Siyuan Xu 

The salience of subcultural studies identifies flaws in the dominant culture’s ability to care for the individual; a subculture may be considered a product of the social order’s structural flaws. Joanne Turney dissects the codification of particular articles of clothing labelled as ‘criminal,’ and explains ‘dress’ as culturally loaded: Communicating ‘something about the self either as projection or as reflection,’ pertaining to clothing as a ‘vehicle in which to perform the self (real or perceived).’ Western subcultural patterns are accepted to be male-lead and orientated with female participants taking supporting roles. So, are all counter-cultural artefacts of dress limited to the semiotics of masculine punk, rock, and/or hip-hop? This thesis offers Japan as irrefutable evidence of an alternate and overlooked subcultural pattern and producer of a new global outlaw archetype, the unlikely anti-heroine: Schoolgirls. Japan’s girl-centred subcultures fundamentally challenge prescribed gendered behaviour/speech and sexual/familial roles, this thesis discusses transgressive gender representation of teenage girls in film and the dissemination of a new global archetype through the motif of the seifuku (uniform).