Introduction:
Motorcycle Menace
Nobody — except another cyclist — likes a man on a motorcycle. (1)
Bikers. The word inspires a welter of memories, sensory impressions, biases and, possibly, fear. Denim and leather. Tattoos, beards and lank, greasy hair. A throaty rumble on an otherwise empty street. The inspiration for our image of bikers and motorcycle culture can be traced to a sneering Marlon Brando and an even more feral Lee Marvin in 1954’s The Wild One. That Hollywood treatment of outlaw bikers was inspired by the short story “Cyclists’ Raid,” (2) which was itself prompted by a weekend of violence and revelry in Hollister, California, and Life magazine’s photo of a beer-–bellied thug slopped across a hog amid a gutter full of empty beer bottles. (3)
It is odd that the biker’s cliché image, wrong or right, has changed so little since Hollister in 1947 and Brando’s portrayal of Johnny, the brooding leader of the pack. The attitude and the peaked hat, black leather jacket, heavy boots and denim jeans are staples of biker chic. Not even Japan’s domination of the recreational motorcycle market in the 1970s and 1980s, the “You meet the nicest people on a Honda” sloganeering of the 1960s, ten years of Happy Days and “the Fonz,” or the Harley–Davidson Motor Company’s economic renaissance and its wooing of rich urban bikers (rubbies) have completely dispelled the bad biker image. Despite the many years this country has had to accustom itself to sharing the highway with motorcycles, the distinctive sound of American iron and the sight of tattooed hordes thundering down the interstate can still inspire dread just by appearing in the rearview mirror.
At the same time, motorcycles inspire a longing for the open road and life without responsibility. Just as Harley–Davidson was for many years the only American–made motorcycle, a patriotic anachronism in a high–tech world of Japanese imports, bikers are among the last American individualists. Even if it could, the Harley–Davidson Motor Company would not completely erase its product’s outlaw image, for it is an integral and defining aspect of its heritage and, more importantly, part of Harley’s marketing strategy.
Motorcycles, especially Harleys, are icons for independence and masculinity. Their inclusion on a magazine cover or movie poster, the careful placement of a customized hog in an advertisement, and the leather–jacketed television appearance lend just the right touch of danger and machismo to would–be personalities — male and female alike. Similarly, bikers are the unflinching symbol of a vagabond lifestyle, iconoclasm and non–conformity. Maybe that explains the longevity of the biker lifestyle. Or maybe it is just cool. Or does the possibility of life on the edge, of slipping the constraints of civilization, and of just having fun, recall mythic outlaw heroes and Huck Finn fantasies?
Bill Barich calls that potential escape from the everyday world a “tear in reality,” a flight to places where people are free to be irresponsible, and where they can experience whatever might be missing from their lives. (4) For some men life as an outlaw allows them to compete and sometimes win on more even terms. They can display their toughness and independence, important attributes of masculinity. (5) Similarly, escape may be a response to a perception they have failed (or do not wish to succeed) as civilized men.
David Gilmore believes definitions of masculinity include universal, cross–cultural values which, taken together, comprise a “deep structure” of manhood. (6) Men either learn to serve as men — by being providers, protectors and impregnators — or they fail the test of manhood. Michael Kimmel suggests American men have internalized many of these definitions and attributes, and because they can never be secure in their masculinity constantly rehearse them. (7)
Gilmore’s conclusion that most societies depend on coercive manhood, and that being a man depends on certain “essential” elements, succeeds in drawing together many of the biological and cultural arguments for discrete genders. A different view, that gender is nothing but a role, a socially imposed dynamic, informs the writing of Judith Butler. For Butler, femininity and masculinity are tenuous at best and the individual has to be “always already” in character because gender is only possible through repetition. Butler stresses the performance of gender scripts and the historic necessity of discrete spheres. Gender, manifested as language, gesture, costume and other symbolic representation, is an illusion; gender is theatrical. “One does one’s gender” based on precedent and dramatic styles of existence. (8) These acts, which end in the accomplishment of gender identity, are compelled by social sanction and taboo. They come to the individual as precedents which demand certain styles of existence, and provide punishments for transgression.
A final answer to the question of whether gender is socially imposed or biologically defined is not at issue here. But it is important to consider, as both Gilmore and Butler state, that individuals balance two sets of demands. One set forms internal drives and desires, while the other is externalized as a need for cultural conformity and acceptance. In the end, behavior is a compromise to biological and societal pressures. It is a conditioned, performative “strategy of survival.” Gender is compelled by social sanction and taboo; it comes to the individual as a precedent which demands certain styles of existence, and punishes those who deviate from the norm. Butler’s goal is to bring people to an awareness of the complexity of gender which our vocabulary necessarily disguises.
