INVESTIGADORES
MANZANO Adriana Valeria
artículos
Título:
The Blue-Jean Generation: Youth, Gender, and Sexuality in Buenos Aires, 1958-1975
Autor/es:
MANZANO, VALERIA
Revista:
JOURNAL OF SOCIAL HISTORY
Editorial:
George Mason University Press
Referencias:
Lugar: Fairfax; Año: 2009 vol. 42 p. 657 - 676
ISSN:
0022-4529
Resumen:
This
article reconstructs the life story of a commodity, the blue jean, in
1960s and 1970s Buenos Aires. It analyzes how the blue jean was
commercialized, who wore it, and the meanings they attributed to the
jeans. In addition, it explores the cultural representations of the
blue jean and analyzes the debates it sparked in the public arena,
which revolved around the Americanization of Argentinas culture; the
shifting understandings of gender and sexuality; and the changing
youth identities the blue jean allegedly embodied. In 1960s and 1970s
Argentina, the blue jean acted as a prime marker of a youth identity as
separate and eventually opposed to an adult identity and fashion.
Jeans were the first dress item to be worn exclusively by young men and
women, who increasingly dressedand thought, and behaveddifferently
from the older generation. Yet the blue jean also served to signal and
reinforce class distinctions and gender differences among young people.
Jean styles, brands, and nationalitieswhether imports or locally
producedbecame ways of elaborating intra-generational differences. By
the mid 1970s, there was a blue-jean generation, although young
people neither wore the same jeans nor endowed them with the same
meanings.