Feminism goes Gaga
September 20, 2012
USC professor's
new book looks at how feminism, sex and gender are changing in the age
of Lady Gaga.
On stage and off, Lady Gaga seems to be an ever-evolving performance piece dominating the media landscape. But in Gaga’s anarchic, gender-bending public persona, Judith "Jack" Halberstam sees a mirror – one reflecting a decades’-worth of social changes.
Halberstam, a professor of American Studies and Ethnicity and gender studies at USC’s Dornsife School of Letters, Arts and Sciences, has written a new book in which Gaga plays a central role. Gaga Feminism: Sex, Gender and the End of Normal is a cultural survey of sorts, looking at the way gender roles are evolving faster than society can define them. In large part, the book examines how mass media is struggling to keep up, broadcasting conflicting messages about how men and women are supposed to act, love, marry and raise kids. It’s all becoming more liquid, he said, “because the social forms that held all those categories in place are dissolving.”
So where does Lady Gaga fit in? Or feminism, for that matter?
For Halberstam, Gaga is symbolic of a new kind of femininity and a new kind of feminism– and more than that, she is a new icon of gender.
Those only dimly aware of her media-savvy theatrics might not have seen the music video for "Telephone," where Gaga and Beyonce Knowles embark on a jailbreak and Thelma and Louise-style getaway. Gaga has counteracted rumors of being a hemaphrodite, and toyed with the media at the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards, appearing in drag as “Joe Calderone,” a tough-talking Jersey boy.
That surreal, Bowie-like knack for shifting identity – including gender identity – symbolizes many of the changes Halberstam sees happening off the pop star’s stage. “A gaga feminism isn’t tracing back to Gloria Steinem,” Halberstam said. “It’s trying to scramble and mix and re-imagine the meaning of sex, gender and the norm.”
The narrative about what’s “normal,” Halberstam continued, is very different than what’s really happening across America. Men are told to be sexually aggressive pursuers, then docile home-dads. Women are told to pursue independence and careers, but simultaneously encouraged to invest in traditional domestic arrangements. In Judd Apatow films like “Knocked Up,” the average-looking slob-stoner can attract a beautiful girl, though you’d be hard-pressed to find a film where a slacker woman hooks up with a gorgeous guy.
“These life narratives we build very early for men and women are completely altered when you consider the reality of what it means to be in a marriage today,” Halberstam said.
And while gay marriage has touched off loud public debate, it’s traditional straight marriage that’s in crisis. True love; soul mates; staying married the rest of your life; wanting babies at the same time; wanting to have sex with one person for the rest of your life; all are cultural givens that are being challenged in practice, Halberstam said.
“We’re basically going to have an opposition in this country not between gay and straight, but between traditional, monogamous households and alternative ones,” he said. “And frankly, the alternative ones will probably eventually outnumber the traditional ones."
Contact: gooda@usc.edu or 213-740-8606.
On stage and off, Lady Gaga seems to be an ever-evolving performance piece dominating the media landscape. But in Gaga’s anarchic, gender-bending public persona, Judith "Jack" Halberstam sees a mirror – one reflecting a decades’-worth of social changes.
Halberstam, a professor of American Studies and Ethnicity and gender studies at USC’s Dornsife School of Letters, Arts and Sciences, has written a new book in which Gaga plays a central role. Gaga Feminism: Sex, Gender and the End of Normal is a cultural survey of sorts, looking at the way gender roles are evolving faster than society can define them. In large part, the book examines how mass media is struggling to keep up, broadcasting conflicting messages about how men and women are supposed to act, love, marry and raise kids. It’s all becoming more liquid, he said, “because the social forms that held all those categories in place are dissolving.”
So where does Lady Gaga fit in? Or feminism, for that matter?
For Halberstam, Gaga is symbolic of a new kind of femininity and a new kind of feminism– and more than that, she is a new icon of gender.
Those only dimly aware of her media-savvy theatrics might not have seen the music video for "Telephone," where Gaga and Beyonce Knowles embark on a jailbreak and Thelma and Louise-style getaway. Gaga has counteracted rumors of being a hemaphrodite, and toyed with the media at the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards, appearing in drag as “Joe Calderone,” a tough-talking Jersey boy.
That surreal, Bowie-like knack for shifting identity – including gender identity – symbolizes many of the changes Halberstam sees happening off the pop star’s stage. “A gaga feminism isn’t tracing back to Gloria Steinem,” Halberstam said. “It’s trying to scramble and mix and re-imagine the meaning of sex, gender and the norm.”
The narrative about what’s “normal,” Halberstam continued, is very different than what’s really happening across America. Men are told to be sexually aggressive pursuers, then docile home-dads. Women are told to pursue independence and careers, but simultaneously encouraged to invest in traditional domestic arrangements. In Judd Apatow films like “Knocked Up,” the average-looking slob-stoner can attract a beautiful girl, though you’d be hard-pressed to find a film where a slacker woman hooks up with a gorgeous guy.
“These life narratives we build very early for men and women are completely altered when you consider the reality of what it means to be in a marriage today,” Halberstam said.
And while gay marriage has touched off loud public debate, it’s traditional straight marriage that’s in crisis. True love; soul mates; staying married the rest of your life; wanting babies at the same time; wanting to have sex with one person for the rest of your life; all are cultural givens that are being challenged in practice, Halberstam said.
“We’re basically going to have an opposition in this country not between gay and straight, but between traditional, monogamous households and alternative ones,” he said. “And frankly, the alternative ones will probably eventually outnumber the traditional ones."
Contact: gooda@usc.edu or 213-740-8606.
USC Information