got into an argument about justin bieber in my world literatures class today —- yelled at people.
j. bieber embodies an alternative vision of masculinity which is threatening to the dominant culture; this is why it is so often the case that young men and boys deride him with homophobic slurs and accusations of femininity. this is why there is such a loud, vitriolic, and disproportionate hatred toward the young male pop star. this is why on imdb ‘never say never’ is, on average, rated a 1.1 out of 10 by male voters. this is why 85.7% of all voters on the film are indeed male, 83% of which are between the ages of eighteen and twenty-nine. this is by far the most predominate voting category, as well as the most negative. this should not be a surprise. of course, this is the demographic which is most at risk to lose privilege, power, identity, etc. to a social shift in the dominant masculine vision. the images of massive crowds of fourteen-year-old girls finding an icon in the androgyny of j. bieber is too much for manliness to handle. truly, i believe j. bieber to be a tremendously positive figure in our popular culture. and, i believe that what our society needs is more love for j. bieber; if only we could all be more like fourteen-year-old girls, i think we might be doing better for ourselves. instead, we have masculinity in crisis and i was like baby, baby, baby no!
I think this is a good point! I’m not a huge fan of his music (but “Baby” is a validly good song and if the Kanye remix is anything to go by, so is “Runaway Love”). But I don’t really think the softly masculine teen idol is a new thing that J. Biebs is a pioneer of? Does no one remember the New Kids on the Block? Or like, Davy Jones?
I mean, I do think things are different in that teen girls seem to be the only group who buy music en masse anymore, so Bieber’s taken on an increased dominance in the marketplace?
