What Does Performance Truly Mean to Artists?
For a class project I chose to examine the stereotypes that take up space in the creative world for musical artists. Recently, I have become more aware of how particular and controlled the music industry is. Artists, specifically those who are part of marginalized groups, have to jump hurdles daily to be able to share with the world what is of value to them. Looking at what stereotypes that put Black women and queer artists into a box, a box that leaves no room for expression with out loads of criticism, is critical in understanding how Americans absorb the music they listen to. Through the theory of gender performance created by Judith Butler I hope to uncover more of the harsh realities that artists like Megan Thee Stallion and Frank Ocean face daily for sharing their craft.
Gender identity as laid out by Judith Butler in Gender Trouble is simply the performance of repeated acts that are assumed to be either masculine or feminine. This is to say that people are not born to act a certain way; if you are born and assigned female at birth it is not written in your DNA that you have to like dresses and pink. Butler states “If there is something right in Beauvoir's claim that one is born, but rather becomes a woman, it follows that woman itself is a term in process, a becoming, a construct that cannot rightfully be said to originate or to end. As an ongoing discursive practice, it is open to intervention and resignification.” (Butler 1990). To be a “woman” is to learn and develop the characteristics that are pre-determined for you based on the culture that sides with gender performance. Gender is what guides people in how to treat us, guides people in what to like and how to behave, yet gender is just a performance that we choose to uphold daily. Gender is not biology, it is not natural, simply put it is rules and guidelines that perpetuate a flawed non-substantial system. The key thing to take away is that the gender performance we participate in is being created as we act it out.
Now that we are able to remove the idea that like or dislike of makeup, dresses and trucks is connected to our innate biology it is easier to examine what ideas are inhibiting human expression in the music industry. Using Butler's theory to understand the hegemonic nature of society it becomes clear that the history of discriminations is based on White American men's opinions of "shoulds and should nots." These "shoulds and should nots" resulted in modern American citizens obsessing over and fetishizing members of the LGBTQ+ community, Black women, and R&B culture to a point that is incredibly offensive and harmful to any progress moving forward. This fetishization of marginalized groups within the R&B and Hip Hop scene stems off the appropriation of Black culture–the enjoyment white people historically have had hearing from a distance the struggle of Black people.
Above is the video Megan Thee Stallion attached to her Op-Ed.
Megan Thee Stallion, in her Op-Ed for The New York Times, discusses how nearly impossible it is to fit the roles of what Black women “should” be (Megan Thee Stallion 2020). The constantly contradicting characteristics contrived for Black women have been in place for far too long. Black women are expected to perform sexual dancing in club atmospheres yet ridiculed for showing too much skin or being too eager for sex. Black women are dismissed for sharing harmful acts committed by men because they are then seen as weak. Black women are expected to support and care for everyone else without people showing up for them. All together everything that culture anticipates for the behavior of Black women rides on racism and the theory of gender performance. Megan details how in the Hip Hop world she is continuously compared to other artists like Nicki Minaj or Cardi B as they are told there is only room for one. Hip Hop culture fuels pitting women against each other in order to maintain male dominance (Megan Thee Stallion 2020).
In August of 2020, Megan Thee Stallion and Cardi B put out a song together highlighting the ability for women in this industry to work together. Their song WAP detailed the two women’s wants for pleasure and went against all of what Black women are supposed to be–submissive and “delicate”. This song started disagreements on the internet with male artists like Ceelo Green saying their song was too “salacious” (Penrose 2020). Megan came to Twitter to call out the backlash and stating “Lol dudes will scream ‘slob on my knob’ word for word and crying about WAP Face with tears of joy bye lil boy.” The double standard that is upheld in the music industry is detrimental to women being able to own their sexuality. The patriarchy backs up men for grossly detailing women's bodies in an aggressive manner but breaks down women who write about their own desires.
Megan Thee Stallion is by far not the first Black artist to speak out about the struggle of stereotypes within her industry but her story became popular after she spoke up about being a victim of gun violence. Megan survived the stupidity of fellow Hip Hop artist Tory Lanez after he was irresponsible with his weapon. Her fear of speaking up right away stemmed from her history of judgement that is laid on the foundation of gender performance and systematic racism. She feared being in “trouble” for her own assault because people were truly questioning her story. Megan is not alone in being silenced in the Hip Hop world. They are sadly more marginalized groups within this industry and specific genre. While it is male dominated, the struggle for queer men to be able to feel comfortable sharing their art is just as prevalent.
