(in Cool Places: Geographies of Youth Cultures, Routledge, 1998. pp 101-118)
Leonard challenges the notions of youth (typically male) sub-cultural activities existing primarily on the street (place) by focusing specifically on the production and distribution of Riot Grrrl zines as a networked operation that exists inside the home – thus the private space of the bedroom “becomes a site of activity”(107). The production of these zines usually involves just “pen+paper+photocopier” and can contain a variety of topics. Typically the distribution for these zines operated in a sort of mailing list fashion – or were distributed at punk shows (106) – and were produced in small editions. In this way the movement attempted to stay underground, not wanting popular media to represent them or their views. By not being sold publicly these distribution methods encouraged forms of engagement with the zine and their writers [also meants national/international participation: ie not bound by ones location...and this reminds me of online social networks...]. (108) Leonard mentions this regarding e-zines: “Whilst the e-zine has the potential to reach a very wide audience, it does so at the loss of individuality, lacking the personal qualities of paper zines.” (103) Leonards analysis involves examining zines’ as an alternative space for interaction and expression qualities and quotes many of the zines themselves revealing the way the zines were used to insert female, individual voice into history, the scene and contemporary displays of fashion and beauty. “By writing themselves into the text, through relating personal experiences and concerns, riot grrrls have expanded the discursive parameters of the fanzine.” (107) These differences existing in each zine is celebrated by Leonard as it complicates traditional notions of youth subcultures, especially via the lack of a central location and a “unified progression.” (111) The existence of the many pages about riot grrrl on the internet is, in Leonards explanation, a further complication of any “notions of a unified community” [this is tres obvious if one just googles "riot grrrl"] and in contrast to physical zines, the WWW is a space where a certain amount of anonymity is present and thus allows for an open space for women to discuss/express themselves. (113)
“Using riot grrrl as a case study it will consider how a sub-culture can maintain a sense of ‘community’ when its participants do not meet in the collective space of a club or music venue, but are broadcast over a wide geographical area. This chapter will argue that sub-cultures should not be considered unified groups tied to a locality, creed or style but as dynamic, diverse, geographically mobile networks.” (101)
things she mentioned & i learned about riot grrrl:
- most members decided to be straight edge (102)
- many older women did identify with the movement (102)
- “Riot grrrl is a feminist network which developed in the underground music communities of Olympia, Washington, and Washington, D.C.”
- “..Kathleen Hanna, singer for Bikini Kill, states that the name ‘riot grrrl’ was inspired in 1991 by the Mount Pleasant riots in Washington, D.C.” (102)
- “During that time, Jean Smith, a woman we know who’s a writer and musician, said something like, ‘We need a girl riot, too”….At the same time, Allison and Molly from Bratmobile were also in DC, and they heard this and said, “We’re going to start a fanzine called Riot Grrrl”. (Hanna, quoted in Juno, 1996:97-98)” (103)
- “Zine” is a shortened form of “Fanzine” (earlier: science fiction enthusiasts, later: punk fanatics) (103)
- “Sara, writer of Out of the Vortex, comments: ‘Only by controlling the medium do we control the message….for this reason zines are extraordinarily unique and powerful political tools’ (quoted in Vale, 1996: 168)” (105)
- 1992 – National Press creates a disruption in the underground nature of riot grrrl (109)
- “Those involved in riot grrrl stress that no one viewpoint or cultural product (be it a zine or record) can be taken as representative or indicative of the whole.” (110) Here Leonard offers the description of riot grrrl as “multiplicitous” and continues from this notion of multiplicity into the comparison of Deleuze and Guattari’s “notion of a rhizome”. She concluded by examining the nature of riot grrrl on the internet and relates the many many offshoots of using the term riot grrrl (or just grrrl) back to the rhizome.
- riot grrrl mostly consisted of middle-class white women
“In spatial terms, Deleuze and Guattari ally the rhizomatic network with a map: ‘the rhizome pertains to a map that must be produced, constructed, a map that is always detachable, connectable, reversible, modifiable, and has multiple entryways and exits and its own lines of flight’ (Deleuze and Guattari, 1998:21)” (116)
Resources to Consider:
M. Brake The Sociology of Youth Culture and Youth Subcultures: Sex and Drugs and Rock ‘n’ Roll?
L. Code Rhetorical Spaces: Essays on Gendered Locations
Deleuze & Guattari A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia
A. Juno Angry Women in Rock, Volume One
V. Vale Zines! Volume One
P. Willis Profane Culture
