Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.2009, Page 67

DREYMAR UM BILAR Á OYGCJUM
65
and destruction on the roads (Wollen and
Kerr, 2002). Since film star James Dean’s fatal
crash in 1955, the car accident has ironically
been a symbol of fresh youthfulness.
Driving has its unavoidable victims -
many of them inexperienced boys and girls -
that pay a high price for the 'freedom' that
young people in general associate to the
motor vehicle. The behaviour a driver
displays on the roads normally reflects his
personality, values and perspectives. The risk
taking driver is often also considered socie-
tally menacing in other contexts. Persons
suffering emotional imbalance, often rela-
tively marginalized socially, are overrepre-
sented among hazardous drivers (Mogensen,
2002). People under strong pressure in their
daily lives - at work, at home or among
friends - also belong to the 'risk group’ not
taking earnest responsibility in traffic.
Positively, on the other hand, driving can
unleash hidden uncontrollable feelings that
otherwise would never come to light.
"Put simply: while driving in our cars, we
have the freedom, power and anonymity
with which to express extreme and violent
emotions we may suppress in the rest of
our lives" (Wollen and Kerr, 2002)
Centre and periphery
The car culture discourse of Faroese youth is
characterized by the stereotyped dichotomy
capital—village or centre-periphery that
defines styles and trends in driving. Village
youths, considered more traditional and
provincial than Torshavn's 'city-dwellers', can
easily be recognized by their cars. That is
what my young informants say, even though
I regard it as a rather subjective construction
of village youth seldom fitting to empirical
observations. Let us say that most youths
and cars are positioned somewhere between
the extreme poles of capital and village. The
village youth, in the discourse, is always
driving with open windows and loud music.
The driver doesn't care if it rains or snows.
No storm cancels the repetitive night rides
between villages. Also, village youth always
fix their cars. Whenever they have time off,
young men disappear into oily garages and
transform into amateur car mechanics with
a handyman's pragmatic intelligence (Gaini,
2008)
The village youths - who actually exist
in the capital as well as in remote fishing
communities - are extravagant as handy-
men, because the grand metamorphosis of
his poor vehicle never ends. Some details are
always missing in the punctual make-it-
cooler project. The aesthetic chirurgic ope-
ration that cars undergo in order to get
higher value among youths is a complex
subcultural process not to be analyzed
thoroughly in this text. The creative car
owner's aim is normally to improve his rank
in the group, hence also to get easier access
to admiring women. The peculiar masculine
identity of these drivers, often associated
with provincial lifestyles, connects the boy's
capacities symbolically to the sign of the car
(Mogensen, 2002). The sound, shape and
colours of the car signal sexual capacities.
The car is, in this respect, a prolonged part
of the driver’s personal identity.
Among the most devoted car lovers the
vehicle becomes a fetish that, like orna-
ments, follows the master in any mission at
any time (Vaaranen, 2004). The car, like the
horse of a cowboy, is the shade that never