Helene Ott

In interviews, Araki has addressed the connections between his filmmaking style, ongoinginfluences of the punk movement, and thesomewhat limited opportunities for realizingradical/subversive intentions in a highly commercialized society. As he explained in a 1997interview, ". .. my sister became an accountant, my brother became a computer... See more

other words, punks consciously created a musical and visual aestheticthat distinguished them from mainstream expectations, appropriating established musicalstyles (e.g., rock) and fashion styles (e.g.,ripped t-shirts covered with profanity, guerillastyle outfits, modified school uniforms, outrageously dyed hair) in order to subvert theirmainstream... See more

k music, its makers,and its followers challenged hegemonic conceptions of ideology and social order, producing a potentially powerful form of resistance todominant social groups and establishments, aswell as to repressive social expectations andgender roles

s media scholar Richard Campbellexplains, punk music, which "has generallybeen characterized by loud, unpolished distortions, a jackhammer beat, primal vocal screams,crude aggression, and defiant or comic lyrics, ... attempted to recover the early amateurish and offensive energies of rock and roll" (91).Punk music was identifiable by its... See more

Over time, as has been the case with somany avant-garde cultural phenomena, thepunk aesthetic-which initially caused socialoutrage and hysteria both in the United Statesand abroad-was incorporated to a substantialdegree into mainstream culture. The subcultural signs of the punk movement (fashions,songs, etc.) were soon converted into massproduced... See more

e has used the plasticity of the mediumto explore a consistent set of thematic motifs:rootless teens (with absent and/or abusiveparents), desperate to connect with another,who attempt to come to terms with their angstand their sexuality in a culture that emphasizessex, drugs, and (hard/alternative) rock and roll.

raki's oeuvre:"pointless[ness], boredom, futility, nothingness, hamster wheel [reality], no fucking ideawhere I'm going, emptiness, no meaning, nofuture, no past, just a present that's reallyfucked up, what difference does it make, alienation, stagnation, detach[ment], betray[al],nothing matters" (