Whether or not the role of outlaw biker is socially imposed or an aspect of internal desire, the image exists and there exists the possibility that the outlaw is a necessary element of society. Raney Stanford uses the mythology of the trickster, the anti–hero and the “not–a–hero,” as an analogy for society’s rebels. Like the trickster, a mythic character, the outlaw is an agent of chaos who not only reveals the failings of society but “suffers that society may be purged.” (9)
At the same time he is free to protest, act irresponsibly and represent alienation. Stanford writes, “When the structure of civilization too heavily represses men’s free instincts, foreclosing his desire for a satisfactorily full life, the fool becomes a culture hero . . . . He conveys more truth about the chaos of our society than the successful young man on the make who never examines himself or his society.” (10)
Attractive yet repellent. Hero and anti–hero. Citizen and outlaw. The conflicts of motorcycles, bikers and straight society are shrouded in the ideological definitions of what constitutes deviance. This research analyzes the inspiration and historical context for the construction of such contradictory myths and images, compares how specific media genres have differed in their presentation and use of outlaw motorcycle culture, and considers how the media differ in their ability to condemn or accept deviance that challenges social norms.
Aspects of masculinity — independence, freedom and self–reliance — must be included as critical elements of the biker construct. The media share responsibility for the creation of the outlaw myth; the events of Hollister began a long process that transformed a small group of Southern California bikers and free spirits into a national scourge.
How the media responded to bikers and outlaw clubs, and how specific genres appropriated the biker image, is at the center of this investigation. It is an analysis of the construction of meaning in a “knowledge society” and the media’s role as the “deviance–defining elite.” (11) Mainstream media, as arbiters of right and wrong, relied on a specific array of ritual, myth and metaphor, first to explain and define motorcycle culture, and then to assign bikers a place on the margins of society.
Seizing the opportunity, news and entertainment media succeeded in satisfying audience desire for sensation and at the same time supported America’s middle–class norms for civil behavior and propriety. Negative responses were not monolithic, however. Riders, bikers, enthusiasts and motorcycle manufacturers used alternative publications and specialized genres to construct an image that would best serve their interests.
The first of two introductory chapters considers the media as a meaning–making institution, describing for particular audiences the line between deviance and propriety. The second chapter provides a historical context for the motorcycle, one–percenters and outlaw clubs. The next section is composed of five chapters on media genres. Chapter III analyzes how newspapers and magazines reported events surrounding motorcycle outlaws, discrediting the clubs while accepting less extreme aspects which were, over time, introduced into the mainstream. Chapter IV considers how non–fiction writers and biographers have accounted for the evolution and continued success of outlaw clubs, especially the Hell’s Angels. Chapter V details how genre fiction, in order to support a masculine ideal, either ignores or accepts certain attributes of the outlaw biker lifestyle. Chapter VI reveals how images of rough–and–ready bikers, independent yet hedonistic, have been used and exploited in popular entertainment genres. Chapter VII looks at how bikers have defined and fortified their own lifestyle in specialized media. Finally, the concluding chapter acknowledges the clarity of the biker myth and its singular utility in representing the not–a–citizen.
Chapter One
1. Hal Burton, “Most Unpopular Men on the Road,” Saturday Evening Post, 25 September 1954, 33.
2. Frank Rooney, “Cyclists’ Raid,” Harper’s Magazine, January 1951, 34–44.
3. “Cyclist’s Holiday,” Life, 21 July 1947, 31.
4. Bill Barich, “Still Truckin’,” The New Yorker, 10 November 1993, 96–102.
5. J. Mark Watson, “Outlaw Motorcyclists: An Outgrowth of Lower Class Cultural Concerns,” Deviant Behavior 2 (1980): 71–76.
6. David Gilmore, Manhood in the Making (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990).
7. Michael S. Kimmel, “The Cult of Masculinity: American Social Character and the Legacy of the Cowboy,” in Beyond Patriarchy, ed. E. Michael Kaufman (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1987),
235–249.
8. Judith Butler, “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory,” Theatre Journal 40 (December 1986): 521.
9. Raney Stanford, “The Return of the Trickster: When a Not–A–Hero is a Hero,” Journal of Popular Culture 1 (Winter 1967): 232.
10. Ibid., 233. Stanford believes outlaws illustrate the virtues and qualities necessary for survival. For bikers, these qualities are independence, strength, toughness and the freedom to disobey those rules and regulations which they do not feel apply to free individuals.
11. Richard V. Ericson, Patricia Baranek and Janet Chan, Visualizing Deviance: A Study of News Organization (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1987), 11–12.