Dark Canon

Abstract

The chapter discusses the concept of subcultural canon, adopted—and adapted—from the field of fun studies to account for the consistent distinctiveness of the subculture. The subcultural canon is described as the result of steadily ongoing practices of assemblage and negotiation between members of the subculture, and as open and flexible, with some subcultural resources being canonised or de-canonised during the 1980s. These practices had their own logic (like internal validation, when a canonised cultural resource, like a band quoted another artist, book or movie) and their own mediators, like DJs, fanzine or music shops. Three different kinds of cultural resources are addressed in depth: music; literature, cinema and the arts; style. Regarding music, two different conceptualisations of the canon, both present in the interviews, are jointly addressed: a retrospective, closed and stabilised view of the canon and an in-the-making, open and processual view of the canon (or rather, of the process of canonisation) as perceived at the time. The controversial status of the neofolk sub-canon is also discussed for its political implications, in particular within the music club enactment. Regarding literature, cinema and the arts, the chapter in-depth explores the logics of internal validation for the assemblage of the trans-medial subcultural canon. Finally, style is interrogated from the standpoint of the different attitudes of the dark enactments towards commercialisation, and in its relationship with gender identity.