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GEORGE GONOS, VIRGINIA MULKERN,
and NICHOLAS POUSHINSKY
Anonymous Expression
A Structural View of Graffiti
1For a similar argument regarding the analysis of works of "high culture" see Lucien
Goldmann, "Genetic-Structuralist Method in History of Literature," in Berel Lang and Forrest
Williams, eds., Marxism and Art: Writings in Aesthetics and Criticism (New York, 1972).
2Terrance L. Stocker, Linda W. Dutcher, Stephen M. Hargrove, and Edwin A. Cook, "Social
Analysis of Graffiti," Journal of American Folklore, 85 (1972), 356-366; reprinted in Marcello
Truzzi, ed., Sociology for Pleasure (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1974), pp. 93-106.
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ANONYMOUS EXPRESSION 41
generated data which, they argue, are supportive of their notions. They
hypothesized that
(1) graffiti are an accurate indicator of the social attitudes of a community, and their
thematic content will discriminate similar communities with different sociopolitical
ideation; (2) most homosexual graffiti are a result of societal condemnation of
homosexual behavior, which permits this behavior to be used as an insulting device;
and with Gay Liberation as a liberalizing influence, homosexual graffiti will decrease;
and (3) the difference between women's and men's graffiti is due to childhood
socialization; and if there is a change in amount and kind of women's and men's
graffiti, then there has been a change in some aspect of women's [and presumably
men's] socialization patterns.3
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42 GEORGE GONOS, VIRGINIA MULKERN, and NICHOLAS POUSHINSKY
5Paul D. McGlynn, "Graffiti and Slogans: Flushing the Id," Journal of Popular Culture, 7
(Fall 1972), 353.
6Notwithstanding, of course, incidents of police stakeouts in bathrooms to identify graffitists,
or reports that industry sometimes keeps a clock on the time spent in bathrooms by employees
during work hours.
7Stocker et al., 360.
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ANONYMOUS EXPRESSION 43
or
If you sprinkle
When you tinkle,
Please be neat
Such graffiti, which we argue are the basis of the "oral tradition" of the
public washroom, are beyond the scope of the present analysis.
The Hypothesis
In keeping with the basic character of our model we are led to
hypothesize with regard to settings with bathrooms where graffiti is a
mode of expression, that the relative frequency of graffiti giving
expression to a particular value will be greater in social milieus where the
suppression of remarks carrying this value is greater.
Suppression here, as always, involves two necessary and jointly
sufficient factors. The first of these factors, obviously, is the pressure to
be expressive on a certain topic in a certain vein. That is to say, we would
expect no expressive graffiti in situations where there is no pressure to be
expressive. The second factor that must be involved in an explanation of
the actual incidence of graffiti is the operation of normative constraints
against a public utterance of particular positions on the topic. Alone,
neither of these is sufficient to produce graffiti, for clearly, if "non-
utterance" normative constraints do not operate, expression can occur in
face-to-face, or other public, situations. Therefore, we would expect
graffiti to occur about particularly pressing topics in settings where there
is an incongruence between some individual views and a well-defined,
"appropriate" public position on the matter.
Not surprisingly, then, our experience with expressive graffiti has been
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44 GEORGE GONOS, VIRGINIA MULKERN, and NICHOLAS POUSHINSKY
The data reported here are the results of extensive fieldwork in the
northeastern United States with the bulk of the data from settings in New
York and New Jersey." The data are not intended as a representative
sample of either graffiti or graffitists. Instead, several settings have been
focused upon for theoretical reasons which will become clear. The data
(N = 1563 cases of graffiti) were gathered by pairs of trained observers,
one female and one male wherever possible, and thus the graffiti are
reasonable indicators of the relative activity of males and females in the
settings studied. Each observer counted and recorded the frequency of
each of a pre-established variety of types of graffiti (for example,
"expressive, anti-black") they encountered in each bathroom visited. In
addition, the observer recorded, as thoroughly as possible, the
demographic characteristics of the locale or milieu. For example, for a bar
the demographic characteristics might have been, male toilet, clientele
mostly working class males, few couples, in a Hungarian section of the
city.
