Hamilton 1 Becca Hamilton Dr. Noh Gender and Media 18 November 2013 > The Surprises of Country Music Country music has been an iconic musical genre in America, especially in the south, long before pop, rock, and alternative music even existed. The twang and picking beat draw the listener back to the good old days of happy families sitting on the front porch sipping iced tea and smelling fresh cut grass, or so we thought. As country music has evolved over the years, 50 “ have their Iyries, images, and ideals. Though still sorely stuck in an undiverse framework, country music has seen a development towards emotional, violent women versus a more laid back masculine ideal. Sus gyred to Wave ca qasther's perspective | Beginning with analyzing the music videos of Carrie Underwood’s “Before He Cheats” and Rissi Palmer’s “Country Girl”, one can see that women have begun to break out of a domestic stereotype and form to a more headstrong or violent image. Palmer’s video begins with her getting dressed and starting her day. She sings in many fields and then greets a singing ‘gospel choir and many friends along the way. As she makes her way into town she dominates over everyone, always leading and showing other people what to do. Many times the viewer will see Palmer dancing or playing her guitar with other people around her. Whenever men are shown in the video, Palmer quickly acknowledges them or just blows right past them. At the end of the video, one has the sense that Palmer is always in charge and is trying to bestow her emotions on everyone else Palmer develops the idea that in order to be feminine, she needs to be headstrong and always leading’ However she is still able to have a good time while not being afraid to show your sexuality’ Many of Palmer’s outfits are very low cut or tight fitting, not leaving much to the imagination. It seems as if in order to compensate for acting more stereotypically masculine, she vo must enhance her sexuality in order to seem more acceptable. She shows people how to dance N igs wegHamilton 2 and leads the way, yet is made conventionally sexual to compensate. Also, although many of her lyrics lean towards themes of woman empowerment, she suggests that forgetting men all together in the process is acceptable” Lyrics that only address women like, “Ladies, if you understand, let me hear you clap your hands” coupled with very little interaction with men in her video completely exclude men from the picture. Altogether, Palmer’s projected femininity is headstrong and yet sexual. Her emotional desire to lead the women together to ignore men and do as they please runs as her major theme. Reinforcing this dominating image of women is Carie Underwood's “Before He Cheats" In this video, Underwood is angry because she found out her boyfriend is cheating on her. Because of this, Underwood dresses in a black leather jacket and destroys her boyttiend’s car. She carves her name into the seats of the car and smashes the windshield. After this destruction, she angrily goes and confronts her boyfriend, who is kissing another girl. Underwood takes the image of a dominating woman to the next level of violence and going psychotic, Even though Carrie does define a new, strong femininity by asserting herself and her independence, she is kept stereotypically feminine through the rashness of her actions, Her emotional rampage is encouraged and rewarded because she is simply a ‘woman’ whois slave to her emotions” Men still have women dangling from an emotional string, and ver) wa! a when the man crosses a line country music videos show that it is ‘normal’ for the woman to go crazy. In another context, destroying an expensive possession would be considered rash and looked down upon. Yet in the context of a cheating man, culture has made this action justifiable and nearly normal. Underwood even seems to encourage this rash behavior when she sings, “I ba yee might have saved a little trouble for the next girl/But the next time that he cheats/You know it won't be on me”. This theme is continued through her other songs like “Two Black Cadillacs”, “Blown Away”, or “Cowboy Casanova”, where she kills either her husband or her abusiveHamilton 3 father, all while being justified by the being a ‘crazy emotional woman’ driven wild by the actions ofthe man in her life Helen Davies in Critical Readings: Gender and Media enforces this idea by stating, “Anger is regarded as a masculine trait, so that even when women do dare to ‘express their anger it is not seen in these terms: an angry woman is unreasonable or even insane”(Davies 170). Whether headstrong or overtly violent, women are placed inside the small box of a specific definition of stereotypical femininity. Women can act as they please, as long as they are beautfil or sexual and a slave to their overactive emotions” In order to understand how masculinity is projected in country music videos, one must rN watch Darius Rucker’s “Wagon Wheel” and Blake Shelton’s “Boy ‘Round Here”. Both WW) ae oa 2 at we represent an ideal southern boy as being calm and collected with his lady by his side, starkly v contrasting with the wild, irrational image of women. Starting with Rucker’s video, one finds him hitchhiking his way down a road with his guitar. He is picked up and brought to a small wet town by ‘ordinary’ people, who just happen to be the famous family members of the hit TV show ©' jonaires. Rucker eventually makes it Duck Dynasty; a show about a ‘redneck’ family who are mil toa bar where he and his band have a show and the entire community comes out to see him play. Throughout the video, every man featured has a woman associated with him, either through a picture of her, the woman actually present, or somewhere within the group. It seemed that the ultimate goal of each man was to reveal to the other men that they had a woman to respect, love, and cherish"As long as they were in control both of their family situation and their current situation the men were happy and calm, Never once did Rucker shows signs of anger or frustration that he was hitchhiking down a road to the show, but calmly accepted all the help offered by the nice families. Though men can’t actually assert any physical control over their wild woman, they put on a fagade calmness and control in order to maintain their masculinityHamilton 4 v with each other. They are the emotional rock to the irrational and sensitive women or