Rock 'n' Sex 'n' Teenybop 'n'...Pedophilia?

Not to say that the rest of this class has been uninteresting by any means, but this week’s class was the most entertaining yet.  Inherent in that opinion is the question regarding the allure of rock ‘n’ roll.  WHY did I find Tuesday’s lecture so engaging?  In reading Frith’s and McRobbie’s essay, I found my answer: it’s all about sex.  I will be the first to admit that I am a product of evolution.  Sex, sexy things, sexy people, sexual music, rhythms, etc. all arouse me, and I imagine they do the same to everyone else in this class.  But more than that, as I read and thought deeper, the the transformation of sexuality in music—how sexuality for men and women has differed as well as overlapped over time is an interesting subject in itself.  One of my few minor contentions I had with the essay concerned the citing of women calling in to the radio with essentially their versions of songbook entries (pg. 380).  The authors used that as an example of how overwhelmingly emotional females are with respect to music, and I would have LOVED to have seen reports of men calling in.  I feel like even a large portion of men would report similarly emotional responses to certain songs.  Anyway, overall I agreed with what they had to say.  They essentially outlined a lot of common sensical concepts regarding gender, except they tied these concepts to the respective spheres of music different genders generally associate with and draw their sexuality from (ie. women are into “teenybop” and men are typically associated with “cock-rock”).  On page 380 they state that boys can express their sexuality more directly than girls, which makes me question how dated this article is...because everything we discussed in class (especially the videos at the end with Rihanna and Katy Perry) serves as evidence to the contrary.  Having just looked it up, I can confirm my suspicion that the article is a little dated (it was published in 1990).  I’m no expert on the history of rock, but I would venture to say that Britney Spears helped break the barrier (or at least blew it further open than it already had been) for female sexual expression to be the norm.  A discussion of Britney Spears leads me to my next tangent I thought about with regards to pedophilia in pop music which I’ll talk get back to momentarily.  Girls dressing up and going to parties even here at SC and other college campuses proves my point adequately enough; they (not all, I don’t mean to sound like prudish person generalizing all girls at this school) dress in VERY provocative (some might say “slutty”) clothes and it’s absolutely the normal thing to do.  Boundaries are pushed constantly.  As if Rihanna’s “Hard” video wasn’t evidence enough for the strong presence of female sexuality burgeoning in pop culture, I took a look at her “S and M” music video, which follows a very similar, if not, more envelope-pushing scheme of sexual expression.  http://www.youclubvideo.com/video/157354/rihanna-s-and-m-lyrics-and-video . The video is almost pornographic with it’s faux-thrusting involving sexual implements and blowup dolls and (as the chorus chimes) “whips and chains” everywhere.  In a very overt gesture symbolizing her conviction regarding her sexuality, she has a man on a leash as though he were her pet.  There’s also quite a bit of irony in that the media people are tied up in tape and chains and they are being videotaped.  It’s a kinky video in a  lot of different ways, and I think it speaks volumes to the progression of female sexuality emerging as something more than even Frith and McRobbie acknowledge.  I will not deny my classmates who pointed out that the objectification of women resulting from these types of videos, although granting power, limits that power TO that sexual sphere at the same time.  However, the transition from what the authors note as the few female exceptions (evident in Janis Joplin, punk rockers, and a few other notable musicians) who flaunt their femininity and are stars because of it to the common female pop megastar today who wears practically nothing and says almost outright how she wants sex is a unique transition.  I am also not forgetting that females expressing sexual desire dates back to our earlier discussions of black women early in the 20th century, but we are limiting our discussion to rock n roll here.  Women like Katy Perry and Rihanna are those challenging the notions of “passivity” (pg 380) that Frith and McRobbie talk about.  On another note, pop and rock seem to have become pretty enmeshed in my opinion.  Scrolling down the genres column on iTunes, it seems that a lot of the “rock” bands have quite a bit of emotional content ().  The band parachute is labeled as rock, but this is clearly a very emotional song...in that sense, the term “rock” has certainly diverged from the meaning contained within the description the authors use to describe “cock-rock.”  I also wanted to touch on my agreement with comments made about pedophilia’s presence in pop music...where to begin with examples?  Possibly with Britney Spears bursting onto the scene in a school girl outfit? How about Miley Cyrus being trapped in a cage? Or Miley Cyrus on a stripper poll?  Or Miley Cyrus in general? Girls are being exploited at younger and younger ages, and although Rebecca Black, of the “hit single” “Friday”, is clearly so young, it would be unacceptably perverse to sexualize her in any way, is that maybe where we’re headed?  She does talk about partying (“partying partying YEAH!”), which shouldn’t, by most people’s standards I’m sure, be on her radar screen.  It’s creepy and disturbing to think about, but hey, sex sells, and the school-girl fantasy seems to be coming into its own.  I disagree with those who claim that certain beats and rhythms are sexual by nature (386).  I think that is just music critics imposing what we already know and associate with those beats onto the beats themselves.  I don’t think a feral human being suddenly introduced to rhythm of rock and roll would immediately equate that to something sexual, something primally sexual, that is.  But overall I agreed with the author’s overall theme that (387) music serves as a form of sexual expression.  I know I jumped a lot in this post, but there really was a LOT to touch on.  The ultimate cross-over of rock and teenybop mentality occurred to me with the example of Twilight.  Yes, I said Twilight.  My girlfriend (a Team Edward freak all the way, embarrassingly), really didn’t like the rock-sound that the band Muse was known for—the intensity, the bass, the guitar, everything about that music.  That is, she didn’t like it until their songs were used for Twilight, a series that encapsulates a lot of weird cultural phenomena I don’t know how to explain.   One such characteristic of the female obsession with the characters is the ROMANCE talked about extensively in teenybop music in the essay.  My girlfriend’s (and many others’) new obsession with certain Muse songs connects them, in my opinion, to that same mentality of romantic love that embodies teenybop idols.  This was just an interesting example of rock/teenybop cross-over aided by other media (books/movies) that I noticed....