Week Six: David Bowie - Gender Bending & Musical Theatre

In my opinion Bolan took on more feminine characteristics that were appealing to this audience because of his seemingly appreciation of feminine traits. David Bowie, on the other hand, took on a more drag queen approach to his performance while pushing the lines of his apparent sexuality to his audience. This blurring the lines of sexuality, even as a heterosexual man with a wife and child, turned his audience on (literally) to his music, appearance, and his performance. Bolan was still able to maintain the hegemonic role of masculinity through his status as teen heart throb, while Bowie beckoned his audience to question and experiment with their sexuality, and most importantly remove all inhibitions regarding sexuality.

Bowie was still wanted by his fans, although in a more overtly sexual manner. I think this concept of overly feminine still plays a part in today’s society and rock music. Take the emo music scene for instance. The male musicians of the time were extremely skinny boys, wearing tight jeans and tight T-shirts, making clear that they were not hegemonically masculine men in terms of their physicality. They were still wanted by girls in the same scene as well, who themselves took on hairstyles reminiscent of 80s hair metal

One of the questions raised in my mind regarding Bowie’s use of theatricality is a comparison to Alice Cooper. Alice Cooper was regarded essentially as less authentic due to their development of a theatrical performance and use of a character (i.e. Alive Cooper himself), but Bowie’s character, Ziggy Stardust wasn’t criticized in the same manner. “Ziggy Stardust, the bisexual alien persona that Bowie performed in 1972 and 1973, was both a figure who mediated between sexualities and a third term that triangulated the relationship between Bowie and the characters in his songs,” Auslander states. “Ziggy, rather than Bowie, became the actor who impersonated the characters delineated in the songs, yet Ziggy was also a fictional entity enacted by Bowie” (p.120). Ziggy Stardust essentially became a translucent entity for which Bowie to shift to and from. Perhaps the rest of Bowie’s performance as Stardust, however, had a hand in distracting from such minor contradictions in the rock world as Bowie pushed boundaries of gender and sexuality much farther beyond the question of authenticity.

In class we discussed how Bowie’s dress attire may hay aided in his authenticity as a rock artist. His clothing was certainly outlandish and campy, but it was who Bowie was and his costumes and costume changes personified him as a performer, thus increasing his authenticity as an artist. This reminded me of a more recent discussion I had this past summer. Attack Attack, a contemporary metal-techno-esque band played at Warped Tour in August, and a friend of mine photographed them.One of the musicians wore basketball shorts and a tank top and was heavily criticized for being unprofessional. This was the commenters initial reaction to the photo shown to the left:

"Seriously dude, those shorts of his? Seriously. Okay, Im know fashion guru, and I understand the nature of these guys' jobs means they can wear whatever the hell they wont, and if they DIDNT wear whatever the hell they wanted, they wouldnt be living up to the image and what not. However, at the same time, it is douche bags like this guy that piss me off to know end. It is douche bags like this guy that hurt the music industry as a whole. I am paying a shit ton of money to watch your sorry ass play some God damn music on a stage. A shit ton of money man. The LEAST you can do is look like you give a damn by, I dunno, putting on something that you didnt just sleep in, or maybe lift weights in. For the love of God put on a pear of ripped up jean for all I care, but put on some real fricken pants or get off the stage and make room for people with arguably more talent who will care about their fans and themselves enough to look "presentable" even in an "unpresentable way" when they are on stage. Douche bag."

As we discussed in class, real rock stars tend to not worry much about their appearance. Rather they go out and do their job and their appearance is not meant to enhance the show in any way. I just thought this was interesting that a musician was being criticized for being a real human being (I don’t know who wouldn’t wear basketball shorts to perform outdoors in the middle of August in Denver if they had the choice).

**Photo of Attack Attack courtesy of Case Bredemeier & Vicarious Production**

Week Five: Glam Rock

Auslander states, “Gender identity was another front on which glam challenged psychedelic rock and the hippie counterculture, not only because glam offered a new, implicitly queer, image of masculinity in rock but also because it disputed the ideology of authenticity by posting gendered identities as constructed rather than natural” (p. 40). I think the statement is rather interesting because we now understand gender as being socially constructed, and we have this argument of nature vs. nurture when it comes to gender in our society. Here Auslander suggests that the hippie counterculture simply copied the gender constructions from previous generations and regarded gender as natural and unchangeable, essentially, by adopting the pre-constructed gender roles of masculine and feminine. Therefore, I find it really interesting that glam artists believed they could defy and mutate their gender identities through constructing themselves outside of the norms of gender identity. Auslander goes on to state, “The use use of makeup in glam rock illustrates clearly how glam posited sexual identity as constructed” (p. 61). However, since many glam artists were in fact straight men, it’s interesting that gender bending and tweaking with the physical characteristics of femininity being placed on men ultimately questioned their sexuality.

