Jarvis Cocker also spoke of the pains of being an outsider or a ‘misfit’ - His lyrics often inspired by his life in Sheffield, and filled with the fumbling awkwardness of lust and the sense of being a true misfit. Cocker managed to mould his discomfort into a hugely successful career and became one of the biggest, most unlikely sex symbols of the decade.
'Mis-Shapes' confines rather more a conflict which anyone who went to high school will be all too familiar with. That is, the one-sided fights between conformist, violent, sportswear-clad 'lads' and the 'hippies', 'Goths' and 'indies -in other words any group other than a group of lads who are seemingly pushed into an uneasy, awkward alliance by a shared and deeply relative sense of nonconformism -fought out in corridors and back streets and dimly-lit pubs across the UK.
Now we're in a nightclub again, where a fight between the townies and the misfits is brewing; The misfits again look like true dregs of the 70's while 'they' are the lads. Now, rather than the Ben Sherman shirts and Puffa jackets of the genuine mid-90s thug, the thugs in 'mis-shapes' are dressed as the likely late-70s tormentors of Pulp themselves, dressed in Fred Perry’s, skinny ties, short skirts, sequins and wedges. 15 years later, it's all completely reversed, as the vintage tracksuit jackets and overgrown Liam Gallagher cuts that are worn by the misfits in the video are far more likely to be the uniform of someone kicking your head in outside Wetherspoons, while the circa-1980 thug-wear worn by the lads fits perfectly with the never-ending 1980s revival favoured by vaguely indie youth. Jarvis Cocker plays the leader of both gangs, once as 'himself' in brown velvet jacket, once as the evil, angry , macho alter ego in skinny tie and pencil moustache. The them and us in 'Mis-Shapes' is wishful thinking, an urge to take the underlying conflict of class warfare and to apply it to a less significant fight between the wearers of Harrington jackets and the wearers of oversized tweed blazers. Any real battle between the haves and haven'ts would involve some general interest between the bullied, effeminate, intellectual 'dole youth' that the likes of Pulp, Suede and menswear all were; and the lads and ladies who chased them around town every Saturday.
Androgyny vs lad culture in the 1990's
MIS-SHAPES, MISTAKES, MISFITS.