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Queercore: The distinct identities of subculture

College Literature, Feb 1997 by Michael du Plessis, Kathleen Chapman

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A crucial component in the production of a counter-public sphere is the multitude of fanzines which, in the late 1980s and early 1990s, defined "queerness" in highly oppositional ways. Fanzines originated in the do-it-yourself ethos of punk (circa 1976) and circulated expressions of fandom, often vehemently opinionated, to establish networks of the like-minded (Burchill and Parsons 88-89, Austin, LaBruce). As their name indicates, "queerzines" compounded punk fandom with a simultaneous refusal of heterosexuality and dominant models of lesbian and gay identity (Viegener, "Only Haircut" 11617). Here, for example, is the domain that the Toronto `zine BIMBOX opened for its addressees: You are entering a gay and lesbian-free zone .... BIMBOX has transformed into an unstoppable monster, hell-bent on forcably [sic] removing lesbians and gays from non-heterosexual society.

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Effective immediately BIMBOX is at war with lesbians and gays. A war in which modern queer boys and queer girls are united against the prehistoric thinking and demented self-serving politics of the above-mentioned scum. (BIMBOX n.p.)

Obviously, the "modern queer boys and queer girls" are a very different constituency from the vague "queer" hailed by Garbage's song or suggested by Warner. The BIMBOX harangue continues: BIMBOX hereby renounces it's [sic] past use of the term lesbian and/or gay in a positive manner. This is a civil war against the ultimate evil, and consequently we must identify us and them in no uncertain terms, a task which will prove to be half the battle.

In what has become a notorious statement, the collective issuing the `zine assert confidently: "FACT: All victims of gay bashing DESERVE what they get. All victims of queer bashing are unfortunate cases of mistaken identity" (n.p.). Thus the lines are drawn in a symbolic battle over positions in a field of cultural production; the outside is vituperatively imagined to create an inside, a core. As BIMBOX stresses, "we must identify us and them in no uncertain terms."

This establishment of an inside and an outside, an "us" versus a "them," is articulated most forcefully in the term "queercore" ("homocore" is sometimes used synonymously with the former, Smith). In the late 1970s and early 1980s, as punk mutated on the West Coast, it increasingly authenticated itself as "hardcore." Minimalist thrash, hardcore music is characterized by rapid-fire, loud, four/four bursts of chords with ultra-fast, barely comprehensible vocals, and is accompanied by slam dancing, moshing, and crowd surfing during highly valued live performances, which constitute the center of the core. Variations of this musical genre, such as speed metal and grindcore, can trace their lineages back to the hardcore scene (Goldthorpe, Belsito, and Davis). In creating a compound of "queer" or "homo" and "hardcore," queercore and homocore not only signaled their allegiances to post-punk subculture, but also positioned themselves as equally distinct from lesbian and gay culture and the masculinist tendencies of hardcore punk (namaste). Thus, an issue of JDs presented itself as a "soft core zine for hard core kids . . . queer core for hard core kids" (n.p.). Soft, hard or queer, the central issue is the core.

Queercore: The distinct identities of subculture

College Literature, Feb 1997 by Michael du Plessis, Kathleen Chapman

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