The Analysis
Let us initially look at the social context of such anti-homosexual
graffiti as illustrated by the example above. Our gathering of "homosexual
graffiti" exploited a situation quite interesting when seen from the
vantage point afforded by our model. We examined the graffiti written in
a university which contains a nationally prominent and vocal homophile
league. We will call it University A. The setting is characterized by an
overriding "liberal" attitude toward homosexuality, and public expres-
sions of anti-homosexual sentiment at this university are not simply
negatively received but are strongly proscribed. Our hypothesis led us to
predict that there would be a greater incidence of anti-homosexual graffiti
there, than in other settings where there is less pressure to be vocal about
8We would like to acknowledge the data gathering assistance of Laurie Beck, Cathy Lipper,
Sondra Abrams, Mike Boulos, Pauline Levy, Dorothy O'Rourke, Paul McHugh, and W. Dale
Dannefer.
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ANONYMOUS EXPRESSION 45
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46 GEORGE GONOS, VIRGINIA MULKERN, and NICHOLAS POUSHINSKY
All expressive
Racist graffiti
That this is the case follows directly from our main hypothesis, for we
would argue that although high school students experience a strong
pressure to express "love-like" sentiments to others (of the opposite sex),
the intersexual repressiveness of high schools allows few appropriate
opportunities for their fulfillment; thus we would predict these sentiments
would frequently appear in the bathroom stall. In contrast, the hetero-
sexual graffiti found in university bathrooms constituted only 22%
(N = 82) of the total and few of these could have been termed
"romantic." Of course, we would not now conclude from this that the
university setting is less oriented toward male-female relationships, only
that there is less suppression of their expression.
Thus as our analysis shows, it is fruitful to treat public toilet walls as a
publicly used medium of expression, the peculiar characteristic of which is
the anonymity afforded the communicator, for this situation facilitates
the expression of certain sentiments which are unsuitable for virtually all
other media and expressive situations.
As our structural view led us to expect, we have found that statements
expressive of exactly those values and sentiments whose public expression
is denied will be found on the toilet walls. Thus, as we hypothesized,
when a view is no longer appropriately expressed publicly, its expression
occurs in the anonymity of our public toilets. Hence, the pattern or
configuration of values found there resembles an "inverted image" of the
10Perhaps this example of anti-black graffiti, found in a university setting, encapsulates within
itself the forces which explain its presence:
(in response to a misspelling)
Perhaps he's [the misspeller] one of those "disadvantaged students" (i.e. Niggers) which
universities as sadistic as this delight in accepting so they can refuse admittance to a qualified
one.
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ANONYMOUS EXPRESSION 47
Our model explains the content of graffiti by asserting that the toilet
wall serves a special expressive need for some of its users. It should be
apparent, however, that the extent of the need to be expressive of any
particular value changes over time with the structure of normative
constraints of the graffitists' social milieu. This need, or pressure, is
strongest when a value has a life outside of the "established" value-system
that has been institutionalized in the norms of the community; in other
words, where there is some degree of incongruence between normative
structure (public position) and some individuals' sentiments.
Two situations of incongruence are possible. On the one hand, the value
that graffitists play upon may be the residue of a traditional value (as
white racism) now submerged under a newly accepted dominant one. In
this case the expression of the value can be used to evoke past solidarities
in a presently changing moral atmosphere. On the other hand, the value
expressed in graffiti may represent a radical alternative still unacceptable
of mention in the everyday social circles of the graffitist (as Gay
Liberation). Obviously, however, the expression of racism was not always
unacceptable in public talk, and sentiments favorable to homosexuality
may not always be so either. Hence we posit the following dynamic model
describing the life span of graffiti expressive of a particular value.
With cultural homogeneity on any value, there is no need to employ the
anonymous medium for its expression; other more public media are
permissible. This "pre-graffiti consensus" on a value explains, for instance,
the lack of racist graffiti before widespread tolerance of blacks, or the
present lack of anti-homosexual graffiti in high schools, or in some
1Stocker et al. come closest to touching upon a key to our structural model when they note in
passing that "humor of elimination graffiti... entails the breaking of a taboo, discussing
defecation" (365, italics ours).
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48 GEORGE GONOS, VIRGINIA MULKERN, and NICHOLAS POUSHINSKY
Rutgers University
New Brunswick, New Jersey
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