How does music inform our noti
How Does Music Inform Our Notions of Gender?Music allows people to express their gender and sexuality in either an advert or a subtle way. The Spice Girls used the phrase 'Girl Power' which could not be less feminist in a 'We are Women, step aside men' way, 'boy Power' doesn't have quite the same ring to it. Girls in rock bands are women trying to fit into a male orientated environment by acting masculine, for example Courtney Love acts tough yet still gets away with wearing pretty little girlie slip dress's in the same way that Mick Jagger confused / crossed the line between male and female and met somewhere in the middle, he was pretty and androgynous and delighted as did David Bowie in 'gender bending', he even said himself "What really upsets people is that I am a man and not a women... what I do is very much the same as a girls strip tease dance." He confused the idea we had of gender. Where as more recently Spice Girls were defiantly female, Madonna goes about it in a very powerful way going about her work showing everything it is to be a woman in a masculine way. Bands these days are very much manufactured, Take That all though are admired by flocks of adoring female fans were actually quite camp. Boyzone with th
In summary androgyny offers male performers the chance to play with colour, and movement, which is basically an escape of the expected man. CambridgeSheila Whitely 1997 Sexing the Groove: popular music and gender. (Ruth Padel 2000:215)Advertisements words are chosen like 'strong', 'overpowering', 'punch', 'touch', 'cut throat' and so on. Music produced by bands like Cast, Space and the Lightening Seeds, suggest a masculinity that is soft, vulnerable and all together less macho, less threatening and less aggressive. Different artists like Keith Richards would often hold his guitar, like he was firing it into the audience. Same in Glam metal, androgyny has found popular success to a degree unique to its own. In Western Society, for much of its history metal has been appreciated and supported primarily by a male teenage audience. Sheila believes the major reason women do not tend to play the electric guitar, is because it is seen as male. All of this causes problems for the woman guitarist, in terms of how she holds and plays her instrument. It is not only lyrics or visual imagery but also the music it's self that construct gender experiences. These representations primarily serve the interests of the male musicians who dominate heavy metal performance. Glam metal (Androgyny): Androgyny has a long history in music, from classical (opera) to pop. This new product was so pleasing to the female market. Obviously they were not the first to do so but nobody else got this much success. Music lyrics, visual images and behaviour supply to assemble gender identities, infusing them with power and say that they are natural and desirable.
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Acceptance Essays
