X-mas Task #5: Essay Plan

Question: How has popular music culture created awareness of LGBT groups and has it been successful in doing so? 

Introduction: 
Popular music has changed rapidly over the last 30 years in terms of LGBT artists, and there have been many influences that have challenged & successfully changed the views of society. Popular music is known to appeal to mass audiences, therefore to keep artists in the mainstream they have to appeal to what the majority of people want to see, rather than educating people and creating awareness of LGBT groups. It could be argued that popular music is one of the main sources of awareness for LGBT groups as music has been known to create social and political change. However there is still many issues with the fact that LGBT groups are not being represented fairly, or in a heterosexual view and the issue regarding censorship and why young people are not being educated about LGBT groups. 


P1: First LGBT artists & there struggles in society with awareness & acceptance.
 Looking at examples of Boy George who started off in Culture Club in the 1980's as one of the first groups to openly express values of equality and sexuality, during a time when there was a lot of change in Britain, politically and socially, there was more immigrants moving to Britain and society was still homophobic. The 1980's was arguably one of the most controversial era's musically as there were many artists that not only challenged the way people thought with their own identity for example Pete Burns, who with his unusual costume and make up in his music video 'You Spin Me Round' challenged the conservative views of society to a more liberal approach on what is acceptable.  Artists such as George Michael and Elton John had to conceal their sexuality until it was socially acceptable in society to be gay. It was not until the mid 90's that George Michael 'came out of the closet' about his sexuality after the release of his song "Fast Love"; however, even during this period of time homosexuality was still controversial and there were many problems surrounding the awareness and acceptance in society as a whole.

Groups such as Bronski Beat, who were all homosexual, not only challenged the representations of LGBT groups in popular culture but openly addressed the political issues surrounding Gay Rights. During the mid 80's there was not only radical change to the artists and music videos in Britain but politically there was more question into both feminism and gay rights. 


Quotations:

• '“Truting” uses the pop song Do You Really Want to Hurt Me? By Culture Club (headed by openly gay male pop star icon, Boy George), which offers an upbeat tempo, yet focuses on the misunderstanding of sexual diversity with the line “this boy loves without a reason,” and repeating the title line and “Do you really want to make my cry?” frequently.' - LGBT identity and online new media By Christopher Pullen, Margaret Cooper
• ‘there is social prohibition against the feminization of men, there is almost none against the masculinisation of women.’ - Macdonald, M. (1995).Representing women: myths of femininity in the popular media. London: E. Arnold ;. P215

P2: Gender roles in music videos & Marxism

Although artists such as Madonna were not part of the LGBT groups, her music videos ('Express Yourself') challenged what it meant to be feminine, most people would have labelled her behaviour, costume and dancing to be lesbian and 'butch'; it could be argued that this alternative representation created awareness of LGBT groups and changed the way women were stereotyped. The oppression that is shown in Madonna's 'Express Yourself' challenges the gender roles during the 1980's, according to Marx to avoid this oppression there needs to be a revolution, in terms of pop music culture the revolution will hope to create equality for women and LGBT groups.

Pete Burns and groups like Queen whose lead vocalist Freddie Mercury who were both described as being ‘openly gay’ questioned gender roles through the use of their flamboyant attire and behaviour. However it could be argued that this in itself did not create awareness of LGBT groups but ridiculed LGBT groups as there were a limited amount of  homosexual artists in the media, therefore because of the lack of diversity and the conservative values of society LGBT groups would have been seen as bizarre and outspoken like the persona’s of the artists. So it did not help create awareness, but created more prejudice. 

Quotations:

• ‘Madonna’s erotica album blurred gender confusions, fluidity of sexuality, and transgression of masculine and feminine stereotypes.’-Gauntlett, D. (2007). Media, gender and identity: an introduction (Reprinted. ed.). London [u.a.: Routledge
• ‘A woman attired as a man may be seen as ‘power dressing’ or as adapting the mannerism of lesbianism’ - Macdonald, M. (1995).Representing women: myths of femininity in the popular media. London: E. Arnold ;. P215
• "an encouragement for all women and all oppressed minorities to resist, to express their ideas and their strength faced with tyranny." - Guilbert, Georges-Claude (2002), Madonna As Postmodern Myth, McFarland, ISBN 0786414081

• 
  

  “Both for the production on a mass scale of this communist consciousness, and ... the alteration of men on a mass scale is, necessary, ... a revolution; this revolution is necessary, therefore, not only because the ruling class cannot be overthrown in any other way, but also because the class overthrowing it can only in a revolution succeed in ridding itself of all the muck of ages and become fitted to found society anew.” Marx, German Ideology (1845)

Over time there has been a gradual change of views and overall acceptance


P3: Lady Gaga & Technology.
People like Lady Gaga advocate political and social change through the use of her powerfully influential music videos for example 'Born This Way', however not only does she use her music videos but also the use of new and digital media to convey her pro-homosexual ideologies through social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter. On Twitter Lady Gaga is known to address her fans as her 'kids' or, more famously, 'little monsters' in which she expresses her views on political issues surrounding the LGBT community, particularly before the gay marriages laws were passed in New York. Before the ‘information revolution’, there was not much interaction between the LGBT artists and the audiences but social networking sites has allowed artists like Lady Gaga to create more social awareness on behalf of LGBT groups, and has successfully managed to arguably influence the gay rights in New York. After the state of New York passed the gay marriage bill Lady Gaga expressed her enthusiasm via Twitter saying ‘'I can't stop crying. We did it kids’. 


