Wednesday, June 30, 2004

Potters T-Shirts, Why? cont'. In "The Social Meanings of Hats and T-Shirts" Diana Crane examines the social issues of hats in the early part of the 1900's and compares it with T-shirts in contemporary culture- the T-shirt, which expresses social identity in many different ways, ranging from identity politics to lifestyle. T-shirt speaks to issues related to ideology, difference, and myth: politics, race, gender, and leisure. She concludes: T-shirts speak to like-minded people; a particular T-shirt may not be meaningful to those with different views and affiliations. This reflects the fragmentation of leisure cultures into lifestyles and subcultures and other groupings whose members respond to the enormous cultural complexity of their surroundings by orienting themselves toward those who are like rather than those who are unlike themselves. I think this speaks right to the types of potters' t-shirts we've been looking at. 7:04:39 AM