Surfing in the third millennium: commodifying the visual argot 2

Australian Journal of Anthropology, The , Dec, 2002 by David Lanagan

During the 1950s, the 'outlaw' (Jarratt and Hackman, 1997) surf culture of the time was transformed by the 'Gidget' and other movies into mainstream culture (Booth 1994). However, it was not until the early 1960s that surfing became popular due to mainstream surf films, articles in popular magazines, such as the Australian Women's Weekly, and the holding of the first official World Championship (2) at Manly beach in May 1964 (Booth 1994:265). The acceptance of surfing in the 1960s stemmed from, '... the beach's centrality to the ... [Australian] ... culture' (Fiske et al. 1987:55), the success of Australians in the sport (such as Midget Farrelly and Nat Young), and the realisation by business interests of the potential market that existed for youth culture (Booth 1994:267-69). With this rise in popularity, business interests 'appropriated surfing images as avenues to the rapidly expanding and lucrative youth market' (Booth 1994:265). This widespread popularity can be seen in the sponsorship of surfing in the 1960s and early 1970s by 'mainstream' business interests such as Coca Cola, Ampol Petroleum and Trans Australian Airways. Furthermore, Douglas Booth (1994) maintains that during the 1960s, the image of surfers was firmly located within the dominant middle-class culture. This was due to the close ties of surfing with the existing surf-lifesaving structure; its acceptance as a sport and; its similarity to 'new middle-class hedonistic values emerging under the impetus of consumer capitalism' (Booth 1994:266).

Despite the appearance of the acceptance of surfing during the 1960s, Booth (1994:268) argues that the wider society saw surfing and similar activities as' ... wasteful, selfish and irresponsible leisure [and they were often seen as an] unanchored cultural practice lacking social utility'. As a consequence, suffers were often labelled by the media as ' ... rotten, long-haired, unwashed drug addicts' or as 'jobless junkies' (1994:266). Moreover, it was in the 1970s that the position of surfing cemented. Surfers were seen as being in opposition to the attitudes and values of wider society (Fiske et al. 1987; Farmer 1992; Booth 1994) and they began to be the focus of increased regulation, to the point where some municipal councils and surf life-saving clubs attempted to ban the use of surfboards by other than surf life saving association members (Pearson 1979:59). Booth (1994:270) suggests that this was due to suffers being seen as having '...no respect for rules or the safety of any other bather'. Moreover, Fis ke et al. (1987:66) argue that surfers were constructed in a position of opposition, not only to the dominant culture, but also the dominant body of the beach, that of the surf lifesaver, '... if the lifesaver is culture, the suffer is nature; if the lifesaver is responsible, law-abiding and community spirited, the surfer is irresponsible, feckless and "a bludger"'; if the lifesaver is civilised, the suffer is primitive; the lifesaver is land, the surfer is the sea'.