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Female Subjectivities: the Words, Music, and Images of Progressive Metal

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Lori Burns examines how a specific metal vocalist—Tatiana Shmayluk (of the Ukrainian band Jinjer)—navigates the discourse of progressive metal to challenge hegemonic norms and create space for alternative female subjectivities.

Image courtesy of interviewee. March 26, 2024

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This video discusses Tatiana, the lead vocalist of the progressive metal band Ginger, which was formed in Ukraine in 2009. The band has stabilized its four-piece lineup since 2017 and has been successful in the metal scene. Tatiana is recognized for her exceptional vocal abilities, showcasing a range of harsh growls, screams, and clean singing, often interplaying these styles effectively. Her lyricism addresses significant social and cultural themes, particularly regarding gender paradigms within metal music.

This video explores how genre conventions in metal typically emphasize male perspectives and often marginalize female representation. It highlights the small percentage of female musicians in metal and critiques the industry's lack of inclusivity and diversity. The author, who is conducting research on female vocalists in metal, aims to analyze how these artists navigate and transform imposed gender norms.

The discussion includes an analysis of gender representation in music videos and lyrics, revealing that female artists often counter traditional portrayals of femininity in metal. This video mentions specific songs by Ginger that challenge gendered themes, using examples to illustrate how Tatiana’s performance and musical style embody alternative representations of femininity.

The overall research aims to deconstruct the masculine ideologies prevalent in metal while showcasing the diverse voices of female artists. It asserts that women in metal can express a full range of emotions—strength, vulnerability, and aggression—thereby complicating societal assumptions surrounding male and female expressions in the genre. The study ultimately seeks to broaden understanding of the implications of female artists' participation in metal music and highlight their significant contributions to its evolution.

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Tatiana is the vocalist

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of the progressive metal band Ginger.

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Uh, they formed in the Ukraine in 2009.

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It took them a little while

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to settle into their four piece lineup

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that has now been consistent since 2017.

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Uh, but since then they've produced a lot of albums

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and they're doing quite well on the metal scene.

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Uh, she is a remarkable lyricist

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and vocalist who delivers harsh metal growls

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and screams, as well as clean undistorted singing.

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She shift back and forth very easily between these styles,

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which you can witness in live shows and video captures.

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In saying that, it's important to note

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that many metal vocalists do both harsh

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and clean singing with very good technique.

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Her contributions lie in her virtuo vocals in relation

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to complex song structures

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and in her critical commentaries on a range of social

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and cultural themes and topics that challenge

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and transform gender paradigms.

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In metal sub genres, she is both diplomatic

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and defiant in her confrontation of gender paradigms.

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The band works within the progressive metal genre,

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but draws from a variety

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of metal music styles and sub genres.

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Death, metal, metal, core groove metal, new metal gent

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and alternative metal.

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All genres of popular music arise from music scenes

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and cultures and musical artists operate

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to some extent within the conventions of that genre.

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By genre conventions, I include a number

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of expressive parameters in the musical domain, the vocal

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and instrumental gestures, the compositional elements such

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as form, harmony, rhythm, meter, texture,

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and sonic production in the lyrical domain, the themes,

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narratives, and messages

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that comprise the storytelling components of the song

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and in the visual domain, the staging

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of the band in dramatized settings,

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and more specifically the aesthetic elements

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that can contribute to the styling of the body through

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clothing, gestures, lighting, et cetera.

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At the same time, musicians push

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and extend genre context not only

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to establish their own identity within a given genre,

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but also to innovate and create new pathways for that genre.

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I'll put it this way, what happens if the musical lyrical

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and visual attributes of a given genre

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exclude certain identities from participating

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or promote misogynist or racist messages?

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If artists are not innovating

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and transforming cultural conventions, then how can we

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as a society widen the scope

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of inclusion in musical practice?

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For my research, I rely upon an understanding

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of the different metal sub genres in order to discover

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how the conventions are disrupted

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and transformed through gendered musical subjectivities.

