Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Identifying with the Rebel of the Past

2014; Éditions Mélanie Seteun; Volume: 11 : 1; Linguagem: Inglês

10.4000/volume.4324

2117-4148

Kimberly Kattari,

Asian Culture and Media Studies

This article explores the ways in which the subcultural community of rockabilly revivalists use music as a vehicle for expressing their nostalgia for a specific moment in the 1950s, when rockabilly reflected a countercultural rebellion. As most of the participants feel marginalized and alienated from mainstream culture, they perform their identification with the rockabilly rebel of the 1950s, and demonstrate their refusal of modern culture through their attentiveness to the music, cars, and fashion of the past. Drawing on ethnographic research, this article explores the contradictory tendencies of nostalgic subcultures which can be simultaneously regressive and progressive, reactionary and rebellious, as subversive values of the past can help improve present and future experiences.