Lowe Critical Review

In her article, "Tween Scene: Resistance within the Mainstream," Lowe uses two focus groups to research her hypothesis that tween girls within the mainstream are able to use their position there to uphold feminist values. Though the 12-15 year old girls she meets would never call themselves feminists, she finds that they are aware of the sexual objectification that occurs in mainstream pop, and the affect it has on all women. Yet these girls are still fans and consumers of pop. Though they all like Brittany Spears, the girls dislike the fine line she walks between sex goddess and princess of pop, most likely because that is the line they feel they are being asked to walk all the time. Lowe believes that dealing with these issues helps the tweens begin to test their own sexuality, finding a line between attractive and objectified, and their own political sense of self based on their views of how women are treated in media as well as how they are viewed as females. I think Lowe hits on an interesting point that this may no longer be considered feminism outright - these girls do not want to be associated with this word. Instead it is a new breed of "Girl Power." It is female solidarity that asks for gender-equality.

Question: Lowe notes that the girls love to sing the songs together, but could care less about the story that Brittany Spears is telling. Chris Rock also mentions something similar in a stand up routine about how women love hip-hop, but when asked about hip-hop music's disrespectful content toward women they most often say "not talkin' 'bout me." Is music becoming less about the politics? Or is it that the musical content isn't seen as political, and instead the scene is just full of political negotiating (i.e. the tweens being in the mainstream pop scene, while trashing it at the same time)?

Ethnography Fieldwork - Part 1

When I began to look into this topic, I found two very intriguing blogs that discussed gender and emo. One discussed the lack of women on the performance-side of the genre, and how that made women less a part of the scene. The author felt that one result of this male-dominated scene was that the music content often depicted women as sexual objects or objects of scorn. Women were either used for sexual exploits or the reason the songwriter felt so emotionally angry/self-loathing/hurt. The other author that influenced the beginnings of my research discussed how emo was a genre counter to the hegemonic masculine norm. Men in emo were able to express themselves emotionally, dressed less stereotypically masculine, and were generally considered to be acting more effeminate than other male music counterparts.

Since readings those blogs, I posed some questions and launched a search of the internet. I searched broadly to start, looking at the site of one of my favorite emo bands that has a female frontwoman – Paramore. I then followed a lead given to me by a friend to look at the music videos. He claimed that emo music videos were amazingly sexist upon close observation. Sticking to the current mainstream emo bands I had heard of, I picked out earlier hits that I deemed to be more emo since the complaints I usually hear are that the favorite emo bands have gotten too pop and mainstream in their later years. I watched music videos for songs off of Fall Out Boy, All American Rejects, and Panic at the Disco’s first albums. The content that I saw though did not seem to demonstrate any bias against women or show the storyline of the songs. There was a lack of women in many videos, but those that had women seemed to portray them fairly. Thinking that it was possible that these early videos were simply closer to emo’s punk/hardcore roots, I then watched videos from sophomore albums. There were more women shown as sexual objects and added for sex appeal in these videos, but it seemed that it was not all women. Only those who were portrayed as popular, backstabbing, etc and the same was true for the men. (See Dance, Dance example of popular boys and girls) In looking at these music videos, I found that even songs I knew to be about anger toward a girl or a bad relationship breakup, the video did not match. I deemed this a dead end and quit. My findings are posted.

A new search starting with definitions was more successful. I noticed patterns when looking up emo on Urban Dictionary, such as the almost purposeful use of poor spelling and grammar by the kids claiming to be emo and the disdain of the non-emos writing definitions. There were many more links to female-emo-related topics than male, and they were much more extensive and seemingly written by females. Perhaps females were more involved in the web aspect of the scene. One entry caught my attention, claiming that there was no such thing as female emos, only homosexual male emos.