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This is especially important for the presentation

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of female artists in metal, a meta genre

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that has been critiqued for its lack of inclusion,

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equity, and diversity.

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A 2018 study discovered that women comprise less than 3%

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of the total number of musicians vocalists would be

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around 1.5%.

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So to explain my larger project

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of which the Ginger article is just one piece,

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I'm examining the expressive work

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of female vocalists in metal music across the full range

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of sub genres and styles,

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and over the historical period from

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the 1980s to the present.

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While it's true that a very small percentage

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of metal musicians are women, it's also true

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that there are a lot of female artists operating a metal.

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So it's not difficult for me to identify a very long list

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of diverse works to study.

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The field of metal music studies has been emerging since the

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1990s with early scholarship on the cultural aspects of

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this extreme expression.

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In rock music, leading scholars have written about the

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predominance of hegemonic masculinity in metal music

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of the 1970s and eighties.

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Gender issues thus rose up in the discourse immediately

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as the genre was examined for the heavy

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and extreme musical expression, performance staging,

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audience participation in the scenes

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and misogynist ideologies that are evident in the lyrics.

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The discourse has primarily focused on masculinity

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and the music of male vocalists

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and musicians, despite the fact

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that female artists have been making their own statements.

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Also of concern to me is how music,

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how female artists are discussed in the literature

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if they are at all.

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In mentioning eighties band such as Girl School Warlock

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or Lita Ford scholars

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or writers about music often reveal a tendency

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to receive these artists as sex objects.

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This occurs because the structures both musical

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and sociocultural of metal music have been received

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as inherently masculine, such

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that women are always working within

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and against that dominant frame.

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As metal scholars question,

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if these expressive tools are only available to men,

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then women's identities and subjectivities are marginalized.

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If women do adopt these strategies,

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the performance is likely to be interpreted as masculine.

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In the last 10 to 15 years, scholars have begun

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to challenge the notion that metal only holds space

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for hyper-masculine ideologies.

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In contrast to earlier views on metal, we now see writings

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that deconstruct masculinity in metal

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that open the discussion to queer identities in the genre,

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and that illuminate aspects of gender play

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were aided in the field of musicology by the work

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of gender theorists who propose alternative models

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for gender performativity

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and thus make room for women to engage in practices

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that are typically received as masculine.

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This allows for a more fluid

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and in fact, complicated understanding of femininity.

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I appreciate the notion

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that gender conventions are negotiated

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and must be transformed.

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The discursive negotiations often concern power relations

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and the attribution of agency in relation

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to available resources.

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If metal music is an expression of power, who holds

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that power and who is subjugated to that power?

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One of my primary concerns is

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that the scholarship on women in metal

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seldom discusses the musical content and expression,

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but rather focuses on the gendered aspects of the industry

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and subculture scenes, as well as on representations

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of gender and sexuality In the images

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and lyrics of metal music, I argue that in order

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to understand the musical expression

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of female metal artists, we must examine how they

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occupy space in the metal sub genres,

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and specifically in the musical song structures

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to address these issues.

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Here are the questions I pose.

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How does a female artist occupy performative space in the

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expressive channels of words, music and images?

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What cultural themes

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and gendered practices are being conveyed

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through these expressive channels?

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How might a female artist complicate these themes

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and practices in order

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to transform the conventional representations of gender

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and sexuality within metal sub genres?

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These are interpretive questions that need to be grounded

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in an analytic method.

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First, I situate the music video in

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its Intertextual context.

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What this means is to identify the materials

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and ideas in the words music and images that refer to

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or connect to other works.

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Intertextuality is like a conversation that is taking place

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between and among the cultural forms

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to create a network of ideas.

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I then examine how these intertext shape

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cultural expressions of power, authority,

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and aggression specifically in relation to gender.

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In other words, I reflect on the materials

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and ideas that are being developed in the Intertextual

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network to understand what themes and tropes emerge.

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Since my field is music, I conduct extensive music analysis

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and then place that analytic data into dialogue

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with the words and images to discover the intersection

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of expression,

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and the the intersection of of words, music and lyrics.

