Goth is easy enough to dis, what with the spooky stuff it seems to entail, but studies of late seem show it in a much more positive light, funny as that might sound. I stumbled across this review in the Chronicle of Higher Education while browsing through Arts and Letters Daily. Professor Mikita Brottman reviews Contemporary Gothic, by Catherine Spooner (Reaktion Books), and Goth: Undead Subculture, edited by Lauren M.E. Goodlad and Michael Bibby (Duke University Press) and considers some of the reasons why goth, unlike other 'youth' cultures, refuses to die. (Yes, I am aware of how many jokes and puns are just waiting to be made there.) Some snippets:
Goth obviously emerged from punk, but punk didn't last. The same is true of most subcultures: Hippies are old hat; skinheads have come and gone; grunge is yesterday's news. Why does goth alone remain undead?
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According to Spooner's book, the consistent allure of goth lies in the way it achieves a balance between different kinds of contradictions — "the grotesque and incorporeal, authentic self-expression and campiness, mass popularity and cult appeal, comfort and outrage." Bibby and Goodlad put it differently, pointing out that goth has a "complex relation to subculture," or, in the words of one contributor, the self-proclaimed Modern Goth Rebecca Schraffenberger, "there are as many ways of being goth as there are goths out there." In other words, goth can be anything you want it to be, from the theme of tonight's party to an entire way of life.
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There are goth clubs and pubs, goth movies (anything by David Lynch, Tim Burton, or Ed Wood seems to fit the bill), goth jewelry and fashion, goth-friendly home décor, even goth lingerie. Within its own confines, too, goth embraces contradictions; it contains multitudes. Hair can be long or short, flat or spiky; shoes can be heavy boots or light slippers with pointy toes. And while individual goths can be totally asexual or polymorphously perverse, goth itself breeds peacefully with other subcultures, producing such independent offspring as gothabilly, doom metal, gothic Lolita, cybergoth, and goth 'n' roll.
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...Anyone can be a goth; you don't need to run in a pack (goths are traditionally loners). And, as teenage subcultures go, it's unusually quiet and friendly. Goths are generally hygienic; their piercings are clean and discreet; they don't stick dirty safety pins through their noses or ride around on motorbikes spitting and swearing.