Hip Hop started as an outlet for Black people to express their frustrations of oppression in American society. The aggression that was felt and shared through the music was critical in telling the story of unequal treatment and horrible acts committed against Black people but consequently this aggression created other problems; Alex Layton explains this, “In other words, the language of resistance to oppression in hip-hop music has been characterized as an overwhelmingly masculine and heterosexual one, ergo excluding women and members of the LGBTQ+ community” (Layton 2017). Due to this ongoing stereotype affiliated with the genre of Hip Hop music it leaves little room for queer artists to have any varying sound to their songs.
Frank Ocean is one of the most well known names in R&B and Hip Hop today and is a focus for understanding and combating the homophobia ingrained in this music genre. The assumed performance of someone assigned male is to be heterosexual and comply with simply fashion choices. Frank Ocean publicly abides by neither. In 2012, Ocean released his first studio album Channel Orange alongside disclosing his attraction to people of the same sex. He continuously diverges from the political masculinity that is charged throughout the history of R&B and Hip Hop.
There is a lot that can be said about how Frank Ocean has impacted and made room for other artists but with the lens of gender performance taking a look at his representation of masculinity is compelling. While there are male artists in this field that do argue for gender equality, who would also support Megan Thee Stallion, “hyper masculinity remains the dominant trope” (De Ridder, Dhaenens 2014). Through his music, Ocean follows in suit with Butler as he questions what it really means to be “manly”. He broadcasts the performativity that is created by people who are timid of being part of a nonnormative gender culture.
De Ridder and Dhaenens studied Frank Ocean as well as The Weekend's ambivalence to conforming to hyper-masculine norms. In their article they look specifically at the lyrics above to showcase the hidden message about contradicting traditional masculinity. In those lines he is in fact addressing, presumably a man he has feelings for, in a traditional manner where he says the kiss does not mean anything but follows with a hook that is vulnerable in pitch saying he wants to be with this person forever. Ocean publicly is trying to show, as De Ridder and Dhaenens explain, that his performance of masculinity as assumed by his assigned gender is preventing him from true expression and love.
I wanted to come back to the word "trouble" after examining this ongoing battle in music. An essay by Sarah Ahmed who is a close companion to Butler details humans interaction with “trouble” as a general term. Ahmed quotes from Gender Trouble, “Hence, I concluded that trouble was inevitable, and the task, how best to make it, what best way to be in it.” (Butler 1990). As Ahmed dissects this quote she makes the statement that “trouble” ends up becoming a matter of being. To receive judgment is to have been in trouble by diverging from an expected norm. Trouble is taught by the patriarchy to be bad and to be feared because with trouble comes growth in spite of the patriarchy and with trouble comes people who are different–people who are of color or part of the LGBTQ+ community. Megan Thee Stallion, Frank Ocean, and Judith Butler are just a few people who are constantly in trouble for challenging their expected performance and have made it possible for people like me to be in "trouble" from the start.
Resources:
Ahmed, Sarah. (2015). Being In Trouble. Retrieved December 2, 2020 from https://static1.squarespace.com/static/58ad660603596eec00ce71a3/t/58bec3db3e00be1c14b47723/1488897002949/Being+in+Trouble.pdf
Butler, Judith. First published (1990). Gender Trouble. Retrieved November 20, 2020 from http://lauragonzalez.com/TC/BUTLER_gender_trouble.pdf.
Complex. (December 3, 2020). Image. Megan Thee Stallion, LilJuMadeDaBeat Tidal Video on Complex. Retrieved December 4, 2020 from https://www.complex.com/music/2020/12/megan-thee-stallion-liljumadedabeat-tidal-credit-due
De Ridder Sander and Dhaenens Fredrick. First published (April 9, 2014). Resistant Masculinities in Alternative R&B?. Retrieved November 20, 2020 from Gender, Race, and Class in Media: A Critical Reader. 5th Edition.
Layton, Alex. (2017, September 26). Frank Ocean: Challenging Hip-Hop’s Hyper-Masculinity. Retrieved December 5, 2020 from https://www.prindlepost.org/2017/09/frank-ocean-challenging-hip-hops-hyper-masculinity/
Megan Thee Stallion. (October 13, 2020). Megan Thee Stallion: Why I Speak Up For Black Women. Retrieved December 7, 2020, from https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/13/opinion/megan-thee-stallion-black-women.html
Penrose, Narisha. (2020, September 1). Megan Thee Stallion On Policing Women’s Bodies And Why WAP Is So Important. Retrieved December 4, 2020 from https://www.elle.com/culture/music/a33863991/megan-thee-stallion-wap-interview/