Quotations: 

• “I aim at creating my art in the context of a universal idea of freedom. I am unquestionably against all physical and ideological manifestations of tyranny, oppression and imprisonment,” -  Benichou, P. (n.d.). » International Reviews Philippe Benichou Artist Blog. The Art of Philippe Benichou - Original Paintings - Limited Editions - Official Web Site. Retrieved January 24, 2011, from http://philippebenichou.com/blog/?page_id=150
• "Lady Gaga has clearly mastered the new social network phenomenon that drives global consumerism." -  Lady Gaga: Mistress of convergence - http://www.englishandmedia.co.uk/mm/subscribers/downloads/archive_mm/mmagpast/MM36_Collab_gaga_convergence.html
• "The debates surrounding popular culture representations of gayness became increasingly politicized." -  Encyclopedia of gay and lesbian popular culture By Luca Prono

P4: LGBT groups in society & the awareness 
It would seem that although we, in today's society, have more freedom of expression as well as more LGBT artists who through the use of their music videos create awareness of the issue in a political sense, there is still the issue of the majority of society (heterosexuals) oppressing the minority groups (LGBT), which is what artists like Katy Perry portrays through her music video 'Firework'. The gay character in shown to be oppressed and upset by the fact that a heterosexual couple are kissing in the medium shot. John Stuart Mill's view on tolerance; majority vs. minority - there will inevitably be a problem with tolerance and acceptance as the majority view will always be accepted; which is what institutions do in mainstream pop music in order to hold on to the majority, the mainstream audiences. 


Quotations: 

• "Despite some important advances in gay and lesbian visibility in media culture in recent years, representations of sexuality in mainstream pop culture continueto be, for the most part, rampantly heterosexual." -  Gender, Race, and Class in Media: A Critical Reader By Gail Dines, Jean McMahon Humez
• " Like other tyrannies, the tyranny of the majority was at first, and is still vulgarly, held in dread, chiefly as operating through the acts of the public authorities." - John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, 1859.

P5: Censorship and the problems. 

It could be argued that because there is a lot of censorship with LGBT characters in music videos that there is a lack of awareness created. Recently there have been music videos that have not created awareness of LGBT groups but have been argued to be extremely pornographic, for example Rihanna's music video Te Amo, was not as censored on television yet it portrayed lesbians to be extreme through the medium shots of both Rihanna's and the woman's body. It seems that when other music videos like Lady Gaga's Born this way and Katy Perry's Firework that actually do try to create awareness of LGBT groups in society are more censored than extreme sexual music videos like Te Amo. Media theorists such as Laura Mulvey's would argue that the male gaze is the reason for the success and acceptance of videos such as Te Amo where as the gay kiss in Firework would not be accepted. There is also the problem of young, impressionable children and teenagers who could see music videos with gay and lesbians and be exposed to content which is beyond their understanding of the world - is it fair for young children to see this. It could be argued that it is fair as this in itself would create awareness for younger generations and educate them on modern culture and society.

There seems to be a problem when representing LGBT groups in pop music videos; as it is usually from a heterosexual point of view. The institutions that try to create a LGBT stereotype always add their own institutional value to their text, again looking at the example of Rihanna's 'Te Amo', the music video portrays the suggested lesbian characters to only have a sexual relation. 
Institution & portray women as simply sexual*
Now that there are artists that are more open about their identity it seems socially acceptable, however there is still the issue of bullying in schools and legal issues. 

Quotations: 

• ‘there is social prohibition against the feminization of men, there is almost none against the masculinisation of women.’ - Macdonald, M. (1995).Representing women: myths of femininity in the popular media. London: E. Arnold ;. P215
•  “the general struggles any new medium has to go through before it gains wide social acceptance.” - Nielsen, S., Smith, J. H., & Tosca, S. P. (2008). Video Game Culture. Understanding video games: the essential introduction (p. 138). New York: Routledge.

Conclusion:
Is society ready to see more of LGBT groups in pop music? There is still the question of what society tolerates and whether or not these music videos actually do create awareness of LGBT groups. Toleration is not the only problem but also the problem of censorship and what is suitable to show on television as television is the platform that has regulations. Should there not be more people representing or supporting LGBT groups in pop culture?