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Similarities of gender identity and sexual orientation
Gender representation in music videos
Similarities of gender identity and sexual orientation
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Intro: Like various art forms such as film, television, and literature allows artists to express their own sense of identity, that being nationality, race, class, ethnicity, gender or sexuality. In this case, Queen uses music to illustrate the themes of gender and sexuality through their music video I Want to Break Free (1983). This essay will attempt to discuss how Queen’s music video, I Want to Break Free, explores queerness in relation to queer theory. Firstly, I will introduce the ideas and arguments of queer theory through Gilbert Herdt article Same Sex Different Cultures (1997). I will then discuss Queen’s portrayal of drag within the music video and how it can be seen as queer rather than heterosexual. Lastly, I will argue that Mercury’s depiction of heterosexuality within the music video could also be seen as queer in oppose to heterosexual through his performance of hyper-masculinity.
Queer: Generally speaking, queer theory concerns itself with issues dealing with gender identity and sexual orientation (Herdt, 1997, p. 8). This theory accepts academic sources which raise issues of literature, philosophy, sociology and other scholarly discourses (Herdt, 1997, p. 8). However, queer theorists use these texts and reinterpret them to “seek a new culture and history sought to uncover a period of past social life” (Herdt, 1997, p. 9). Herdt notes that queer theory attempts to expose and subvert the social hierarchies of “power that define normality” (1997, 9). However, in order to do this Herdt notes that within queer theory attempts to deconstruct sexual identity and refuse “all classification and all notions of normality” (Herdt, 1997, p. 9). In saying this, queer theorist believe that one’s sexual identity is based on soci...
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...essentialism". The Journal of Philosophy 65. 1968. (20): 615–626
Peraino, J. 2003. Listening to the Sirens: Music as Queer Ethical Practice. In A. GLQ 9:4; 433–470
Butler, Judith. 1999. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (Subversive bodily acts, IV Bodily Inscriptions, Performative Subversions). New York: Routledge
Herdt, G. H. (1997). Same sex, different cultures exploring gay and lesbian lives. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press.
AfterElton.com. (2008) “The Fifty Greatest Gay Movies!”. Retrieved from 16 May 2014.
Frith, Simon & Angelina McRobbie (1978) “Rock and Sexuality”. On Record: Rock, Pop, and the Written Word. Ney York: Pantheon Books
Ray, Amy & Emily Saliers. (1995). Power of Two [Recorded by Indigo Girls]. Swamp Ophelia [CD]. Nashville, TN: Epic.
Deacon, John. (1983). I Want to Break Free [Recorded by Queen].The Works [CD]. UK: EMI.
They mention the transition of “the closet,” as being a place in which people could not see you, to becoming a metaphor over the last two decades of the twentieth century used for queers who face a lack of sexual identity. Shneer and Aviv bring together two conflicting ideas of the American view of queerness: the ideas of the past, and the present. They state as queerness became more visible, people finally had the choice of living multiple lives, or integrating one’s lives and spaces (Shneer and Aviv 2006: 245). They highlight another change in the past twenty years as the clash between being queer and studying queerness (Shneer and Aviv 2006: 246-7). They argue that the active and visible contests over power among American queers show that queers now occupy an important place in our culture. They expand on the fact that queerness, real, and performed, is everywhere (Shneer and Aviv 2006: 248). This source shows the transformation in American culture of the acceptance of queerness. It makes an extremely critical resource by providing evidence of the changes in culture throughout the last two decades. Having the information that queerness is becoming more accepted in culture links to a higher percentage of LGBTQ youths becoming comfortable with their sexual identity. However, compared to the other sources, this
... Bohlman, Philip V. Music and the Racial Imagination. University Of Chicago Press, Chicago. 2001. Print.
Subotnik, Rose Rosengard. Developing Variations: Style and Ideology in Western Music. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1991.
...f. Th.Reinach, La musique grecque, Payot, Paris, 1926; C.Sachs, The Rise of Music in the Ancient World, W.W.Norton & Comp. Inc. New York, 1969.
