"Ama Ben Gerçekten Kahrolası Güzel Temizlerim": `True Detective' ve Motosiklet Alt Kültürünün Gösteri ve Yanıltmaca Olarak Temsili

Yıl 2014, Sayı: 2, 67 - 88, 05.08.2016

Öz

Bu makale alt kültürlere ait derin literatürden yararlanarak `True Detective' isimli televizyon serisinde kanunsuz motosiklet kulüplerinin nasıl sahnelendiğini ve bu tip önerilen temsiliyetlerin gerçekten etkin bir şekilde bu grupların 'alternatif hegemonyalarını' (Marksizm ve Edebiyat 111) nasıl zayıflattığını tartışacaktır. Bu serinin yönetmenleri, toplumumuza ve medya kuruluşlarımıza hitap eden ve bunların destekledikleri normatif varsayımlara karşı çıkmak yerine, bu alt kültür ile ilgili önyargıları ve/veya yanlış kanıları motosiklet sürücülerini hem karikatüre ederek hem de doğru olmayan simgelemeyle güçlendirecek birleştirici bir metodoloji ile uğraşmaktadırlar. Madem ki yönetmenler bizim farz edilen alt kültürel yanılsamaların, veya `maskelerin' (Pizzolato) arkasına gizlenmiş bireysel kimliklerine yoğunlaşmamızı istiyor, bizim bunun yerine Williams'ın adlandırdığı gönüllü "oyalama tarafından oyalanmadan oyalandım" (O'Connor 5) durumunu değerlendirmeli, ve bu temsillerin arka planında meydana gelen sınıf çatışmasını anlamalıyız. Bu muhtelif 'alternatif ve muhalif oluşumun' manidar ilkeleri ve uygulamalarını çalışarak, ve bu grupların değer ve pratiklerinin nasıl çarptırıldığını inceleyerek bu makale motosiklet kulüplerini tasvirinden yola çıkarak `True Detective'in izleyicilere sunduğu 'özgün' bir yıkım imgesi olarak ortaya çıkarmasını ve bu gruplarla ilgili baskın ideolojik fikirleri güçlendirmesini sorgulayacaktır. Son olarak, bu programın alt kültür temsillerinin Amerika'da ırk, toplumsal cinsiyet ve sınıf ile ilgili daha geniş bir tartışmayı nasıl engellediğini de göz önünde bulunduracağım.

Anahtar Kelimeler

True Detective, Motosiklet Altkültürü

"But I Do Clean Up Real Fuckin' Pretty": True Detective and Motorcycle Subculture Representation as Spectacle and Diversion

Öz

Drawing on the extensive scholarship on subcultures, this paper shall discuss the ways in which the television series True Detective's renderings of outlaw motorcycle clubs (O.M.C.'s), and its suggestion that such representations are authentic actively undermines these groups' "alternative hegemony" (Marxism and Literature 111). Instead of challenging normative assumptions held by our society and media outlets to which they cater, the series' directors engage in a method of incorporation that employs both caricature and inaccurate representation of bikers to reinforce preconceptions and/or misconceptions about this subculture. Whereas the directors would like us to focus on individual identities that are hidden behind presumed subcultural facades, or "masks" (Pizzolato), we should instead consider what Williams calls our willing "distraction from distraction by distraction" (O'Connor 5), and understand the class struggle that is occurring beyond these representations. By studying the meaningful tenets and practices of this diverse "alternative and oppositional formation" (119) and how the values and practices of these groups are distorted by the show's creators, my paper will interrogate the ways in which True Detective offers its audience an "authentic" image of subversion and, through its portrayal of O.M.C.'s, reinforces dominant ideological beliefs about such groups. Finally, I will consider how the show's representation of subcultures occludes a larger discussion about race, gender, and class in America.

Anahtar Kelimeler

True Detective, Motorcycle Subculture

Kaynakça

• Althusser, Louis. From Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses (Notes Toward An Investigation). Transl. Ben Brewster.The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism, 2nd Ed.Ed. Vincent B. Leitch. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2010. 1335-61. Print.
• Cohen, Phil. From "Subcultural Conflict and Working-Class Community."Culture, Media, Language: Working Papers in Cultural Studies, 1972-1979. Ed. Stuart Hall. London: Routledge, 1980. 78-87. Print.
• Day, Patrick Kevin. "Obama's New T.V. Vices? 'True Detective,' 'Game of Thrones,' Report Says." The Los Angeles Times 13 February 2014. Web.
• Grossberg, Lawrence. "Identity and Cultural Studies: Is That All There Is?" Questions of Cultural Identity.Ed. Stuart Hall and Paul du Gay. London: Sage, 1996. 87-107. Print.
• Hebdige, Dick. Subculture: The Meaning of Style. New York: Routledge, 1979. Print. Joans, Barbara. Bike Lust: Harleys, Women, and American Society. Madison: U of Wisconsin, 2001. Web.
• Librett, Mitch. "Wild Pigs and Outlaws: The Kindred Worlds of Policing and Outlaw Bikers." Crime Media Culture 4 (2008): 257-69. Web.
• McDonald-Walker, Suzanne. "Bikers and the Biking Community."Bikers: Culture, Politics, and Power. Oxford: Berg, 2000. 13-70. Web.
• McLuhan, Marshall. Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. Ed. W. Terrence Gordon. Corte Madera: Gingko, 2003. Print.
• Nussbaum, Emily. "Cool Story, Bro: The Shallow Deep Talk of True Detective." The New Yorker 3 March 2014. Web.
• Paskin, Willa. "True Great."Slate.com 8 January 2014. Web.
• O'Connor, Alan, ed. Raymond Williams on Television: Selected Writings. London: Routledge, 1989. Print.
• Quinn, James F. "Angels, Bandidos, Outlaws, and Pagans: The Evolution of Organized Crime Among the Big Four 1% Motorcycle Clubs." Deviant Behavior: An Interdisciplinary ]ournal 22 (2001): 379-99. Web.
• Rollin, Bernard E., Carolyn M. Gray, Kerri Mommer, and Cynthia Pineo, ed. Harley-Davidson and Philosophy: Full-Throttle Aristotle. Chicago: Carus, 2006. Print.
• Schouten, John W. and James H. McAlexander. "Subcultures of Consumption: An Ethnography of the New Bikers." ]ournal of Consumer Research 22.1 (1995): 43-61. Web.
• Thompson, Hunter S. Hell's Angels. New York: Random House, 1999. Print.
• Thompson, Steven. "The Arts of the Motorcycle: Biology Culture and Aesthetics in Technological Choice." Technology and Culture 41.1 (2000): 99-115. Web.
• True Detective and True Detective: Inside. Dir. NicPizzolatto and Cary JojiFukunaga.Perf. Matthew McConaughey, Woody Harrelson, Michelle Monaghan. H.B.O., 2013.Television.
• Turner, Graeme. British Cultural Studies: An Introduction. Cambridge: Unwin Hyman, 1990. Print.
• Williams, Raymond. Marxism and Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977. Print.
• ---Television: Technology and Cultural Form. New York: Schocken Books, 1975. Print.
• Willis, Paul. "Social Reproduction as Social History."The Ethnographic Imagination. Cambridge: Polity, 2000. 85-105. Print.
• ---Common Culture: Symbolic Work at Play in the Everyday Cultures of The Young. Boulder: Westview, 1990. Print.
• Whang, Yun-Oh, Jeff Allen, NiquelleSahoury, and Haitao Zhang."Falling in Love with a Product: The Structure of a Romantic Consumer-Product Relationship."Advances in Consumer Research 31 (2004): 320-27. Web.