Fan Culture @ Swarthmore

Opening disclaimer: I’m not entirely sure where I’m going with the post–mostly I was hoping to put something out there and hope that other people can figure out what to say about it.

So, one of things that didn’t come up today, but that occured to me during our discussion, is how incredibly raced the music industry and music fandom is. Boy bands and girl bands and their followings seem to especially embody this theme. Off the top of my head, I can’t name one multi-racial boy band. New Kids on the Block: all white. Boyz II Men: all black. New Edition: all black. Menudo: All latino.  *NSYNC, Backstreet Boys, 98 Degrees, LFO, O-town: all white.  Furthermore, when rivalries are constructed, the racial frontiers are maintained. Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera (and to a lesser extent Jessica Simpson and Mandy Moore) were all constructed as rivals to each other, but Brandy and Maya weren’t considered in the bracket, even though they were young, hot women producing PG to PG-13 boy-centric pop music for a similar demographic. The only counterexample that I can think of right now is that the Spice Girls had one black member. And I think it’s pretty telling that she was “Scary Spice.”

I just had a few observations based on these samples. The first is the obvious statement that the music industry reproduces and perpetuates social cleavages. Especially since all of the above music is targeted at pre-teens and teens, it’s somewhat sinister that the expectation/stereotype that people of different races won’t have similar tastes is being reinforced in the next generation. The other, slightly less boring, but related observation I had was that I think a lot of this is bound up in the sexual and homosexual subtext of pop icons. Girls aren’t only supposed to find a member of *NSYNC to identify with (“The Sensitive One”; “The Young, Hip One”; “The Wacky One”), they’re supposed to want them sexually. And it’s still seen as threatening for the stereotypical boy-band consumer–a 13-year-old white girl–to sexually want a black man. And it is especially threatening if she discovers her sexuality through wanting a black man, entirely possible given the middle-school target age of a boy-band consumer. The homosocial dynamic of boy bands also seems to be similarly raced/racist.

I guess a way to end this post would be ask: how does this relate to what Brandon was saying in class about what people stand to gain or lose through particular music fandom identifications? And is this mostly constructed in the fandom (i.e., a black person who likes Jessica Simpson won’t get respect from black peers), constructed in the industry (the industry tells black people to like Beyonce and white people to like Christina Aguilera), or both? Hopefully someone else can say something coherent, because I’m just not entirely sure where I’m going.