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This involves a close reading of the song with the aim

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of illuminating nuances of meaning.

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I gather this set of data from the inter textual references,

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the stories that are told about gender

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through these references

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and the close reading of the song in order to interpret

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the emergent cultural messages

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to reflect further on that for a moment.

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The reason that I examine this song

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and video from so many perspectives is

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that meanings come forward at different levels

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and on different registers.

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We're more likely to be able to respond

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to the developing discourse around meaning.

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If we have considered a number of analytic pathways,

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if we rush to interpret without having analytic evidence

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to ground our interpretations, it's very easy

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to miss potentially important layers

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of meaning and critique.

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So at this point, I would like to share my screen

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and show a few images and play some clips.

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So we arrive at the question of

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how Tatiana Muk complicates the gender discourse of metal

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to transform conventional representations

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of gender and sexuality.

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For this study, I chose three songs, three music videos

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that grapple with themes

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that are common to progressive metal.

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I referred to the first theme as cosmic bodies

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to reflect the emphasis

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that is placed on human subjects in relation

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to the universe, this theme owes a debt to space rock

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and art rock of the 1960s and seventies.

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For instance, we can think of work by Pink Floyd,

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David Bowie, T-Rex

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and Hawk Wind that explored extraterrestrial topics.

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The theme of space rock that developed in the art rock

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of the sixties and seventies gets taken up

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by contemporary metal bands.

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For instance, between the Ome Me born of Osirus

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Gojira scar symmetry, Tesseract music videos

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by these bands featured Godlike figures, bodies

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of epic proportions in cosmic settings exceeding natural

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human limitations with lyrics that question the meaning

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of the universe and our potential

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to achieve a higher consciousness.

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And of course, these videos include highly complex

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and virtuo progressive metal music.

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There's an apparent universality to the images,

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a presumption that these are explorations

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of human power in the universe.

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However, women do not emerge in the visual

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economy of these works.

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The omniscient perspective is always already male.

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Enter ginger in their music video I speak astronomy.

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Tatiana inserts herself into the role

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of the other worldly figure, unconstrained

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by gravity larger than life,

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and yet at the same time

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with an undeniably feminine aesthetic.

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By embodying this role of universal authority that is

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otherwise primarily adopted by male metal bands,

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lik claims an image of power

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for female artists in progressive metal

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and asserts that this status is available to him.

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The song culminates with an image

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of shma standing on the ground of a new world,

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raising her arm to an upward beam

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of light while she delivers an epic melodic line

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and proclaims, we won't be held by no bars.

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To give you a quick sense of my music analytic method,

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I will briefly illustrate her vocal production in relation

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to the musical setting and the text.

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This is a sonic visualization tool

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that provides the sonic data in real time and space.

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This opening of I speak astronomy features her clean sliding

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vocal call in juxtaposition with a filtered response,

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followed by a breathy sultry passage.

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Then shifting quickly to growled vocals

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and screams that deliver pitch energy across a

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wide frequency spectrum.

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Without entering all of the details of my analytic argument,

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let's just say that I consider these sonic strategies in

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relation to the words and the images.

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We won't enter a video example here, but I will get to one.

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So let's listen to this passage

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A.

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The second song that I analyze addresses the themes

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of lament death and precarious femininity.

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The song perennial is connected inter textually to the work

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of death, doom and gothic metal bands.

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For instance, catatonia, opec, lamb of God,

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swallow the Sun, daylight dies.

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These works often explore a male subjects spiritual

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catharsis, while the video images feature female subjects in

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situations of peril and vulnerability.

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We often see in these videos a soul female character

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stylized as a feminine figure from the past exposed

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to harsh natural surroundings

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and running from a dangerous force.

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Again, enter ginger in their video

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for perennial Schick plays the role

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of the vulnerable female figure,

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but does not limit her visual representation

280
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to that one image.

281
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She adopts the role of narrator

282
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or comment commentator in juxtaposition with a figure

283
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who is compelled to dig her own grave.

