Gender, sex and power‘Who watches the watchman?’
Darling Nikki àPrince’s 1984 album
There were some sexual themes within the video that accompanies this music, however, this does not compare with todays standards within the music industry. The video was presented with a parental advisory sticker warning of explicit content.
An instance of public anxiety. A person or group of people merge to become a threat to society’s values and interests.
In April 23rd the discovery of the aid’s virus came about, and people put it in relation with the things that were sung about in Prince’s ‘purple rain’ song- putting the blame on songs for giving young individuals these ideas.
Foucault was a theorist and worked in the history of sexuality until 1984. He recognised the links between the different sexualities and power, and how dominant ideology determines what is okay to discuss and the information that we have access to surrounding sex. àpreviously this was not discussed about openly, and so as a result, individuals had very little understanding about the ‘things’ surrounding sex.
Judith Butler her seminal work ‘Gender trouble’ discusses the ways in which the dominant society controls what is accepted as masculine or feminine. (you cannot ‘be’ a gender, you must ‘do’ gender.
Nowadays people do not adhere to just one gender or even specify as a gender at all. Over the years this has been spoken about more and more and as a result has caused people to be more open about it as well, either through talking about it or within the way that they present themselves
Think about-
- How does my work fit into these themes?
- What am I challenging/conforming to with these themes?
- What does the dominant culture look like for me, and how am I addressing this in my work?
- What is my privilege and bias- how can I address this in my work?
Further reading – (image on phone)