For my next stage in fieldwork, I luckily found a book by Andy Greenwald called Nothing Feels Good: Punk Rock, Teenagers, and Emo. I am told there is a small section on gender, so I am hoping to get that book soon. I also found a thesis paper on emo and masculinity. The author’s fieldwork included a section on whether emo hates women, citing lyrics that are violent toward women and the lack of female performers. The emo fans he spoke with seemed to acknowledge the facts, but felt that this violent outlook toward women was simply because the content was highly relationship-based and was for cathartic purposes only. And teenage girls often found this appealing because they could relate the emotions and catharsis.

I am now wondering about the content about females in emo and the actual females who are present in the emo scene. A long winded wiki search resulted in very few females in emo bands – before my search I could only think of Paramore and a small duo of sisters called Meg and Dia. The Hush Sound has a girl and is on Fueled By Ramen, but I think most consider them to be more indie. How to proceed from here…I am unclear. I am most interested by the content and the females present in this scene, but sorting through more than pictures of fringe and eyeliner to find content, ideas, and attraction to the genre is proving difficult, especially with very little scholarly or overarching works on the topic. My second search results were more helpful though.

Ethnography Notes 2/23/09

Urban Dictionary:

Emo girl

Emo girls

Emo guy

Emo guy/girl

Emo girls kissing:

#5) What happens when two emo boys kiss. There's no such thing as a female emo. All emos are homosexual boys.

Guy 1: Check it out! Over there! Two emo girls kissing!!
Guy 2: Umm... Emo girls don't exsist, dude. Those are two little emo fag boys kissing....
Guy 1: Let's kick their asses.
*Hilarity ensues.*

Much more information on emo girls on this site, with some claiming to be emo, others clearly not fans of emo. Much of it seemed to be the stereotype I had heard but have never actually encountered. This last entry was the most interesting – no such thing as female emo.

There’s apparently a book called Nothing Feels Good, by a guy named Andy Greenwald. It discusses how emo is something sprung from punk and hardcore. He “makes the case for emo as more than a genre – it’s an essential rite of teenagehood.”

Thesis by Matthew J. Aslaksen – Middle Class Music in Suburban Nowhere Land: Emo and the Performance of Masculinity
Pg. 93 starts section on the audience. Pg. 105 – 113 has a section titled “Hatred of Women?” Author asks people about the content of many emo songs in which the all-male groups sing about rage or violence against women. Some state that it is not a poor view of women on the whole but against certain individual women who have hurt them in relationships. Fans think that bc it’s in a song does not make it outwardly violent. They believe it is an emotion that ppl identify with and is cathartic.

Many sites are saying that emo is emotional hardcore and emotional hardcore punk. It’s an umbrella term to cover a lot of styles, but also not a way to describe music so much as a style and attitude. I may need to pick a branch, though I’ve never heard of a majority of bands on this one site of “top emo records.”

Wikipedia seems to separate emo into three separate ways – First wave, second wave, and mainstream which is 2000 to present. I suppose I will mostly be looking at the latter, because it is more familiar and seems to be where there are more female fans and more female-related content rather than simply emotional content in the early waves.

Wiki’s list of emo bands includes very few females – The Anniversary, Boys Night Out used to have 2 females, Rainer Maria, Paramore,

Going back to my idea to focus on Fueled By Ramen, there list of active artists includes the Hush Sound, Paramore, and Versaemerge.

Ethnography Notes 2/19/09

Decided to look at a bunch of music videos and blogs because I was told I would find that women were obscured and men were very feminine. They seemed pretty even handed in the end though...

Screw Rock & Roll – The Girl All the Boys Wanna Dance With

- About Paramore, being female-fronted.

- “Which is an accusation, that, like a lot of Hopper's statements is sort of interesting and sort of true, but also way too shrill and not as meaningful as she thinks it is. I mean, yeah, there are some (many?) pretty misogynistic emo tracks out there, but let's face it: the genre, being what it is, has a whole lot of break-up songs in it, a lot of them rather angry. It's a bit much to criticize artists doing break-up tracks for not being nicer about their exes. No one says "Hit 'Em Up Style" is misandrist.”

