The Mods Presentation
- 2. The Mod is a British subculture formed around the 1950’s. The defining characteristics of the Mod is their interest in American Soul and traditional R’n’B, their vintage and well- tailored clothing style usually associated with brands such as Fred Perry and Ben Sherman, and lastly their choice of transportation which is commonly the motor scooter.
- 3. It’s said that the first real evolution of the Mod originated in the 1950’s after the second world war, with a group of working class London-based men wanting to be different and avoid the mainstream views and perspectives in terms of music, fashion etc. much like all subcultures do. A main starting point for the creation of the Mod subculture was their interest in the American modern jazz scene including artists such as Miles Davis and John Coltrane. It’s also said that being a Mod didn’t depend on your skin colour or gender, but just depended on your views and what you stood for, your music taste and your fashion sense. Britain’s mod movement began to gain momentum in the 60’s and by 1964 it had exploded, with Quadrophenia which was made in 1979, being based in the year of 1964.
- 4. Whilst people were convinced that the Mods and the Rockers were great enemies, the real enemies in this clash of subcultures is the Media. Although both groups had their differences, the Mods being neat, having a different music taste and generally taking more care with how they presented themselves in comparison to the Rockers, the Media made it into a much bigger situation which made people fear the Mods. This conflict started in 1964 when both the Mods and the Rockers went down to Brighton purely for a holiday and it was unintentional that they both went at the same time. It’s fair to say that a personality clash may have triggered off this long battle, but the Media didn’t help the situation but actually egged it on, by paying the Mods and the Rockers a fair amount of money to fight each other, solely so that they could produce coverage in the news to get publicity and get a main headline that they know people will be interested in and fear, effectively fearing the subcultures by presenting them in a negative light.
- 5. The Media had a big impact on how the Mods were portrayed, particularly in the whole Mods and Rockers ordeal. The headline ‘Battle of Brighton’ was overly exaggerated, as the media were very much encouraging the fights to happen, with members of the media ‘paying the mods a fiver to throw a deck chair at the Rockers’ and then ‘paying the Rockers a tenner to fight the Mods’. So although there was undoubtedly conflict between the two groups, the Media definitely had a big part to play by speering it on. This is evident as once the violence was dying down, the Media struggled to obtain and produce news stories relating to conflict between the two so ended up displaying deceptive headlines, and subheadings such as ‘Violence’ when the article itself didn’t contain any violent-related acts. Newspaper writers also started associating Mods and Rockers with typical social issues to make them public enemies, such as teenage pregnancies, contraceptives, amphetamines, and violence.