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’m behind this statement in general but I’m not sure that just because someone is ridiculed with homophobic slurs, it makes him/her a positive influence in our culture. I’d have to hear some more arguments for that, and how different his embodiment of masculinity really is from the dominant one. And as for the quality of his music, I’m not sure any argument could convince me that it’s anything but very low.