284
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As with the other song, my analysis

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of perennial delves into detailed musical elements

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and specifically how her vocal strategies contribute

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to the complex song structure.

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This song closes with a climatic

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and cathartic section that declares a new subject

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to be arising out of the ashes of despair.

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Let's listen and watch the video

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that's now placed into the frame

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with the realtime sonic visualization data.

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I refer to my final theme for analysis as fragile subjects,

295
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several alternative and progressive metal bands.

296
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For instance, Shuga Corn, Gojira of Mice

297
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and Men D develop songs that question A subject's mental

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struggles and the potential loss of self.

299
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In the music videos of such songs, it is not unusual

300
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to see a female actress playing the role of a disjointed

301
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and besieged subject.

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Ginger's pit of consciousness draws upon this intellectual

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network and addresses the topic

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of mental anguish once again, lik takes on the role

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of the struggling figure.

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Her words and images convey the sensibilities

307
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of a fragmented figure while her musical strategies evoke

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alternative and extreme progressive metal stylings.

309
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The final sequence of the video shows her

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to be submerged in water as she waits for her mind

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to be pacified.

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Let's watch.

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For each analysis, I offer interpretive conclusions

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that result from the intertextual analysis

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and the close reading of the song.

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In the cosmic theme, I speak astronomy grants a female body

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and other worldly authority,

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while at the same time sustaining s human femininity.

319
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She uses a vast range of vocal effects.

320
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Her voice is always reverberate within space

321
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of the heavy metal, and you know this strong guitar

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and kit texture.

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By presenting her in a range of positions in relation

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to cosmic space, she's shown to be at once seductive

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and aggressive, deified

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and grounded in the gothic theme perennial.

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This song exposes

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and confronts the vulnerability of female experience.

329
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The song tells a story of loss

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and restoration through reference

331
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to the natural cycle of seasons.

332
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Lik offers a compelling critique of gothic femininity

333
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by connecting to the iconic imagery of death

334
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doom and gothic metal.

335
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She is both the exposed subject

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and the defiant metal vocalist.

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Ultimately, oppressive femininity is not restored or upheld,

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but rather this kind of femininity is seen

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to be digging its own grave.

340
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The theme of fragile subjects allows sch to the opportunity

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to embody and critique the role

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of a fragmented female subject

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in a highly complex song structure.

344
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She conveys a multidimensional representation of femininity

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and a willingness to represent human struggle while not

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capitulating to the archetype of a weak female.

347
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I would suggest this to be a distinction

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of female metal singer subjectivity more generally

349
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and sch intervention.

350
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More specifically, she is not merely a visual asset in the

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music video, but rather a performer who embodies critiques

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and transforms the roles that are being represented

353
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at the level of genre.

354
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Tatiana and the band members of Ginger

355
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offer a unique intersection of genre elements in dialogue

356
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with their lyrics and images.

357
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This unique genre bland creates space for the negotiation

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of alternative femininities, establishing herself

359
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as a crucial actor.

360
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In progressive metal, Mila claims performative space in

361
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words, music and images to deliver compelling narratives

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that feature and problematize powerful v vulnerable

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and destabilized female subjectivities.

364
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Consistently. She embodies in these expressive channels

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representations of femininity

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that are salient within metal music cultures,

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but that she demonstrates to be deserving

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of critique and transformation.

369
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It's important for female performers

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to have the full toolkit of emotional expression available

371
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to them, including expressions of strength, aggression,

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vulnerability, and pain.

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These expressions are not the sole domain of masculinity,

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although typically attributed as such,

375
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but female metal artists can

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and do accomplish the necessary genre negotiations in order

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to confuse notions about male and female vo voices.

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With this study, I've situated this artist

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and her multimodal expression in relation to the work

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of comparable metal bands in order to illuminate

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how she complicates

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and transforms the conventional understanding

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of gendered subjectivities in metal music with hundreds

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of active female metal vocalists.

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A great deal of work remains to be done to know

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and understand what these artists can

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and do bring to the genre of metal music.