This brings up to the concept of camp, which I first believed to be defined as more fake and broadway-style performances. While to some extent this is still true of camp, I’m intrigued by the idea that camp became a culture that was essentially a defense mode for homosexuality. It definitely makes sense that camp would make fun of things that are traumatic. In my gender and women’s studies’ colloquium on Wednesday brought in a woman who had survived the genocide in Rwanda. Upon speaking about an instance when the militia had entered her home and beat her husband for an hour while he begged and pleaded to them to stop, apologizing to them and telling them they had every right to beat her husband based on the fact that he is Tutsi, she began laughing hysterically. The class honestly became very uncomfortable as she laughed hysterically at a traumatic event where she should have been crying, and she admitted that if she did not laugh, she would cry. This is the same defense mode that camp music takes on by making fun of things that are serious and laughing about the things that should matter in order to protect ones’ self from harm and criticism regarding their sexuality.

It’s also interesting how glam rock produced a similar, if not larger, effect from woman as the Beatles, particular T-Rex and Marc Bolan. It makes sense that women would be attracted artists and men that are similar to them in their style and characteristics. While many glam rockers portrayed gay men, rather than straight men, women were still just as in love with Bolan as they were with the straight Beatles. I suppose this makes sense due to the fact that women are attracted to gay men, since they see them are very similar in their femininity, but it’s interesting that by applying makeup, tight clothes and a boa men were able to alter their gender identity in a manner that makes them more attractive as fake homosexual men than as real heterosexual men.

Week Four: Authenticity vs. Performance

Alice Cooper’s take on rock n’ roll and his gender bending performances are particularly interesting to me. Auslander states, “Because the hippie counterculture sought to resist this separation of performer and audience in favor of an imagined social collective, rock musicians were constrained to perform in ways that stressed their identity with their audiences” (p. 13). I think this is interesting when it comes to Alice Cooper because of his decision to take on the role of Alice Cooper as a person and speaks about “Alice” in the third person in interviews. Coming from the counterculture, Alice Cooper resisted all norms of the separation of performer and persona by blurring the lines of his personal life, who he is as a person, and his stage performance as a fictional character in more way than one. By dressing in drag, Alice takes on one characters and speaks as an 18-year-old in “I’m Eighteen,” taking on a younger character’s appealing nature for the audience.

When speaking about Ocho, Auslander says, “Wearing the gold lame suit was clearly a theatrical gesture in conflict with a counterculture that was ambivalent, as best, about theatricality, especially in musical performances” (p. 10). Auslander goes on to states, “Alice Cooper was probably the first rock band of the 1960s to build their entire image around transvestism, intentionally confronting the rock audience with a visual practice -- and intimations of sexuality -- that preyed on its insecurities” (p. 33). I agree with this statement in that Alice Cooper took rock in a new direction by creating a theatricality in his music and making the performance something to be reckoned with. His performance was unique to the band and was something that had to be experienced in person, which I believe is something that trailed into glam rock in later years. From his exaggerated makeup to his use of women’s clothing and props, Alice Cooper toyed with the concept of his gender and heterosexuality. This theatricality was not something that the counterculture found appealing, which ultimately led to a new emergence of music for the next generation and a way for young people to find their own place among music when they didn’t fit in with the counterculture.

Week Three: Rockin’ in a Hard Place: Janis Joplin & the Female Rock Star

Although I’ve never been very interested in Janis Joplin, Jerry Rodnitzky’s “Janis Joplin: The Hippie Blues Singer as Feminist Heroine” introduced Joplin in a different light outside of the 60s counterculture. In a decidedly inherently sexist rock culture of the time, Joplin search for her own identity as an un-proclaimed feminist is interesting. Even though Joplin spoke out against the feminist movement in instances, her actions and demeanor throughout her performance and music tell a different story. While she sexualized her performances through her dance moves and using her body as an object of attention, she denounced herself as “just another one of the guys” through her style of dress and as a child of nature without the chemical and manicured upkeep of her appearance. She also used drugs and alcohol heavily, which followed suit with the countercultural ideology. Instead of being another “groovy hippie chick” and making herself available for sexual relations to men, Joplin developed herself as the dominant role in the relationships she held as having the most prominent say in her own sexual exploitations. In sum, she was one of the girls off Sex and the City for the 1960s.

While Joplin’s sexuality continued to shock audiences, as a bisexual in particular, we asked the question in class: why is it that the music we gravitate towards during this time period inherently sexist? I think this is certainly true and none the less interesting. While this was the time of “sexual liberation,” it’s important to realize that the sexual liberation that we see is that of men. For instance, men are allowed to have sex with as many women as they want and whenever they want, binging about this concept of free love. Women on the other hand remain in the oppressed role as being required to be available for the sexual needs of men, become pregnant and give birth (which is seen as very natural and women are adored for this), and care for the children that are ultimately the products of free love. Because of such inequities, rock music naturally takes on a sexist tone at this time referring to women in their sexually oppressed roles. Namely the Rolling Stones take advantage of such circumstances and literally feed the audience what they want to hear. In other words, if the social climate of the 60s is that of using women as sexual objects of pleasure, why would the music is that time not reflect such ideologies when the music reflects every other aspect of the ideology including rebellion, love and individualism?

At the time people in the counterculture gravitated towards this music because it fueled their ideologies and beliefs at the time. Now this music does nothing more than remind us of an inherently sexist time period where women were sexual objects (more so than they are today) for the rampant use of free love and the sexual revolution. Beyond this, musicians of the day made the music catchy and highly likable to wide audiences, which explains its lasting influence on contemporary musicians and audiences.