Annie Lenox through her performances and music videos evoked the use of “gender-bending”. Lennox was one of the first performers who employed this strategy. By doing this Lennox showed that we could view women in different ways unlike the identity assigned for them by the media and society. The Eurythmics used their videos as a tool for performing gender roles, stereotypes by evoking the use of drag through camp.
Jonathan Katz talks about the initial creation of the term “heterosexuality” and how it was used to classify certain groups of people’s way of practicing sex. Along with the negative ideology the term reflected upon society. The author talks about the early definition of the term “heterosexuality”. Katz closely examines the different cultures and what sex meant to them prior to the term and over all labeling of “heterosexual” and what become of them after the fact. Katz illustrates the many faces of the term “heterosexual” starting with the early definition of the word, which was at the
4 Mack, Stacey "ROCKED AND ROLLIN" TIME to Rock round the Clock Nash Publishing, 1994.
Seidman, Steven, Nancy Fischer , and Chet Meeks. "Transsexual, transgender, and queer." New Sexuality Studies. North Carolina: Routledge, 2011. . Print.
In society today, media such as movies and music share huge roles in the dynamics of culture especially concerning communication. In Dream Worlds 3: Desire, Sex, and Power in Music Video we see how famous singers and producers in the making of their music videos have the power of illustrating our language and beliefs. From the music we listen to and things we watch, we are constantly gaining new knowledge by the message that is being presented to us. The main focus of this specific documentary was how women in the music or media industry all together are treated. From this documentary and lectures in class we see that media objectifies, stereotypes, and degrades women and their bodies as advertisements and money makers. Themes in the film discussed
Milstein, Susan A. Taking Sides Clashing Views in Human Sexuality. Ed. William J. Taverner and Ryan W. McKee. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2009. Print.
Wilton, Tamsin. "Which One's the Man? The Heterosexualisation of Lesbain Sex." Gender, Sex, and Sexuality. New York: Oxford University, 2009. 157-70. Print.
Halwani, Raja, Gary Jaeger, James Stramel, Richard Nunan, William Wilkerson, and Timothy Murphy. What Is Gay and Lesbian Philosophy? 2008. MS. Oxford, UK. San Diego Mesa College Academic Databases. Web. 10 Oct. 2011. .
Gender and sexuality can be comprehended through social science. Social science is “the study of human society and of individual relationships in and to society” (free dictionary, 2009). The study of social science deals with different aspects of society such as politics, economics, and the social aspects of society. Gender identity is closely interlinked with social science as it is based on an identity of an individual in the society. Sexuality is “the condition of being characterized and distinguished by sex” (free dictionary, 2009). There are different gender identities such as male, female, gay, lesbian, transgender, and bisexual that exists all around the world. There is inequality in gender identities and dominance of a male regardless of which sexuality they fall under. The males are superior over the females and gays superior over the lesbians, however it different depending on the place and circumstances. This paper will look at the gender roles and stereotypes, social policy, and homosexuality from a modern and a traditional society perspective. The three different areas will be compared by the two different societies to understand how much changes has occurred and whether or not anything has really changed. In general a traditional society is more conservative where as a modern society is fundamentally liberal. This is to say that a traditional society lists certain roles depending on the gender and there are stereotypes that are connected with the genders. One must obey the one that is dominant and make decisions. On the other hand, a modern society is lenient, It accepts the individual’s identity and sexuality. There is no inequality and everyone in the society is to be seen as individuals not a part of a family unit...
She provides useful insights into both queer studies and phenomenological perspectives. Phenomenology is the philosophical study of experience and consciousness, which is going to be further explored in this essay, through personal experience. Her chapter focuses on the ways in which we experience and orient ourselves within space, especially for those who engage in queer perspectives, first focusing on queer without a sexual connotation. For the purposes of this paper, I will not be discussing queerness in a sexual context, but rather in the way that it was originally defined as a spatial term, meaning strange, odd or to “twist” (Ahmed, 67) from the normative. In other words it is to deviate away from the norm binary previously discussed. Ahmed uses examples of vertical lines for the normative and in this example the deviant is the queer perspective since it fails to remain on this
Bawer, Bruce. A Place at the Table: The Gay Individual in American Society. New York: Poseidon, 1993. Print.