families in their lives. Similarly, Blake Shelton’s “Boys ‘Round Here” encourages the idea of masculinity consisting of being chilled out and in control. The video starts out with Shelton rolling up in a huge, red lifted truck driving past a group of African American guys in a pimped out sedan that bounces up and down. Shelton drives on to his house where he has a big party where all the boys are drinking beer and dancing in a bam with their girlfriends. Shelton sings from a casual pose in a porch chair while chaos goes on around him. Then suddenly the African American guys from before show up to the party and just when they seemingly want to start a fight, Shelton hugs them and they all have a great time at the party. This video, though intentionally exaggerated, reinforces this in control masculine figure For most of the video, Shelton sings from a laid-back position holding a beer in his hand, like a king. All of his ‘subjects’ listen to him and follow his leads, like when he hugs the African American men. Not only does Shelton assert a calm control, bute has women waiting on him, hand and foot. He seems to enjoy protecting them and acting Shelton’s huge red pick up truck. By driving asa strong figure for them. The ing onthe cake, i this monster, he demonstrates that areal man has complete control ofthe road, and where he is going. Both Shelton and Rucker maintain their masculinity by being contrastingly calm and in control in comparison to the emotionally wild woman of country music. Though seemingly insignificant or futile assertiveness, the men still take pride in knowing they have somehow still maintained a controlling masculine identity. When closely analyzing the ways of country music, one cannot help but also notice the great lack of diversity in the genre. Though other genres like pop and alternative have made great strides in having a fairly even amount of white versus minority representatives, country seems to be as stagnant as ever. Minority artists in country music lack a sense of credibility to their artistryHamilton 5 ve and stick to major stereotypes as seen through both Rissi Palmer and Darius Rucker. Palmer's Tom gaat foe “Country Girl” was the first song performed by an African American to make it on to the wun) en A Lows chasts since 1987. This shear lack of female minority country artists alone forees Palmer to work <4 & z harder to earn credibility. The unfamiliarity demands that she fit the sexualized African American woman stereotype in order to be accepted. Her music video has the most dancing between her and Underwood's videos and also much more revealing clothing’ Diane Railton and Paul Watson in their article “Naughty Girls and Blood Red Women” make the point, “What this sequence, along with the rest of the video, does is to reinscribe black female sexuality as first and foremost hypersexuality, primitive, feral, uncontrolled, and uncontrollable”(Railton and Watson). Western culture has built up the stereotype that African American women are to be used and looked at because of their bodies, with no consideration of eredibility for anything else. “ Fitting this stereotype is the only way Palmer was able to make her way into the country music scene and gain any type of credibility in order to climb her way up the country music charts. Not only is there a lack of minority female artists, but white female country artist lack diversity as well. Carrie Underwood, Taylor Swift, Miranda Lambert, Sheryl Crow, Faith Hill, Dolly Parton, Alison Krauss, and Kellie Pickler just to name a few are all the headlining artists in country music, and every single one of them is blonde, It seems that the country music industry thrives “The visual ord wat great! & off of sticking to homogeneous stereotypes, because that is comfortable and familiar to their buying auiences“On the other hand, the male country artists enjoy a slightly more diverse variety of artists, though the minority artists still struggle to find oe Rucker has become a fairly major name in the country world today, however his major hit that brought him into this country music world was “Wagon Wheel”, which is actually a cover. The song was originally written partially by Bob Dylan and then finished by the Old Crow Medicine Show.Hamilton 6 ‘The song is one that many people love to play at picking parties and recording sessions, which makes the song much less original, which in tum makes Rucker seem less credible as a musician, Though actually extremely talented, because Rucker doesn’t fit the white stereotypical male country artist form he lacks some ever essential credibility. Diversity issues also arise in Shelton’s “Boys ‘Round Here” video, when stereotypical African American men and then stereotypical white redneck men collide but later hug in reconciliation at Shelton’s party. Though there are no tensions or hard feelings between the two groups during the music video, they tightly cling the their respective stereotypes while interacting! Country music videos thrive off of this disturbing idea that it is safe to be friends with whomever, as long as they fit into their respective commercialized stereotypes. What is most disturbing about this stagnant, undiverse set of ideas in country music is that it is most popular in the south, historically a place of strong / A Kred oblewatiow racial turmoil” Though the ideals has improved a great deal, the fact that the country music industry has flourished for so long in such a homogeneous environment only encourages a sense of resistance to change and encouragement of stereotypes. In order to continually move forward from this difficult past, country music would be a good place to start breaking down these burdening stereotypes and reluctant credibility for minority country artists. Overall, the largely undiverse country music industry projects femininity as being headstrong, emotional, and sometimes violent while masculinity includes calm, cool, and collected gentleman. Though country music is known for cleaner lyrics and good family values, the images actually portrayed can be far from this ideal’As media begins to shif, it is important to recognize these changes and be ready to decipher them Musica powerful, emotional tool, and with it one can harness the power to build up or break down. The question is how will you choose to use it?“ quest Becca» TL lenwed a lot fom both we ant prcentarian |. oO yer pee ? 10 7 10