The Mods and Their Scooters
Modernists (Mods)
Mods first appeared in the East End of London
around 1958. They were visibly detectable because they had adopted a “pose of
scooter-driving sophistication”[1]
which saw their style heavily infused by Italian and French fashion trends that
were slightly more colourful, which was considered “outrageous”[2] at
the time. Their scooters of choice were Vespas and Lambrettas. Mods were known
to have listened to Modern Jazz at the start, but later they begun to shift
towards Rock music with bands such as The Who and Yard Birds.
The Rockers and Their Bikes
Rockers
Rockers were part of a biker subculture which originated in the United Kingdom during the 1950s. Rockers were known to have adopted a more “macho biker gang”[3] image which consisted of black leather jackets, silver studs, big heavy boots and they would ride motor bikes. Rockers were known to have gotten their name from their love of Rock ‘n’ Roll music which involved music from Elvis Presley and Eddie Cochran.
Mods and Rockers were two
conflicting British youth subcultures that were both coexisting in the early to
mid-sixties. Because Mods and Rockers were so different, the two groups would
often clash with one another which would end up being broadcasted by the media.
Between 1964 and 1966, a series of disturbances begun to take place at
Southeast seaside towns all across England. Places such as Brighton,
Bournemouth, Clacton and
Margate became the breeding ground for the clashes. Many different newspapers
all throughout the country had been “over reporting”[4]
the Mods and Rockers clashes, creating mass hysteria and moral panic. Newspapers
and other forms of media were painting the Mods and Rockers as “aggressively deviant”[5]
youths who were incredibly “anti-social”[6]
which was essentially simplifying the phenomenon as a violent youth movement.
The media
played a major role in creating mass hysteria and moral panic surrounding the
two British youth movements of the sixties, but the reality of the clashes that
took place between 1964 and 1966, was no where near as aggressive or violent as
the media had made it out to be. According to Chris Tull, the leader of the
Thanet District Council, the ‘clashes’
were “no different”[7] to
something you would see in a town on a Saturday night. Although, by today’s
standard it wasn’t violent, Tull went on to say that “nobody had seen anything
like it before.”[8] Newspapers
were profiting on the clashes between the Mods and Rockers by painting them to
be “sociopathic, scooter riding tidal waves”[9]
of mass destruction simply because they as an older generation did not understand
what it was the Mods and Rockers were clashing for. Michael Levi argues that
the pushed perception on the Mods and Rockers created by the media of the
mainstream society, was because the older generation believed that they “did
not deserve the liberty that they were asserting.”[10]
This is further backed up by S.N Eisenstadt as he argues that:
“their feelings have often been
shared by many members of the parent generation and reinforced by its guilty
feeling about the incomplete realization of the goals of their own youth and of
the movements in which they participated in – because of this very process of
institutionalization.”[11]
The new concept of “conformity of
nonconformity”[12]
challenged the pre-existing social norm that was so engraved in the older
generation, and because they already accepted it, they expected the younger
generation to also accept. The older generation mistook the clashes as acts of
unjustified violence, instead of seeing that the newer generation were simply
trying to make a safe place within society for themselves, as they believed the
older generation and the media, did not accommodate nor understand why they
were trying to liberate themselves.
[2]
Ibid, pp.43
[3]
Richmond, Deborah. “Schmods + Mockers.” Log, no. 7, Anyone Corporation, 2006,
pp. 43
[4]
Cohen, S., ‘Folk Devils and Moral Panics: The Creation of the Mods and
Rockers’, New York: St. Martin's Press, 1980, pp.26
[5]
Hunt, Arnold. “‘Moral Panic’ and Moral Language in the Media.” The British
Journal of Sociology, vol. 48, no. 4, [Wiley, London School of Economics and
Political Science, London School of Economics], 1997, pp.631
[6]
Ibid, pp.631
[7]
Ainsworth, C., ‘Margate capitalises on 1964 Mods and Rockers’ Riots’, BBC-News,
01 October 2011
[8]
Ibid.
[9]
Darlington, Joseph. “‘A Clockwork Orange’: The Art of Moral Panic?” The
Cambridge Quarterly, vol. 45, no. 2, Oxford University Press, 2016, pp.126
[10]
Levi, Michael. “SUITE REVENGE? The Shaping of Folk Devils and Moral Panics
about White-Collar Crimes.” The British Journal of Criminology, vol. 49, no. 1,
Oxford University Press, 2009, pp.49
[11]
Eisenstadt, S. N. “Generational Conflict and Intellectual Antinomianism.” The
Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, vol. 395, [Sage
Publications, Inc., American Academy of Political and Social Science], 1971,
pp.75
[12] Richmond, Deborah. “Schmods + Mockers.” Log,
no. 7, Anyone Corporation, 2006, pp.44
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