Exploring Gender Dynamics in Progressive Metal

00:00:00 - Tatiana is the vocalist of the progressive metal band Ginger. they formed in the Ukraine in 2009. It took them a little while to settle into their four piece lineup that has now been consistent since 2017. but since then they've produced a lot of albums and they're doing quite well on the metal scene. she is a remarkable lyricist and vocalist who delivers harsh metal growls
00:00:35 - She shift back and forth very easily between these styles, which you can witness in live shows and video captures. In saying that, it's important to note that many metal vocalists do both harsh and clean singing with very good technique. Her contributions lie in her virtuo vocals in relation to complex song structures and in her critical commentaries on a range of social and cultural themes and topics that challenge
00:01:04 - In metal sub genres, she is both diplomatic and defiant in her confrontation of gender paradigms. The band works within the progressive metal genre, but draws from a variety of metal music styles and sub genres. Death, metal, metal, core groove metal, new metal gent and alternative metal. All genres of popular music arise from music scenes and cultures and musical artists operate
00:01:38 - By genre conventions, I include a number of expressive parameters in the musical domain, the vocal and instrumental gestures, the compositional elements such as form, harmony, rhythm, meter, texture, and sonic production in the lyrical domain, the themes, narratives, and messages that comprise the storytelling components of the song and in the visual domain, the staging of the band in dramatized settings, and more specifically the aesthetic elements
00:02:09 - clothing, gestures, lighting, et cetera. At the same time, musicians push and extend genre context not only to establish their own identity within a given genre, but also to innovate and create new pathways for that genre. I'll put it this way, what happens if the musical lyrical and visual attributes of a given genre exclude certain identities from participating or promote misogynist or racist messages?
00:02:38 - and transforming cultural conventions, then how can we as a society widen the scope of inclusion in musical practice? For my research, I rely upon an understanding of the different metal sub genres in order to discover how the conventions are disrupted and transformed through gendered musical subjectivities. This is especially important for the presentation of female artists in metal, a meta genre that has been critiqued for its lack of inclusion, equity, and diversity.

Examining Female Vocalists in Metal Music

00:03:11 - of the total number of musicians vocalists would be around 1.5%. So to explain my larger project of which the Ginger article is just one piece, I'm examining the expressive work of female vocalists in metal music across the full range of sub genres and styles, and over the historical period from the 1980s to the present. While it's true that a very small percentage of metal musicians are women, it's also true
00:03:42 - So it's not difficult for me to identify a very long list of diverse works to study. The field of metal music studies has been emerging since the 1990s with early scholarship on the cultural aspects of this extreme expression. In rock music, leading scholars have written about the predominance of hegemonic masculinity in metal music of the 1970s and eighties. Gender issues thus rose up in the discourse immediately
00:04:13 - and extreme musical expression, performance staging, audience participation in the scenes and misogynist ideologies that are evident in the lyrics. The discourse has primarily focused on masculinity and the music of male vocalists and musicians, despite the fact that female artists have been making their own statements. Also of concern to me is how music, how female artists are discussed in the literature if they are at all.
00:04:44 - or Lita Ford scholars or writers about music often reveal a tendency to receive these artists as sex objects. This occurs because the structures both musical and sociocultural of metal music have been received as inherently masculine, such that women are always working within and against that dominant frame. As metal scholars question, if these expressive tools are only available to men, then women's identities and subjectivities are marginalized.
00:05:16 - the performance is likely to be interpreted as masculine. In the last 10 to 15 years, scholars have begun to challenge the notion that metal only holds space for hyper-masculine ideologies. In contrast to earlier views on metal, we now see writings that deconstruct masculinity in metal that open the discussion to queer identities in the genre, and that illuminate aspects of gender play were aided in the field of musicology by the work
00:05:47 - for gender performativity and thus make room for women to engage in practices that are typically received as masculine. This allows for a more fluid and in fact, complicated understanding of femininity. I appreciate the notion that gender conventions are negotiated and must be transformed. The discursive negotiations often concern power relations and the attribution of agency in relation to available resources. If metal music is an expression of power, who holds

