Sarah Thornton vs the Beatles

Sarah Thornton's theory about Sub cultures is very relevent to the Beatles.

basic theory outline (quoting from my 2nd essay for this unit)

Thornton’s work is based on that of Bourdieu in many ways contradicts Bourdieu’s theory of culture capital. She saw that there was an inequality within club culture and not society as a whole, Bourdieu argued that there were different forms of culture capital i.e. economic, social and cultural capital however, Thornton however took this idea and developed it and was able to introduce a concept what she called ‘sub cultural capital’ which can be used to gain economic capital, she gives an example that if you are a DJ within a club your value is to provide status to the clubber by playing music.

Sub cultures are privileged and as a consequence the mainstream culture is ‘devalued’ and considered to be everything that an exciting sub-culture is not the mainstream is made normal and conventional.
According to Thornton young people have sub ‘cultural capital’ which is a concept she has taken from Bourdieu’s work, in her 1995 book she argues that sub cultural capital offers status on its owner and in the eye of the relevant beholder. she goes on to state that sub cultural capital can be objectified by a hair cut (lets look at the beatle hair cuts and being able to buy a wig. many young girls had beatle haircuts, in the early 1960s that was how you could tell beatle fans from shaddows or rolling stones fans.

but i hear you ask how does sub cultural capital link to the beatles, well thornton published a book with Ken Glder called ' the sub cultures reader published in 1997' this book has a chapter devoted to beatle mania which is defined as "intense fan frenzy particularly demonstrated by young teen girls directed toward The Beatles during the early years of their success" the term is still in use now.

this book argues that the beatles created a whole host of sub cultures amongst there fans, and even now it is still looked upon as cool to be a fan, you just have to look at who they have unfluenced i.e. oasis, the rolling stones, the BeeGees, U2, the last shaddow puppets to name a few. they have cultural capital.

Barbara Ehrenreich et al argues that one of the main subcultures was that of "beatlemania a sexualy defiant consumer subculture." she argued that this subculture was pre or earlt adolscent girls, who were using pent upo sexual emotiuns not to riot but to see the beatles, making them a focus for there emotions and actions. of course there was more to the beatles than fans, bit it was one of the main reasons that they stopped touring they discoverd that allthough they were making money, tours and albums were selling out. when they played live no one heard them, they were just ther to screen and be rebellious and they werent for that. after the events of the the beatles are bigger than jesus fiasco and the death threats that followed they stopped touring and became more popular and there cultural capital increased as the tecnical ability and concent of there music increased this can be heard in sargent peper there first album since they stopped touring.