Graffiti

G raffiti , the plural form of graffito , meaning “a scratch” in Italian, was originally a term in art history describing a method of decoration whereby designs are produced by scratches through a superficial layer of plaster or glazing to reveal a background of a different color. However, the popular modern use of the term is entirely different, denoting unauthorized and anonymous writings, messages, slogans, and symbols, commonly of a provocative, obscene, or taboo nature, scratched or painted on monuments or buildings. Although graffiti is commonly regarded as a particularly modern manifestation of social protest or personal obnoxiousness, the most ancient examples are the scribbles found on the walls of Pompeii and Rome.

In Up the Nile (1877), A.B. Edwards noted that certain ancient monuments had been “visited by crowds of early travellers who have as usual left their neatly scribbled graffiti on the walls” (xxi, 653). The phrase “as usual” clearly implies that the practice was familiar to travelers even then, while “neatly scribbled” indicates a discreet and careful superscript or intervention quite at variance with modern graffiti, which is typically brash, crude, and often indecipherable.

Graffiti may be personal, social, political, or arcane in its messages. It covers declarations of love and hate, expressions of prejudice against out-groups, political slogans, often using party logos or symbols like the hammer and sickle or the dollar sign, and personal symbols used as cryptic autographs. In the course of the twentieth century graffiti has generally become more public, intrusive, and daring. From obscene symbols and dirty jokes in public lavatories, there developed the innocent clichéd designs and slogans such as the popular American figure Kilroy with the standard statement “Kilroy was here” and the British figure called Chad, asking the standard question “Wot, no …?” Both these figures appeared around the time of World War II, and explanations for their origins are legion.

One of the earliest literary references to graffiti occurs at the end of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby (1922) when Nick Carraway observes an unquoted “obscenity” which has been scrawled on the dead Gatsby’s mansion. The British poet Tony Harrison’s poem “V” (1985) was an expression of outrage at the desecration of his parents’ grave, replicating the shocking capitalized forms FUCK, CUNT, SHIT, etc. The broadcast of the poem in 1987 provoked a national controversy.

Especially in its political dimension, graffiti has become a new sociological phenomenon of protest, commonly exploiting forms of linguistic aggression and extreme freedom in swearing. Modern graffiti commonly carries a tinge of the illicit, and can therefore only be used for subversive or hostile messages of an anti-establishment nature. Thus the statement “Property is theft” is ideal as graffiti, whereas “Property is a good investment” would be counterproductive, being inseparable from advertising. Outgroups are also targeted: William Leap’s Word’s Out (1996) contains a chapter illustrating in a frame-by-frame fashion the evolution or degeneration of graffiti about gays.

The spray-paint can is now used with the same purpose that the provocative pamphlet or broadsheet was exploited in earlier times. Previously, the bulk of the population was static, but could be reached by means of movable type. Nowadays, with the bulk of the population commuting, messages are placed in locales where they will perforce be seen by the passing public. Whereas pamphlets were sold, thereby involving the purchaser in a choice, graffiti typically catches the observer’s eye unawares. However, the initial message can become a palimpsest, vulnerable to ironic ripostes, since subsequent “authors” can subvert it. Thus during the apartheid regime the following slogan appeared in the London subway: “The ANC [African National Congress] will break the shackles of Apartheid,” to which had been added the racist comment: “Kaffirs [blacks] break everything.” This is a powerful instance of the “straight” political slogan using conventional metaphors of political struggle, and the rejoinder exploiting taboo language and racist stereotyping. The subversive element can also be reinforced by wit and wordplay, as in the example “Phallic Symbolism is a lot of cock,” punning on the British idiom for “a lot of rubbish.”

In recent decades graffiti has reached such volumes as to be regarded as a public nuisance, so that in 2002 utilities like British Rail instituted prosecutions and fines for the defacement of public property. Town and city authorities in Britain, the United States, and South Africa have followed the same practice.