MAPACA

Mid-Atlantic Popular &
American Culture Association

In his first inaugural address in 1981, former California governor and B-movie actor Ronald Reagan proclaimed that it was “morning in America.” Reagan envisioned a country that would emerge from the demoralization of Watergate and the Hostage Crisis to recapture its mythic honor and its glory. Reflecting the old-school Hollywood style the new president, pop culture became more trimmed and glamorous, and pop music stressed visual appeal through spectacular MTV videos. However, this bright, upbeat turn in politics and popular culture couldn’t hide the realities of inflation, inequality, and disaffected youth, who rejected the folksy patriotism of Reagan and resented the repressive conservatism of the Moral Majority. This resentment is most dramatically represented by the music, lyrics, events, and visual texts of hardcore punk rock. Hardcore’s chaotic fervor has been traced primarily to the breakneck tempos of its songs and the broken bones of its moshpits, but less well appreciated is the gallows humor of its lyrics and album art. Though hardcore’s earnest Washington DC origins developed into a straightedge subculture, the California strain of hardcore did not take itself, or anyone else, seriously. Generating laughter from violence, death, psychosis, and oppression, the west coast version of hardcore undermined the pretensions of military and corporate power structures, while boosting the morale of the social deviants that the eighties rejected. My presentation will highlight the dark, grotesque satire of hardcore bands like Flipper, Suicidal Tendencies, the Angry Samoans, and the Dead Kennedys to underscore the distinctive manner in which comedy through rock music can act as a form of political and cultural resistance.