Raggare
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A raggare in his ideal environment, with a beer, on the bonnet of a 1960s car (photo taken during Power Big Meet in 2005). |
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Two raggare (photo taken during Power Big Meet in 2005). |
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When no American fintails are available, raggare are sometimes forced to improvise, like using a Mercedes. |
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A lot of raggare on the roof a 1960s car during Power Big Meet in 2005 |
Raggare (a
Swedish word roughly corresponding to the
English term "pick-up artist", i.e., a person seeking sexual contact with someone) is a
subculture found mostly in
Sweden and parts of
Norway and
Finland, mostly in rural environments and smaller villages.
Raggare have existed since the
1950s and haven't changed much since then. Their culture is based on American popular culture of the 1950s, and typically centres on a "rebel" image.
James Dean's
Rebel Without a Cause and
American Graffiti are a popular sources of influence.
Cars are very important to raggare; they like large U.S. cars from the 1950s, although any large American
V8-powered car will do. If one is not available some substitutes are used; for instance, the
Volvo Amazon, fintail
Mercedes, or some other car with U.S. styling, but never a
Japanese car. If that too fails, an older
Volvo may be used (usually in the 200-series).
The
music of choice is
rockabilly. The clothes and hairstyle are that of 1950s rockabilly. Blue jeans, cowboy boots, white t-shirts, sometimes with print (also used to store apack of cigarettes by folding the sleeve), leather or denim jacket. The hair is styled using
Brylcreem or some other
pomade.
One of the most popular artists among raggare is
Eddie Meduza. Although he performed songs against punks, such as "Punkdjävlar!" ("Punk bastards!") and "Punkar'n och raggar'n" ("The punk and the raggare"), many punk rockers do listen to him. In 2005 a Swedish punk label
Ägg Tapes & Records released a CD with various bands doing
covers of Meduza's songs.
In the late 1990s, the
neo-Nazi skinhead subculture intermixed with the raggare culture ,and even their old sworn enemies, the
punks. In Sweden today the raggarculture tends to be more racist and xenophobic than it was before.
Raggare often use the
confederate flag (possibly inspired by
The Dukes of Hazzard) and the
peckerwood, but are often oblivious to their meanings and are not necessarily racists.
When raggare first appeared, they caused a
moral panic with concerns about the use of alcohol, violence, high-speed driving, and having sex in the back seat. These concerns usually had little merit and most raggare were actually quite peaceful. The film
Raggare! covered the issue in 1959.
Later, raggare often got into fights with
hippies and punks, something described in the punk rock song "Raggare Is a Bunch of Motherfuckers" by
Rude Kids (and later re-recorded by
Turbonegro). When The
Sex Pistols played in Sweden on July 28, 1977, a group of raggare waited outside and cornered some young girls who came out from the show. The girls had
safety pins through their cheeks, and the raggare ripped them right out their faces. The band was upstairs drinking beer when they heard about it.
Sid Vicious wanted to go down and fight, and someone else suggested they should get the limousine and run them over. In the end, the gig promoter called the police. Nowadays the hostility between Raggare and other subcultures is much lower.
No longer considered a menace to society, the raggare subculture lives on in Sweden, but in many ways it is still viewed in a negative light. Because of its mostly rural roots, retro-aesthetics, and unusual (for Swedes) pro-American stance, raggare are often (in
Urban areas and in pop-culture) seen as uneducated
white trash with poor taste and a low-brow attitude towards sex. This is how they are normally depicted on film and television, with the most famous modern example being the cult-characters "Ronny & Ragge", a pair of complete idiots who cruise around in a beat-up
Ford Taunus. There are several gatherings for raggare around Sweden. The
Power Big Meet is the most famous, and is also the biggest car show in the world.
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Rednecks
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Teddy Boy (youth culture)*
Anarcho-Rockers*
Cadillac*
Mods and Rockers*
Motorcycle gang*
Outlaw motorcycle club*
Punk rock*
Rock and roll*
Bosozoku*
Kustom Kulture*
Leningrad Cowboys*
Category at ODP*
Cultural Imperialism or Hyper-Americanization - Swedish raggare and Chicano Lowriders - article by Scott Holmquist
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Raggare - The Movie