Examining Female Expression in Metal Music

00:06:21 - One of my primary concerns is that the scholarship on women in metal seldom discusses the musical content and expression, but rather focuses on the gendered aspects of the industry and subculture scenes, as well as on representations of gender and sexuality In the images and lyrics of metal music, I argue that in order to understand the musical expression of female metal artists, we must examine how they
00:06:50 - and specifically in the musical song structures to address these issues. Here are the questions I pose. How does a female artist occupy performative space in the expressive channels of words, music and images? What cultural themes and gendered practices are being conveyed through these expressive channels? How might a female artist complicate these themes and practices in order to transform the conventional representations of gender
00:07:24 - These are interpretive questions that need to be grounded in an analytic method. First, I situate the music video in its Intertextual context. What this means is to identify the materials and ideas in the words music and images that refer to or connect to other works. Intertextuality is like a conversation that is taking place between and among the cultural forms to create a network of ideas.
00:07:55 - cultural expressions of power, authority, and aggression specifically in relation to gender. In other words, I reflect on the materials and ideas that are being developed in the Intertextual network to understand what themes and tropes emerge. Since my field is music, I conduct extensive music analysis and then place that analytic data into dialogue with the words and images to discover the intersection of expression,
00:08:27 - This involves a close reading of the song with the aim of illuminating nuances of meaning. I gather this set of data from the inter textual references, the stories that are told about gender through these references and the close reading of the song in order to interpret the emergent cultural messages to reflect further on that for a moment. The reason that I examine this song
00:08:55 - that meanings come forward at different levels and on different registers. We're more likely to be able to respond to the developing discourse around meaning. If we have considered a number of analytic pathways, if we rush to interpret without having analytic evidence to ground our interpretations, it's very easy to miss potentially important layers of meaning and critique. So at this point, I would like to share my screen

Reimagining Gender in Progressive Metal

00:09:28 - So we arrive at the question of how Tatiana Muk complicates the gender discourse of metal to transform conventional representations of gender and sexuality. For this study, I chose three songs, three music videos that grapple with themes that are common to progressive metal. I referred to the first theme as cosmic bodies to reflect the emphasis that is placed on human subjects in relation to the universe, this theme owes a debt to space rock
00:10:00 - For instance, we can think of work by Pink Floyd, David Bowie, T-Rex and Hawk Wind that explored extraterrestrial topics. The theme of space rock that developed in the art rock of the sixties and seventies gets taken up by contemporary metal bands. For instance, between the Ome Me born of Osirus Gojira scar symmetry, Tesseract music videos by these bands featured Godlike figures, bodies
00:10:32 - human limitations with lyrics that question the meaning of the universe and our potential to achieve a higher consciousness. And of course, these videos include highly complex and virtuo progressive metal music. There's an apparent universality to the images, a presumption that these are explorations of human power in the universe. However, women do not emerge in the visual economy of these works. The omniscient perspective is always already male.
00:11:09 - Tatiana inserts herself into the role of the other worldly figure, unconstrained by gravity larger than life, and yet at the same time with an undeniably feminine aesthetic. By embodying this role of universal authority that is otherwise primarily adopted by male metal bands, lik claims an image of power for female artists in progressive metal and asserts that this status is available to him.
00:11:36 - of shma standing on the ground of a new world, raising her arm to an upward beam of light while she delivers an epic melodic line and proclaims, we won't be held by no bars. To give you a quick sense of my music analytic method, I will briefly illustrate her vocal production in relation to the musical setting and the text. This is a sonic visualization tool that provides the sonic data in real time and space. This opening of I speak astronomy features her clean sliding
00:12:13 - followed by a breathy sultry passage. Then shifting quickly to growled vocals and screams that deliver pitch energy across a wide frequency spectrum. Without entering all of the details of my analytic argument, let's just say that I consider these sonic strategies in relation to the words and the images. We won't enter a video example here, but I will get to one. So let's listen to this passage

