University of South Florida Scholar Commons Graduate Theses and Dissertations Graduate School 2011 My Bad Romance: Exploring the Queer Sublimity of Diva Reception Blake Paxton University of South Florida, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd Part of the American Studies Commons, Communication Commons, and the Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons Scholar Commons Citation Paxton, Blake, "My Bad Romance: Exploring the Queer Sublimity of Diva Reception" (2011). Graduate Theses and Dissertations. https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd/3285 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at Scholar Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Graduate Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Scholar Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. My Bad Romance: Exploring the Queer Sublimity of Diva Reception by Blake A. Paxton A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Department of Communication College of Arts and Sciences University of South Florida Major Professor: Stacy Holman Jones, Ph.D. Elizabeth Bell, Ph.D. Carolyn Ellis, Ph.D. Date of Approval: May 25, 2011 Keywords: utopian performative, autoethnography, performance ethnography, ethnomusicology, performing social resistance Copyright 2011, Blake A. Paxton DEDICATION I dedicate this thesis to my mother, the late Ann Paxton, who is my favorite diva of all. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank all of the men who shared their stories of diva fandom with me. I would also like to thank my committee members Carolyn Ellis and Elizabeth Bell for their guidance and encouraging words of support. My advisor, Dr. Stacy Holman Jones, deserves special thanks for helping me grow as a writer, scholar, and artist. Thank you for also allowing me to see that any research project is possible. TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT .............................................................................................................. iii INTRODUCTION: DIVA IN TRAINING ..........................................................................1 CHAPTER ONE: DIVA ETHNOGRAPHY, MAKING THE ANALYSIS OF MUSIC PERFORMANCE SING ........................................................10 Divas and Gay Politics: From Garland to Gaga.....................................................10 Gay Men and Music Divas: A Historical Love Affair? .........................................12 Farmer’s Fabulous Sublimity of Gay Diva Worship .............................................19 Autoethnograhpy: Giving Voice to the Analysis of Musical Performance ...........24 The Future of Diva Ethnography ...........................................................................30 CHAPTER TWO: EXPLORING THE DOUBLE WHAMMY OF THE UNCANNY IN DRAG PERFORMANCE .........................................33 CHAPTER THREE: MY BAD ROMANCE, EXPLORING THE QUEER SUBLIMITY OF DIVA RECEPTION ................................................58 Introduction/An Evening of Karaoke.....................................................................58 Childhood Diva ......................................................................................................61 Robert and Country Divas .....................................................................................64 Judy Stays ..............................................................................................................65 Darren and Cher .....................................................................................................67 I’m Coming Out .....................................................................................................69 i Defying Gravity .....................................................................................................70 Nights of Diva Debauchery ...................................................................................71 Confessions of an Amateur Drag Queen ...............................................................72 Born This Way .......................................................................................................74 CHAPTER FOUR: WHAT’S LOVE GOT TO DO WITH IT?: DIVA PERFORMANCE AS EVOVLING RELATIONSHIP.......................76 Diva Performance as Therapeutic ..........................................................................77 The Secret ..................................................................................................79 Therapeutic Experiences ............................................................................81 Loving Female Relationships ....................................................................82 Diva Performance as Contested .............................................................................84 “I’m No Queen!”........................................................................................84 “She’s Not a Diva!” ...................................................................................86 Diva Performance as Pedagogical .........................................................................89 Teach Me How to “Dis”identify, Gurrrl: Gender Bending 101 .................90 Historical Markers and the Creation of Gay Anthems...............................93 My Diva Performance as Life Changing Experience ............................................97 Setting and Performance Syntax ................................................................99 Characters as Intimate Others ..................................................................102 Becoming Lady Gaga ..............................................................................113 Potential Activist Outcomes of the Show ................................................116 Conclusion: Curtain Call..........................................................................119 AFTERWORD: THE WIG ..............................................................................................122 REFERENCES ............................................................................................................125 ii ABSTRACT This study explores the historic relationship between pop music divas and gay male fandom. It charts fan experiences from the early 60s with Judy Garland to contemporary times with pop diva Lady Gaga. This project also gives a description of the embodied experience of Brett Farmer’s “queer sublimity of diva reception.” Farmer (2005) argues that diva worship among gay men has become a queer sublimity, “the transcendence of a limiting heteronormative materiality and the sublime reconstruction, at least in fantasy, of a more capacious, kinder, queerer world” (p. 170). Using the methods of participant observation in drag performance and karaoke singing, performance ethnography, and autoethnography, I attempt to understand how a diva’s performance can influence the lives of gay men and how it can inspire visions of a more perfect world for everyone. iii INTRODUCTION: DIVA IN TRAINING What does it mean to be a diva? This question shows us the paradox of language and how one identity signifier can take on multiple and conflicted meanings. Adjectives associated with diva can range from the pleasurable (strong, fearless, powerful) to the unfavorable (arrogant, demanding, bitchy). Diva can be a term of endearment or an insult. It can be a performance of defense or confidence. It is a performance that creates a zone of contest and struggle (Conquergood, 1995) from which identities emerge as relational achievements (Adams & Holman Jones, 2008). Performers leave the performance space with different identities (for the better, an achievement) than they originally possessed because of their interactions together in performance. Something occurs in the space that opens up questions surrounding identity and leading to potential change in one‟s life. Specifically in live musical performance, there are many components of “diva” that can make us question our very sense of self—from the musician‟s performance on stage (voice, gestures, and movement) to the lyrics of her songs. Gender performance is something enacted continuously in the everyday. However, in a musical performance, the narratives of gender performance are dramatized, questioned, and sometimes, disrupted. Songs bring forth stories on the many complexities of life including love, lust, and loss. When a diva gets behind the microphone and performs, many potential questions can 1 emerge for spectators: How am I similar to her? How am I different? How are our personal histories similar or different? Why and how does she move me? What does her performance say about being a woman, man, feminine, masculine, gay, straight, bisexual, transgendered? What does her performance say about my position and the positions of others around me in the world? “Diva” creates a space that not only encourages us to ask questions about what is but also what could be in a fight for queer equality. Even outside of live music, diva performance encourages the emergence of identities as relational achievements. When you perform “diva,” it is inspired by a performance of another “diva” in the past. Whether it was the performances of Judy, Liza, Babs, Bette, other divas, or a combination of diva performances, an individual diva performance in the everyday resulted from these former cultural experiences. Relationality is at play. The performer is transformed within this space in some way because of the interaction in performance with another.