Talk:Tartanry

Untitled

This article needs a lot of work, to get rid of the bias. The writer is presumably one of those left-wing Scots who regards tourist-tat tartanry as an alien imposition on a sophisticated, educated nation. I do sympathise, although the view here is probably too one-sided for Wikipedia.

Suggestions:

• A picture would be good. A shortbread tin possibly, preferably one of those ones with Bonnie Prince Charlie on the front.

• A specific section outlining the arguments against tartanry - inauthenticity, cheapness, bestowing a sense of oppressed victimhood, dependence on tourism etc.

• A specific section outlining the arguments in favour - popularity amongst ordinary Scots, tourist income, the idea that tartanry opponents are embarassed to be Scottish, etc.

• I would suggest considering a light-hearted approach to this article.

I'd not bother with a merger with 'Scottish cringe'. Tartanry isn't a common term (it's used by academics - in fact it might even be possible to put a name to the origin of the term) - but I've never even heard of the 'Scottish cringe' before.

12:34 5th March 2006 (GMT) User:Nydas

I can't think of where to find it, but Billy Connolly speaks out about this phenomenon in his stand-up. He doesn't use the term, but he does talk about "kilts, and Bonnie Prince Charlie, and 'roamin' in the gloamin' wi' Morag'". Finding a source for that would help. BeerMatt 10:21, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree this could use some clarification. Right now the article assumes a bit more familiarity with Scottish culture on the part of the reader than is ideal. Aspects of this are probably confusing to outsiders, especially those who've never questioned the phenomena. I'll give it some thought, but right now I'm not certain how to improve it without, well, talking down to people, which is also not an ideal approach. - Kathryn NicDhàna ♫♦♫ 19:13, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Walter Scottishness

Resolved

 – Source found; added to article.

Is this not a synonym for so-called 'Walter Scottishness' - The 19th century romantic 'Disneyfication' of the idea of Scotland and Scottishness by Walter Scott and others. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.5.23.69 (talk) 12:09, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Certainly sounds like it, though we would need a reliable source for that term.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  02:16, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

Never mind; I found the source, and will add this in a moment.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  02:25, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

Music hall and Harry Lauder

Everything I read in sources on tartary and Highlandism brings up Harry Lauder and the latter (interwar) music hall scene as instrumental in promoting tartanry and in maintaining negative native Scottish reaction to it. But our article doesn't mention them, and this seems like a big gap. Here's a quote from Porter (1998) p. 2: "Appropriated by the Music Hall and Harry Lauder in the interwar period, tartanry came to represent, for Lowlanders, a garb to which they could claim allegiance only vicariously, through identification with the heroic image of the Highlanders who had once been their enemy ... The early modern phase of tartanry in the twentieth century ended in a debased popular culture of sentimentality, 'stage Scotchmen' ....". Just one example.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  02:21, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

Good source

This source is chock-full of relevant stuff, and I'm just past the introduction:

• Armstrong, Fiona Kathryne (31 August 2017). Highlandism: Its value to Scotland and how a queen and two aristocratic women promoted the phenomenon in the Victorian age (PhD). University of Strathclyde. doi:10.48730/2m47-md74. Retrieved 28 May 2023.

 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:17, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

Here's a sample, from pp. 198–199:

Today [modern] Jacobitism can still be blamed for fueling the Highlandism that allegedly stifles Scotland culturally. Craig Beveridge and Ronnie Turnbull note E.P. Thompson’s view that it represents a “nostalgic and anachronistic”81 movement. They also discuss the ‘Scotch Myths’ theory which suggests that Scots helped manufacture “clownish, contorted versions”82 of themselves for money, to feel part of Empire and to forget the country’s social woes. “Bonnie Prince Charlie, tartan, kilts and bagpipes would come to inform a popular nostalgic cult… a surrogate, fantasy identity inimical both to genuine nationalism and to the formation of a progressive social consciousness.”83

Tom Nairn’s view that a “pulverised”84 Highland culture and “dead rebel cause”85 was transformed into a “mythic” and “empty Highlandism… a distorted legend and symbolism which Scots idiotically took to be essential to their national identity”86 is examined. Who would want to adopt the plaid of such a backward-looking movement?87 It seemed that some did, including Queen Victoria. Again, though, Beveridge and Turnbull remind us that tartan was not an invention, “nor was its association… with Jacobitism manufactured.”88 The ‘Scotch Myths’ theory is further discussed in chapter six.

It cites other good sources for just about everything it says.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  09:36, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

Other image(s) needed

The first image on this page isn't appropriate. It's a depiction of Georgian-era French high-fashion adaptation of tartan to non-Highland (non-British for that matter) clothing applications, and has nothing remotely to do with stereotypes about Scotland. I think I'm just going to remove it completely (though I did reuse the image at Tartan#Georgian, where it actually makes sense).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  07:44, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

I'll try to identify a few images that might be more appropriate.