Exploring Femininity in Metal Music Videos

00:13:37 -
00:13:39 - of lament death and precarious femininity. The song perennial is connected inter textually to the work of death, doom and gothic metal bands. For instance, catatonia, opec, lamb of God, swallow the Sun, daylight dies. These works often explore a male subjects spiritual catharsis, while the video images feature female subjects in situations of peril and vulnerability. We often see in these videos a soul female character
00:14:14 - to harsh natural surroundings and running from a dangerous force. Again, enter ginger in their video for perennial Schick plays the role of the vulnerable female figure, but does not limit her visual representation to that one image. She adopts the role of narrator or comment commentator in juxtaposition with a figure who is compelled to dig her own grave.
00:14:44 - of perennial delves into detailed musical elements and specifically how her vocal strategies contribute to the complex song structure. This song closes with a climatic and cathartic section that declares a new subject to be arising out of the ashes of despair. Let's listen and watch the video that's now placed into the frame with the realtime sonic visualization data.
00:15:59 - several alternative and progressive metal bands. For instance, Shuga Corn, Gojira of Mice and Men D develop songs that question A subject's mental struggles and the potential loss of self. In the music videos of such songs, it is not unusual to see a female actress playing the role of a disjointed and besieged subject. Ginger's pit of consciousness draws upon this intellectual
00:16:27 - of mental anguish once again, lik takes on the role of the struggling figure. Her words and images convey the sensibilities of a fragmented figure while her musical strategies evoke alternative and extreme progressive metal stylings. The final sequence of the video shows her to be submerged in water as she waits for her mind to be pacified. Let's watch.

Female Empowerment in Progressive Metal Music

00:17:40 - that result from the intertextual analysis and the close reading of the song. In the cosmic theme, I speak astronomy grants a female body and other worldly authority, while at the same time sustaining s human femininity. She uses a vast range of vocal effects. Her voice is always reverberate within space of the heavy metal, and you know this strong guitar and kit texture. By presenting her in a range of positions in relation
00:18:13 - and aggressive, deified and grounded in the gothic theme perennial. This song exposes and confronts the vulnerability of female experience. The song tells a story of loss and restoration through reference to the natural cycle of seasons. Lik offers a compelling critique of gothic femininity by connecting to the iconic imagery of death doom and gothic metal. She is both the exposed subject
00:18:45 - Ultimately, oppressive femininity is not restored or upheld, but rather this kind of femininity is seen to be digging its own grave. The theme of fragile subjects allows sch to the opportunity to embody and critique the role of a fragmented female subject in a highly complex song structure. She conveys a multidimensional representation of femininity and a willingness to represent human struggle while not capitulating to the archetype of a weak female.
00:19:17 - of female metal singer subjectivity more generally and sch intervention. More specifically, she is not merely a visual asset in the music video, but rather a performer who embodies critiques and transforms the roles that are being represented at the level of genre. Tatiana and the band members of Ginger offer a unique intersection of genre elements in dialogue with their lyrics and images. This unique genre bland creates space for the negotiation
00:19:52 - as a crucial actor. In progressive metal, Mila claims performative space in words, music and images to deliver compelling narratives that feature and problematize powerful v vulnerable and destabilized female subjectivities. Consistently. She embodies in these expressive channels representations of femininity that are salient within metal music cultures, but that she demonstrates to be deserving
00:20:22 - It's important for female performers to have the full toolkit of emotional expression available to them, including expressions of strength, aggression, vulnerability, and pain. These expressions are not the sole domain of masculinity, although typically attributed as such, but female metal artists can and do accomplish the necessary genre negotiations in order to confuse notions about male and female vo voices.

Exploring Gender in Metal Music's Expression

00:21:16 - and her multimodal expression in relation to the work of comparable metal bands in order to illuminate how she complicates and transforms the conventional understanding of gendered subjectivities in metal music with hundreds of active female metal vocalists. A great deal of work remains to be done to know and understand what these artists can and do bring to the genre of metal music.

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