresh” culture is related to the economic “bottleneck” that Taiwan experienced around the year 2000. While the public reflected calmly on what had been lost in the pursuit of money, young people turned to seeking small pleasures in life, paying attention to their own living conditions and the meaning of existence, aspiring to the tranquillity of everyday life, seeking a natural, simple, and fresh petty-bourgeois lifestyle, and were more willing to believe that “happiness” does not come from accumulating wealth, but from cultivating self-worth and life.
Female subculture in Taiwan is generally reflected in creative works centred on themes of growth, as well as women’s confusion about sexual orientation and the expression of same-sex friendships. Through women’s coming-of-age stories, it illustrates the awakening of female sexual consciousness, emotional maturity, and subtle psychological changes. While showing the physiological and psychological changes during female development, it also presents women’s pursuit of spiritual independence and personal perfection, contemplating the social reality of women in the ongoing process of self-discovery. Films created by a new generation of female directors particularly reflect the stylistic characteristics of this female subculture.
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