While they started off as hellraisers, fighting amongst themselves and beating up members of other subcultures, a few decades have given them respectability; there are raggare awareness groups visiting schools, the government consulted them on import taxes for classic cars, and the Swedish post office even issued a raggare commemorative stamp a few years ago. It can't be said that the Swedes undervalue their pop-cultural heritage, even when it is second-hand.
For young Swedes, these giant American cars, which contrasted with the safe, boxy Volvos their parents drove, were the ultimate symbols of rebellion. And they were dirt-cheap. "They were stupid," Georg says about the Americans. "Some of the cars were limited edition. They built maybe 70 of them and they were selling them to us for a few thousand when they were collector pieces."
When the raggare have parties, they tend to have them in their garages: comfortable enough spaces, filled with pots of grease, car jacks and stacks of fenders. The more capable raggare jitterbug and twist; others shuffle from foot to foot, stopping occasionally to pull out the kink in a poodle skirt or run a comb through a greasy quiff
The fact that it's in Sweden, and all these rural people went to so much trouble to build up this 1950s-America fantasyland, adds an extra layer of cross-cultural weirdness to it.
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Tue Oct 6 19:53:08 2009
Not impressed.
They should be listening to the Knife or Peter Bjorn and John, right?
There are a ton of people here in the states (midwest, Arizona) who could exactly be described as such. I highly doubt they would ever expect this type of thing to be going on in Sweden. This subculture usually is associated with the rockability, Tattoo'd, roller derby type crowd. The music they listen to is circa 1970's rock/metal (Frank Zappa), but it varies greatly.