From Teen Angels to Vogue: The subcultural styles of the girl gang in Mi Vida Loca

摘要

Despite increasing sociological scholarship pertaining to girl gang membership in the last few decades, there continues to be a lack of engagement with the meaning of their stylistic practices and how this manifests on screen. As a corrective to this, this article considers the complexities, contradictions and ambiguities in girl gang styles and their 'symbolic meaning' for young Chicanas as represented in the first feature-length film to bring contemporary girl gang activity from the streets to the mainstream, Mi Vida Loca (1994). Examining Chola makeup, gang tattoos and dress, the article explores how the gang girl can produce meaning (political, feminist or other) and power through styles, and the tensions between 'authentic' agentic subcultural defiance and mainstream consumption, and the dualistic constructions of girlhood itself. Disadvantaged by intersecting forces, it is argued that gang girls do not necessarily have less opportunity, but greater difficulty in imposing meaning onto the world and resisting hegemonic forces through subcultural aesthetics.