- Female-fronted emo band named…

Paramore Blog – Band members blogging

Tickle Me Emo – Mad TV sketch

Fall Out Boy – Sugar We’re Going Down off of Take This To Your Grave (while still on Fueled by Ramen)

- Girl is actually a nice character. Can’t see her much.

Will focus on artists on Fueled By Ramen – generally thought to be the emo label. Includes Pete Wentz’s Decaydance Records, which is a “vanity label,” meaning it’s a little brother label under Fueled By Ramen.

FOB – Saturday
- Mostly men moshing around, but do see some females in the crowd. Queen of Hearts is the death card in the storyline.

FOB – Grand Theft Autumn
Girl in it, can see her face. Somewhat sexual, she dresses, leaves the house and makes out with the guy before just walking away.

All American Rejects – Swing, Swing
Guy and girl seem in a good relationship, they fight and she breaks it off. Doesn’t seem as bad as I was expecting. Only notice that it seems like the men are emotional and the girls are fairly cold. Perhaps it’s different in later work, or perhaps I’m simply used to female depictions.

Looked at All American Rejects next big hit “Dirty Little Secret.” A song about hiding a relationship with someone. The video didn’t actually feature anyone but the band bc it was all postcards from the Post Secret Project where ppl wrote their secrets on postcards. Women did seem to be posting “I don’t really love him” and men “I love her but I can’t say,” but I think I’m stretching.

FOB’s Dance Dance came out on the 2^nd album

- Only the hot girls seem to be sexual objects. There are nerdy girls, dressed similar and acting similar to the boys that are portrayed favorably.

FOB Thnks fr th Mmrs

- Has only one woman who is solely for sexual purposes and then is a backstabber.

P@TD’s Lying is the Most Fun a Girl Can Have Without Taking her Clothes Off is like a romance. Sad but the girl is faithful. In I Write Sins Not Tragedies () the woman leaves the alter and is caught making out with someone else. This seems to be the only video that matches the storylines in these songs.

Just to look into women, here’s Paramore’s Misery Business. The woman is basically portrayed as a bitch but not all the women.

Maybe the video depictions are not the place to look. Perhaps it is more important the gender issues in the bands themselves – the make up, the lyrics, the emotions. If I compared the way male and female fronts act maybe I can see that the women are acting more male and men are acting more female?

Looking at the lyrics could lead me into a totally different direction, but those are seemingly more about emotion and break ups and are less favorable toward women, and yet women are fans.

Interview Post Attempt

I have interviewed some of the more popular bands that are considered emo in the music world right now. I wasn't specifically speaking to this topic, but I hope to find some good little tidbits.

The only problem is I don't think it will be accessible to people who are not BRU Crew members of wbru.com. Also, I'd like to find a way to get it embedded. For now, I've linked one interview I had and am trying to upload MP3s as videos. Tricky tricky.

GQ's interview with Patrick Stump of Fall Out Boy 12/15/08 on 95.5 WBRU

Ok it didn't work. Fail.

Schilt Critical Review

Schilt gives a historical background and analysis of the Riot Grrrl scene that emerged in the early 1990s. Interviewing bands that were identified with the scene, such as Bikini Kill, Bratmobile, and Suture, she was able to learn more about the origin and the ideas behind this scene. Starting up in Olympia, WA and then Washington, D.C., Riot Grrls seem to be the product of punk and feminism. As punk and metal became a a hardcore scene, there was more male-dominated violence and aggression that pushed women behind the scenes as groupies and tour managers. No longer were they equal members of the music and the music experience.

In response, women began punk-style bands with females and more political music. This led to many zines as a forum to discuss sexism in music, especially in the rock and punk genres. The political message eventual led to issues of Riot Grrrl identity as the question was posed - Is it about the music or the message? This problem was directly counter to the original ideology of Riot Grrrl that there wasn't one. There was no manifesto or definition so that Riot Grrrl could be applicable to all females and not be pinned down by the media. Eventually the media began to paint pictures of what a Riot Grrrl was, losing the scene subcultural capital and strong female musicians who were not Riot Grrrls, but who would have been otherwise supportive of the cause.

