Do You Want the Truth or Something Beautiful? Critical reections on music videos at the start of the 21st century Rohan Marius Sandemo Fernando Master thesis, Department of Musicology, University of Oslo, Spring semester 2010 Do You Want the Truth or Something Beautiful? Critical reflections on music videos at the start of the 21st century Rohan Marius Sandemo Fernando Master thesis Department of Musicology University of Oslo Spring semester 2010 Supervisor: Stan Hawkins Cover: Tom-Marius Olsen Acknowledgements Producing this master thesis has been a process that would have been far more difficult without the support and cooperation of a certain group of people. I cannot emphasize enough how much I appreciate the support, love and the many sources of inspiration I have in my life. I would like to express my gratitude to all of you for having my back in these hectic, yet most rewarding times: My supervisor, Professor Stan Hawkins at the Department of Musicology, University of Oslo, has throughout the process invited me to take my thoughts and reflections a step further, challenging my ideas and theories and at the same time believing in - and showing a tremendous enthusiasm for - my project. I am most grateful for the passion you have shown for this thesis. You are a true inspiration. Erik Holten and Kjersti Enger Jensen have throughout my time as a student read through my work, giving me very much welcomed feedback on language, structure and content. My very special gratitude goes out to Ekaterina Pliassova and Tommy Berg Kristoffersen who both impressively contributed to the final proof reading of my thesis, which you both tackled with impressive perfection. Tom-Marius Olsen deserves a standing ovation for designing such a striking cover. To embody the complexity of the themes and questions of my thesis in a single image is not an easy task, but you solved it with tremendous artistic detail. My thanks also go out to Marita Sørli and Jan-Tore Disen of the Norwegian band Bermuda Triangle for providing the missing bits to my transcription of the lyrics for their song “Fearless”. Without your help, there would definitely be some crucial gaps in chapter 4. My thanks to all my fellow students at IMV for providing such a warm, welcoming and not least academically stimulating environment during the long hours spent at the study hall. Many names deserve to be mentioned, but I would in particular like to thank Jon Mikkel Broch Ålvik, Ingebjørg Nomeland and Anette Forsbakk for interesting conversations and making me smile on blue Mondays and long Friday nights. Marit Bakken, my friend and fellow student: thanks for cheering me on and for reminding me to relax. i A special salute goes out to my close friend, colleague and previously fellow student Solveig Riiser for her outstanding support, jokes, compassion and not least for giving me feedback on my project all the way. You truly have been my partner in crime! My dear friends (none mentioned, none forgotten) - the league of extraordinary gentlemen and women – how grey life would be without all of you! Thank you all for being patient with me during the course of this process. Finally, my parents, Tove Sandemo and Nereus Fernando cannot be overlooked. I am endlessly grateful that you have always encouraged me to pursue my dreams and never stop believing in myself and my own ambitions. Writing this thesis, I have pursued the mantra: a man on a mission – he sees no defeat. In retrospect, it seems necessary to rephrase this into the following reflection: with the support and cooperation provided from all of the people mentioned above – the word „defeat‟ never even struck my mind. Thank you. Oslo, April 30, 2010 Rohan Marius Sandemo Fernando ii Table of Contents Acknowledgements i Table of Contents iii Prelude: Times are a-changing 1 Introduction 4 Hypothesis 4 Contextualizing Popular Music Studies 5 An application of popular musicology 7 Framing gender studies 9 Conceptual approaches to music video analysis 12 Methodological considerations 14 Model of analysis 14 The choice of case studies – empirical reflections 15 Thesis structure 17 Chapter 1: Gender gazing 21 One video, 1168 readings? 21 Fiona Apple and the riot grrls of the 90's 23 Video me 24 “A bad, bad girl” 27 Musical clues 29 Bridging the gap - conversations between the senses 31 The bait that was her body – signifying through eroticism 32 The flipside of the coin 34 Can you handle it? – the objectification of the male gaze in “Video Phone” 36 Armed and dangerous 39 Paradox 41 Gagaism – turning the world gay 42 A man‟s world? 45 Chapter 2: The natural as abject 47 DIY Monstrosity 47 Social Abjection 50 Marginalized stars 52 Do you want the truth or something beautiful? 