Wlll uuray

op CulLure Sprlng 2010

MLA
s t Rock N' Roll When a Woman Does t?
While it is true from the political economic perspective that the "Rock and Roll
industry is heavily dominated by the male gender and the hegemonic routines that
follow it, it is also true that from the cultural studies perspective that people like Joan
Jett and her rendition of The Arrows " Love Rock N' Roll are an important step towards
the introduction of women in a new rock and roll industry. Joan Jett's version of the
song was a huge thing because it was one of the first times a woman had such a huge
hit in the genre. She broke the norms previously seen in a male dominated part of the
music industry. n doing this, she even proceeded to make the song a bigger hit that
when it was originally released. On the other end of the spectrum this led to covers of
the song that refuted its original "Rock N' Roll status. The main cover that is in
discussion is the rendition that Britney Spears released. This Pop Music teen idol took
the song and conformed it to the traditional hegemonic routines associated with
mainstream music and Rock and Roll at the same time. This was done through her
changing the music behind the lyrics to be what pop music "should sound like and by
focusing on her visual appearance in her version of the music video.
Joan Jett's version of the song was released on a major label in 1981 with her
band Joan Jett & the Blackhearts. The music video for the song went along with the
hard rock and roll style that the song was recorded in. This song was a major game
changer for the entire rock and roll industry, this is because she was one of the first
women to have a major hit in the genre. This song was a major leap also because she
had taken the song that was originally written in 1975 by Alan Merrill and Jake Hooker
of the band The Arrows and made it a much larger hit than the male led band. This
version of the song was a big deal because of all of these things, and that these things
put together broke out of the hegemonic routines that had been previously followed for
such a long time in the Rock and Roll industry. Hegemonic routines as defined in Todd
Gitlin's Prime Time deology are noted in this quote. "Gramsci counterposed
"hegemony to "coercion; these were two analytically distinct processes through which
the ruling classes secure the consent of the dominated (Gitlin 2) Joan Jett and her
song break this traditional routine with her being a woman in a mainly male industry.
And in the Rock and Roll industry, the male gender would be the ruling class. Most
people would agree that the Rock music industry is male dominated when it comes to
the performers of the music and the people who manage the business side of the
operations as well. This male dominance is shown in the following quote from Just Me
and the Boys?, "Social scientists may have been slow to investigate women's
experiences in and contributions to popular music because approximately 90 percent of
all recording artists and attendance personnel in the music business are men. (Groce,
Cooper 221) One of the biggest things for Joan's version of the song was the fact that
she kept the song sounding like it belongs in the male dominated rock and roll genre.
She didn't let the fact that she is a woman change how she wanted the song to feel
because of the structural norms that surround what women are and how they're seen
and heard in the genre.
On the other end of this cultural spectrum is another version of the song. This
cover in question is the one performed by Brittney Spears. This version of the song is a
more pop music oriented one that would say discredits itself of all Rock and Roll
status. This is because this cover was designed to copy the original (original for this
purpose is Joan Jett's version) and then mass market itself to a completely different
population of music listeners. The hegemonic norms for this genre, as mentioned
above, see women as something to look at instead of take seriously in the male eyes.
This brings up the idea of the "gaze. The gaze in this area is for women to be seen as
dancers or eye candy for music videos and is illustrated here, in Mulvey's piece Visual
Pleasure and Narrative Cinema, "n a world ordered by sexual imbalance, pleasure in
looking has always been split between active/male and passive/female. The
determining male gaze projects its fantasy onto the female figure, which is styled
accordingly (Mulvey 19) This fits well with the Britney Spears rendition because she
took the music video and turned it from being a gritty rock and roll video, to something
that was much more visually entertaining and eye catching in terms of the male gaze.
The idea of the male gaze fits well with the notion that the Britney version is molded to
follow the current hegemonic routines associated with Rock and Roll.
n conjunction with the idea of the male gaze, the Britney Spears version of Joan
Jett's Love Rock N' Roll feeds into the idea of a media spectacle. The original music
video for the song was a black and white gritty looking, very classic Rock and Roll
styled, video that helped Joan break the traditional norms that have women being
featured as subjects to the male gaze. The Britney Spears version of the video brings
the idea of the spectacle into play. Britney's version of the video was much more
sexually oriented and also much more elaborate. The Britney version features lots of
color and elaborate light setups as well as different outfits throughout the whole video. A
quote that feel directly relates to how Britney changed the video to follow the norms
that Joan was trying to break free of was in Kellner's piece Media Culture and the
Triumph of the Spectacle. "n a similar fashion, younger female pop music stars and
groups such as Mariah Carey, Britney Spears, Jennifer Lopez, or Destiny's Child, also
deploy the tools of the glamour industry and media spectacle to make themselves
spectacular icons of fashion, beauty, style, and sexuality, as well as purveyors of
music. (Kellner 9) What this quote more deeply illustrates on the issue is that the pop
music sector of the music industry is more concerned with how the artists look and
portray themselves than the music itself. The Britney rendition of Joan Jett's Love
Rock N' Roll shows this quite well. Joan's version was about keeping with what Rock
and Roll was and keeping her own Rock and Roll values in accordance to that while at
the same time changing a different set of norms within Rock and Roll about women's
places in the industry.
After examining Joan Jett and her version of Love Rock N' Roll, and all the
different articulations involved with it, it is even clearer now to see what sort of impact
she had on the music industry and the norms it follows. t is still true today that from the
political economic perspective that the Rock and Roll industry is a very male dominated
one, but through her changes, Joan Jett helped re-evaluate some of the hegemonic
routines and norms associated with it. Even though covers of the song such as done by
Britney Spears showcase mainstream spectacle as well as re-instilling the norms of
what women can do in Rock and Roll and the music industry in general, these points
just further illustrate the impact that Joan Jett's cover of the original song Love Rock N'
Roll written by The Arrows really has.


8|b||ography
ellner uouglas MeJlo 5pectocle 1sL ed London lronL Ledge
2003 133 rlnL
!usL Me and Lhe 8oys? Women ln LocalLevel 8oc and 8oll
SLephen 8 Croce and MargareL Cooper
CeoJet ooJ 5oclety vol 4 no 2 (!un 1990) pp 220229
ubllshed by Sage ubllcaLlons lnc
!oan !eLL Lhe 8lachearLs l Love 8oc n 8oll oo1obe Web 13 Apr 2010
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Mulvey Laura vlsool ooJ Otbet lleosotes lndlana 1989 1426 rlnL
8rlLney Spears l Love 8oc n 8oll Cfflclal Muslc vldeo oo1obe Web 13 Apr 2010
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n/A !oan !eLL hasnL heard 8rlLney Spears 8oc n 8oll cover New Moslcol xptess 4 !une 2008
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