• File:George IV in kilt, by Wilkie.jpg - the original tartany, George IV all kilted up for "the King's Jaunt"; we're already using that one
• File:Highlander-kilt.jpg - pseudo-medieval kilted cosplay
• File:4th Battalion, The Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders Cigarette Card.jpg - Highland regiment soldier imagery used for old advertising
• File:Brigadoon (1954) trailer 3.jpg - Brigadoon scene, of singing, dancing "Scots" in tartan trews and kilts
• File:Massed bands.jpg - "Massing of the bands" at a North American Highland games event
• File:Tins 017.JPG - something suggested above, a Walker's Shortbread tin with tartan packaging and image of children in Highland dress
• File:Tartan.jpg - piper caricature that is the mascot of Scotia-Glenville High School in Scotia, New York. This may well be the ideal first image

 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  07:59, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

Clydesideism

Clydesideism or Clydesidism or Clydeside-ism is another term (not to cover here, but to have in "See also"), but we lack an article on it. It's been described along with tartanry and kailyard as one of the three "contrasting stereotypes and identities historically imagined" of Scotland, "myths of the 'nation', dominant images of Scotland in film that were identified by McArthur in 1982 but continually nuanced since." [1]

More specifically, there's a definition of it in this source, but it's behind the JSTOR paywall. Some partial text is: " Clydesidism, which constructs an industrial masculine Scotland, can be viewed as progressive. The basic argument of Scotch Reels was that there needed to be new ..."

A Word document here also addresses it. Partial quote from Google preview: "Clydesidism, for its part, offers an urban male working-class view of Scottish life based mainly on the heavy industries (often shipbuilding) of a Glasgow ..."

A more detailed abstract is available here, though I'm not sure if full text is available. Part of the abstract: "...the three dominant myths of Scotland—those stereotypical images of Tartanry, Kailyard and Clydesidism identified in the seminal collection Scotch Reels as characteristic of cinematic representations of the nation—were themselves based upon specific regions of Scotland (McArthur 1982). Briefly, Tartanry expressed a romanticized view of the Highlands and Islands as a place bypassed by history; Kailyard (or cabbage patch) depicted the parochial life of isolated, Lowland rural working class communities; finally, Clydesidism, constructs the myth of an “authentic,” masculine, working class urban life. Focused in and around the shipyards of Glasgow in the latter decades of the twentieth century when shipbuilding began to decline, Clydesidism in cinema increasingly drew attention to the position of the disenfranchised, post-industrial 'hard man', in opposition to the 'feminised' middle classes...."

Another source says all three of these motifs are explicitly masculist: "The Kailyard, tartanry and Clydesidism have no place for women ... there is no analogous 'lass o' pairts'; the image of tartanry is a male-military image." McCrone, David (1992). Understanding Scotland: The Sociology of a Stateless Nation. London: Routledge. p. 190.

A Google search on "Clydsidism" turns up several more journal sources.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  16:13, 1 June 2023 (UTC)

PS: The fact that multiple journal sources are saying that tartanry, kailyard, and Clydesideism form a consistently used but mutually contradictory trio of stereotyping Scottish motifs means we need to edit both Tartanry and Kailyard school to account for this (and red-link to Clydesideism until we have an article there).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:09, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

Some probable good sources for this:

• McArthur, Colin, ed. (1982). Scotch Reels: Scotland in Cinema and Television. London: BFI Publishing. One of the papers in this book seems to have been definitional, given what was quoted above earlier.
• Stewart Leith, Murray; Sim, Duncan (2020). "Images of Scotland". Scotland: The New State of an Old Nation. Manchester University Press. doi:10.7765/9781526127792. ISBN 9781784992552. – Book is a general sociological overview of modern Scotland; chapter focuses on tartan, Kailyard literature, Clydesideism, and other themes.
• Riach, Alan (2005) [2004]. Representing Scotland in Literature, Popular Culture and Iconography: The Masks of a Nation. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 9781349523276.
• This entire journal issue is all about Scottish television and other media, including Clydeside and Kailyard material: Visual Culture in Britain, vol. 18, no. 3 (2017) [2] URL access: subscription (to get more than abstracts).

 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  08:48, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

Additional sources

Found this, but have not used it for article yet:

• Cook, Richard J. (2000). The Twentieth Century Tartan Monster: The Cultural Politics of Scottish National Identity (PhD). Oxford, Ohio: Miami University. – Full text available.

Somethings else of possible relevance:

• McArthur, Colin (2003). Brigadoon, Braveheart and the Scots: Distortions of Scotland in Hollywood Cinema. I. B. Tauris. ISBN 9781860649271.
• Zumkhawala-Cook, Richard (2008). Scotland as We Know It: Representations of National Identity in Literature, Film and Popular Culture. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland. ISBN 9780786440313.
• Devine, T. M. (2012) [1999]. The Scottish Nation 1700–2007 (international ed.). Penguin. ISBN 9780718193201. – A.k.a. The Scottish Nation: A Modern History (previous editions were titled The Scottish Nation: A History, 1700–2000 and just The Scottish Nation). Review says it covers tartanry and related matters (among much else; it's 768 pages). I have ordered a copy of the current edition.
• Zumkhawala-Cook, Ricahrd (Spring 2005). "The Mark of Scottish America: Heritage Identity and the Tartan Monster". Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies. 14 (1). University of Toronto Press: 109–136. doi:10.1353/dsp.0.0009.

Two that may address Highlandism:

• Withers, Charles (1992). "The Historical Creation of the Scottish Highlands". In Donnachie, Ian; Whatley, Christopher (eds.). The Manufacture of Scottish History. "Determinations" series. Edinburgh: Polygon. ISBN 9780748661206.
• Womack, Peter (1989). Improvement and Romance: Constructing the Myth of the Highlands. "Language, Discourse, Society" series. London: Macmillan. ISBN 9780333407080.

Something on Highlandism in visual arts:

• Macdonald, Murdo (2010). "Art as an Expression of Northernness: The Highlands of Scotland". Visual Culture in Britain. 11 (3). doi:10.1080/14714787.2010.514758.

 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  05:25, 16 July 2023 (UTC); rev'd. 06:57, 29 August 2023 (UTC)