53 Smile, though your heart is breaking – emotional coloring 55 I am happy to deceive you – a historical reflection on the pin-up girl 58 Discourses of beauty 60 Chapter 3: Fearless women 63 Barely butch? 64 That‟s the way I want it! – a lyrical play on dominance and sadomasochism 66 Musical madness and darkness 67 Beauty (?) and the geek 71 The Monstrous-feminine 73 Frozen gender relics 75 The multiperspectival gaze 77 Chapter 4: New male anxieties? Oh, so ‘sick’… 81 Becoming Chris 82 I‟ll play your games – a self-sacrificing protagonist 84 Strip my body of its skin – masquerade or annihilation? 85 Whispering softly to me - ambiguous voices 88 The tragedy of Narcissus 90 Chapter 5: Final reflections 95 iii Literature 103 Online Sources 106 Videography 108 iv Prelude: Times are a-changing It‟s the time of the turning and there‟s something stirring outside If you stop for a moment you can feel it all slipping away It‟s the time of the turning and the old world‟s falling Nothing you can do can stop the next emerging Time of the turning and we better learn to say our goodbyes (Excerpts from “The time of the turning / The weaver‟s reel” by Peter Gabriel) The spectacular Millennium Dome was raised on the Greenwich Peninsula in London as a major exhibition celebrating the beginning of the third millennium. The exhibition opened to the public on January 1st 2000, and was initiated by a spectacular multimedia show entitled “OVO” created specifically for the occasion by designer Mark Fisher and composer Peter Gabriel. The show narrated a story of a fictional set of beings that throughout time had transitioned from agriculture to industry while segregating different races. In a key scene of the show, vocalist Alison Goldfrapp was featured in the role of a narrating and contemplating weaver, performing a musical monologue that reflected the rapid shifts and turns of a fictional world named “OVO”. As a backdrop for my thesis, these lines, which are quoted above, have been circling my mind throughout the process of producing this study. Even though “OVO” is a fictional space, and the story about its citizens dwells on industrial development, the arbitrary reflections on change within the lyrics of the weaver‟s monologue seem a natural prelude to this study. I remember very well the advent of the recent millennium. It seemed the whole world was anticipating a New Year‟s celebration that resembled nothing they had ever seen before. Expectations, dreams, hopes and, lest we forget, fears of what was to come were poured into newspapers, journals, literature, movies and so on. Many feared a total collapse of technology; others hoped for peace, dissolution of political conflict, or made a resolution to achieve an even slimmer waistline. Diversions aside, in the late 1990‟s the world awaited and expected some kind of important shift of life. And, looking back on my years as a „citizen of the world‟, even over a modestly short period of time, a lot has changed. The Millennium Dome and the “OVO” show is one of numerous spectacular symbols and examples of the common anticipation of the passing of a milestone in history. They represent hopes, dreams, fears and predictions of a new beginning. However, one might ask whether these changes are finalized or still ongoing, and, whether such changes have unified the world, or if they have blurred our understanding of ourselves and the world we live in. Perhaps, for some, January 2000 would have proved a disappointment in that it 1 did not necessarily provide such a drastic shift towards something new, but, despite the lack of pyrotechnical effects and a total collapse of technology, to argue that we live in a time of stability would be deceptive. Undoubtedly, times are changing and the world as we know it differs drastically from the reality of our ancestors. However, as I hope to elucidate more accurately with this study, rather than coming to a full turn, the world has reached a point of transformational confusion and contradiction. The millennium shift did perhaps not mark either the dystopian predictions of a collapse of technology or the utopian dreams of world peace and unity, but it did mark a beginning of the collapse of a most important conventional social paradigm: the way we define and understand ourselves and others in terms of subjectivity. Before I address the research questions for this thesis, I want to back-track to the advent of the year 2000. I was just a teenager then, but I can clearly remember the emergence of britpop bands in the 1990‟s and the summer I bought the commercially successful album “Park Life” by the British band Blur in particular. The whole album would become my anthem for that summer, with its style and witty songs accompanying the halcyon days of the summer break.