VPMC83H3 Lecture Notes - Battletech, Masculinity, Hypermasculinity
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Published on 8 Feb 2013
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Department
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Forging Masculinity: Heavy-Metal Sounds and Images of Gender
Orpheus
-known for his rhetorical powers
-elaborate vocal display threatens masculine self-control
-flamboyant display represents manipulative power, but also results in object of display
-similar to emotionality of women
-western constructions of masculinity: spectacular display, self-control
-spectacles maintain women’s position as object
Heavy Metal
-stages fantasies of masculine virtuosity and control
-music depends on power of control and transcendent freedom
-vocal extremes, guitar power chords, sheer volume of bass and drums
-hypermasculinity/ androgyny in visual performance
-topics include mythology, violence, madness, and iconography of horror
-address anxiety, such as television show “The A-Team”
-present images and confront anxieties
-shaped by patriarchy and capitalism
-audience is mostly male teenagers that lack social, physical, and economic power
-Fiske: insecurity of masculinity results in the achievement and emphasis of masculinity in heavy
metal
-Walser: sex roles as social construction rather than normative formation
-provide occasions for identity work, accomplishing gender
-confirmation and alteration of gendered identities through involvement
-genre: organize reproduction of a particular ideology
-stories of nature of masculinity in heavy metal
-anxieties of gender and power are not resolved
open to negotiation and transformation
-social circumstances may change that a form of culture is no longer relevant as metal deals with
experience of powerlessness
-maturity lessens the culturally-produced anxieties
-offer contradictions of masculinity that is constructed by societies on the basis of patriarchy,
capitalism, and mass-mediation
-misogyny, exscription (denial of gender anxieties by portraying homoerotic bonding),
androgyny, romance
-rock’s tradition of rebellion
-romance attracts more female fans
-gender construction
-produce patriarchal assumptions and ideologies, conflicts and legitimacy of cultural activity
Behind the Screen: Listening to Gender
Kaplan’s study of music video “Rocking Around the Clock”
-nihilistic category
-violence and rebelliousness
-blatant sexism
-Walser: sexism is the result of urgency and influence of patriarchal ideals
-Kaplan’s comments are consistent with ethnographic or personal contact with heavy-metal
musicians
-spectacular reinforcement in music video may be a limitation in interpretation
-music video is not the most important involvement of fans in metal music
-neglect the analysis of music itself
-music has the primary affective charge
-music seems natural and unconstructed, away from social referents
-musical meanings are inseparable from social reality
-music videos cannot be reasonably be analyzed without the musical component
-important to find meaning in text
No Girls Allowed: Exscription in Heavy Metal
-spectacle of live performance in music video
-experience of collectivity and participation
-concert setting reinforces feelings of community and power
-male bonding in a hero-team social relationship
-Ehrenreich: growing up for men means growing away from women
-Fiske: male bonding creates close social ties and excludes threat of feminine
-interpersonal dependency that is goal centered, but not relationship centered
-exscription of women promotes masculine performance and independence
-emphasize performative
Judas Priest’s “Heading out to the Highway”
-images of male freedom and adventure
-absence of women
-signs of aggressiveness and refusal to be bound by limits
-display of power in singing technique
-spectacle of male potency
Gay Metal Society (GMS)
-see metal videos as erotic fantasies
-homoerotic implications vs. power and freedom
-mutual erotic pleasure rarely appears in the lyrics of heavy metal
-prevent men from danger of pleasure, loss of control
-seduction of women triggers desire
-presence of women as sex objects stabilizes the suggestion of homoeroticism
The Kiss of Death: Misogyny and the Male Victim
-blatant abuse of women is uncommon in metal videos
-violence as prohibitions of eroticism