Metal and Cultural Impact: Metal's Role in the 21st Century
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Schedule of Events for Saturday, November 8, 2014
Session 9: Women and Metal
Joan Jocson-Singh, CUNY Hunter CollegeFollow
Laina Dawes, New School for Social ResearchFollow
Sears Recital Hall
8-11-2014 9:00 AM
8-11-2014 10:15 AM
Joan Jocson-Singh: "Individual Thought Patterns: Women in NY's Extreme Metal Music Scene"
The NY Tri-State area has a rich history of ethnic diversity and a multitude of thriving musical sub-cultures. The Heavy Metal Music (HMM) scene has traditionally been considered and coded as a "male environment" (Weinstein, 2009), with the Extreme Metal Music (EMM) scene even more so. By surveying women in NY Tri-State area, we can learn why women participate in a musical scene often described as misogynistic and hyper-masculine, and if it differs from previous similar studies due to location.
In carrying out fieldwork for this study, several methods of research will be used, including participant observation, one-on-one interviews and an online survey. I will discuss the experiences of women in a setting where extreme metal converges with NY's inherent culture and attempt to reveal, if any, manifestations of feminisms occurring within the local scene. Gathered data will be compared to previous studies in this area (Vasan, 2010 and Kitteringham, 2014). One aim is to understand whether women consciously or unconsciously apply a third-wave feminist approach to their involvement in the EMM scene.
The study will survey female participants (fans, musicians, and music industry workers) in the New York Tri-State area involved in the Extreme Metal Music scene (EMM) and address/answer the following overarching questions:
(1) What elements surface as common identity markers for women in New York's Extreme Metal scene?
(2) How does this compare to women in other regions (with regard to ethnicity, age, education, etc.)
(3) In what ways do (the behaviors and conventions of) women in NY's Extreme Metal scene intersect with feminist/post-modern theory, 3rd Wave feminism, and feminist musicology?
By analyzing the results of this research, evidence of prevalent characteristics will surface with regard to identity, gender, and exchange and I will argue that feminisms do occur, both consciously and subconsciously, through the re-appropriation of typically male coded behavior present within the EMM scene.
Laina Dawes: "The Music or the Message? How to Love Music that Doesn't Love You Back"
Thanks to the advent of music video stations and the relative ease of online technology, within the past three decades a cultural and ethnically diverse populace has had unlimited access to a myriad of musical genres and cultures. While there are more fans from various ethno-cultural groups than ever before within the extreme music genres, racism, anti-Semitism and misogyny still serve as a deterrent in active participation. While many have continued to actively participate in underground metal culture, certain questions still remain: Should minority fans consume and purchase music in which the musicians have publically made racist, or misogynist statements, or music that contains racist, anti-Semitic and misogynist lyrics? And, what happens when marginalized people enter the live event space and what are the expectations of the venue owners, the behavior of the dominant group and the minority?
This discussion will begin with a brief analysis of the resistance of publicly acknowledging the cultural impact of African American musical genres in the development of extreme music, most notably, punk and metal, how that has alienated listeners and made challenging troubling lyrical content and behavior in the public sphere, to recent incidences of New York City venues hosting Nazi skinhead bands and the response by the audience members and public.
Nov 8th, 9:00 AM Nov 8th, 10:15 AM
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