Question: Do you think that scenes hurt themselves by holding their own group to such high standards? The women who gained notoriety were thought to be "selling out" the Riot Grrrl scene. Racial issues became a topic of discussion even though participants tried to be inclusive claiming "every girl is a Riot Grrrl." Does the internal tension and need to be underground with scene cred hurt the cause, the participants, and the scene itself?

Ethnography Project - Emo and Gender

Throughout history, music has been dominated by male writers and performers. Rock and roll has generally been a genre for and by men, with women more often the theme rather than the performer. Emo music has added to the music-gender discussion immensely by being completely dominated by men. Bands such as Fall Out Boy, Dashboard Confessional, and Brand New write lyrics about struggle, the self, and most often about women. Females who have betrayed them, entranced them, toyed with them. Yet emo has not been thought to be a particularly masculine genre. These men are stepping outside the social norms of being macho and hiding their feelings, by expressing them fully through song. They are willing to admit that they are sad, hurt, or unsure of themselves and offer other people the chance to identify with them.

The people who are identifying with emo music, though, are not all boys who understand what it is like to have a girl break up with them. Emo music is incredibly popular with girls as well, even though they are often the targets of criticism and stereotyping. On the surface, it would almost seem as if emo music is mostly mid-20s males performing for females and males younger than themselves. Another interesting interplay between genders in emo can be seen in the style. Emo boys and girls seem to dress very similarly and wear very similar haircuts, usually only differentiated by the difference in length in the back, but the same in the front. Both girls and boys wear make up, which is another less masculine quality about the male artists in this genre.

Some questions I am considering looking into further on this topic are:

- Is there a place for women in creating emo music? Is that place be similar to that of male song writers and performers or will it be a different thematic angle within the genre? It would be useful to analyze women currently in the emo scene on the performance side.

- What attracts women to emo music? Do they notice the gender differences? Do they feel that emo is actually less gendered than I am speculating? Then what would they say about the violence against emo people mostly because the men are perceived as gay and feminine based on the dress and emotional content of emo?

- I would possibly compare and contrast the themes of two popular, more mainstream emo bands: Fall Out Boy and Paramore. Fall Out Boy consists of four men and Paramore consists of four men and one woman. Whether or not her influence as part of the band changes themes or music would have to be considered.

Some links to idea sources:

Analyzing Gender in Emo Music
Emo: Where the Girls Aren't

Hodkinson Critical Review

Hodkinson studied the seemingly translocal nature of the Goth scene, specifically looking at different areas of Great Britain. Whereas many scenes can be differentiated based on its specific locale, the Goth scene is fairly similar in many varying areas. While there were some things that were specific to each place, perhaps a certain item of clothing or a band, it was mostly because that had been available and would soon become available elsewhere. Hodkinson attributed these findings to Goth's travel patterns, commerce, and media usage.

Goths would often come together, mixing styles and influences, in large festivals such as the Whitby Gothic Weekend. The weekend would offer the opportunity for Goths to meet other Goths, buy clothing from vendors hailing from different places, and sampling all the Gothic bands that were playing. Other than festivals, Goths were travelling searching for other Goths and Goth scenes. They seem to enjoy the variety, but are looking to be with others like themselves, since Hodkinson found that they felt more akin to other Goths than to others from their own locales. They would find out about other scenes, shows, and activities through flyers, discussion forums, and word of mouth. The growth of forums and communication online seems to be adding to the idea that Goth is extremely translocal, but also is slowing down the actual face to face interactions of Goths.

Question: The internet can allow for people to share their scene around the world with all kinds of locals. But is it actually a "scene" of people all experiencing and sharing in the same styles and influences if they never actual come together to experience each other's local scenes and styles, hear their music, or actual meet?