Goth reconceived outsiderdom as collective, self-chosen celebration rather than solitary tragedy
Evidence
Painted Bird is also about the triumph of collective joy over persecuted, isolated, individuated subjectivity. In Kosiński’s novel, the hero paints one bird and when he throws it back to its flock they don’t recognise it and therefore destroy it. But Siouxsie’s goths are not painted by another’s hand; they are “painted birds by their own design”. It is not the familiar tragic-heroic scenario in which an outsider, destined to lose, nevertheless makes a solitary stand against the conformist herd. The “dowdy flock” are to be “confounded”, but by another flock, not by an individual, and the result is not frustration, but, again, jouissance — by the end of the song, “there’s no more sorrow”. — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1041
Categorization
- DEFINE: Distinguishes two models of outsider subjectivity: Kosiński’s tragic painted-by-another’s-hand versus Siouxsie’s self-painted collective.
- XREF: connects to: Goth’s self-decoration is collective joy, not solitary outsider angst — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 1040; Collective action can reframe self-estrangement from dread into transcendence — Naomi Klein, Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror…, 1089; Goth treated death as the hidden truth at the core of rock music — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 1058
Broader Connections
- Goth’s self-decoration is collective joy, not solitary outsider angst
#corroborates(0.95) — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1040 - Collective action can reframe self-estrangement from dread into transcendence
#expands(0.80) — Naomi Klein, Doppelganger, 1089