Kandamkulathy 1

Ajay Kandamkulathy

Ms. Gonzalez

ENC 1102

March 31, 2024

Annotated Bibliography

Biscop, Kilian, et al. “Subversive Ludic Performance: An Analysis of Gender and Sexuality

Performance in Digital Games.” DiGeSt. Journal of Diversity and Gender Studies, vol. 6,

no. 2, 2019, pp. 23–42. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.11116/digest.6.2.2. Accessed 12 Mar.

2024.

In the article “Subversive Ludic Performance: An Analysis of Gender and Sexuality

Performance in Digital Games” Biscop starts out by pointing out the recent rise in

inclusivity in video games. They then state how despite this, the majority of video games

target straight men and do not reflect the modern perspective of gender roles and

expression of sexuality. One of the examples that they delve into is the hyper-

sexualization of women included in the look of the characters, including the outfits that

they wear and their voices. They do this to appeal to the male audience and causes the

characters to be described in a sexual manner by players. This is done by men who

attempt to create representation for women without input from women to see if the

representation is accurate, also known as performative representation.

This article is helpful towards my research because while it doesn’t focus on the music

industry in particular, it focuses on the entertainment industry and the topic of

performativity to meet a diverse audience while not accurately representing the majority
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of the people in said community. I can incorporate the learned information when

discussing the impact of societal expectations toward different genres of music and how

gender roles (who is behind the scenes) affects what art is being made/how it is being

made.

Cable, Chloe. I Sing Of Misogyny and Sexual Assault: Rape Culture in Contemporary American

Pop Music. Diss. University of Iowa, 2017. Accessed 30 Mar. 2024

In the article “I Sing of Misogyny and Sexual Assault: Rape Culture in Contemporary

American Pop Music” Cable talks about the culture of sexuality in music,

focusing on the rape culture that is sung by men, and how the lack of sexual education

mixed with misogyny normalizes this dangerous behavior. Cable discusses three songs

that are about non-consensual sex (rape) by popular male artists and how the singers

imply that they want to rape the people they are singing about. Despite these scary lyrics,

no action has been taken. Cable also connects these songs to their personal relationships

and how life may or may not imitate art.

Cable’s commentary will be able to help me with my research project as it provides

insight on the normalcy of illegal sexual topics in male lyrics despite there being such a

taboo for just explicit lyrics in women’s music. It disproves many of the people who

claim to have a problem with explicit songs because of their nature, as many of those

people do not show the same negative energy towards these songs (which were very

popular in the past decade). This article also includes information on how humans

normally learn about sex, and how the lack of popular sexual education contributes to the

double standard of the amount of sexuality being expressed by men and women.

Chung, Sheng Kuan. “Media/Visual Literacy Art Education: Sexism in Hip-Hop Music Videos.”
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Art Education, vol. 60, no. 3, 2007, pp. 33–38. JSTOR,

http://www.jstor.org/stable/27696214. Accessed 28 Feb. 2024.

In the article “Media/Visual Literacy Art Education: Sexism in Hip-Hop Music Videos”,

Chung focuses on the sexism in hip-hop music that is seen through the lyrics of male

artists and how these lyrics and the community that has been built in hip-hop negatively

affected the success of female hip-hop artists. Chung also focuses on music videos and

the messages that are being sent from the videos. She discusses the introduction of

feminist rap music videos to counter the misogynistic elements shown in most male rap

music videos. In addition, she also talks about the introduction of female sexuality being

included in music videos from artists/bands such as Salt-N-Pepa and how they were met

with backlash by hip-hop fans.

This article will be beneficial to my research as it focuses on the impact of music videos

in music, which will be one of the main parts that I am focusing on. It shows the

misogynistic lifestyle that is shown in male hip-hop music videos and how the listeners

have gravitated towards that so when female hip-hop artists started to make music videos

that display themes such as female sexuality, they were met with backlash by the fans of

the male-dominated genres as well as being seen as controversial by audiences.

de Boise, Sam. “Music and Misogyny: A Content Analysis of Misogynistic, Antifeminist

Forums.” Popular Music 39.3–4 (2020): 459–481. Web.

https://doi.org/10.1017/s0261143020000410. Accessed 28 Feb. 2024.

De Boise discusses the misogyny that is included in various music communities and how

the amount of misogyny in the community of each genre differs based on the genre. He

makes connections between the music made by women and the anger levels that men
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have which are caused by their reactions to the music. He makes points of how these

misogynistic reactions are displayed in primarily popular genres of music, such as rap,

rock, and heavy metal, and how these male-dominated genres of music cause selective

outrage where the outrage is selected on female artists. When selecting research to create

the article, the author did a good job of selecting sources from different time periods to

validate his point.

This article is helpful because it delves into MAMs (misogynistic anti-feminist

movements) and how they are seen in the different music communities. It also explains

how not everybody who is a part of these communities is a man and that women also

have double standards as to what is “acceptable” in popular music due to the gender roles

that they have adopted in their lives. I also think this article can help when making

general points in relation to the examples that I pick for this project and provide

explanations toward different reviews that are being given to the songs.

Ellis, Katharine. “Female Pianists and Their Male Critics in Nineteenth-Century Paris.” Journal

of the American Musicological Society, vol. 50, no. 2/3, 1997, pp. 353–85. JSTOR,

https://www.jstor.org/stable/831838 Accessed 28 Feb. 2024.

In the article “Journal of the American Musicological Society”, Ellis discusses the rise in

women pianists in the 1840s period and how the prior male domination affected the

expectations for women pianists as well as the men who criticized these pianists for not

meeting these expectations. She goes into the control that men had over these women’s

careers with their critiques. This would cause some women to have their artistry

compromised while other women were ostracized for not conforming to male

expectations. It shows the evolution of male criticization towards women artists and
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while the music from the pianists is not explicit, it still connects to the overall idea of

there being a misogynistic double standard towards the controversy of music made by

women that have similar content to music made by men.

I chose this source for my project because it shows how the influence of traditional

gender roles have affected the reactions of music listeners. I think that this source can be

used as an introduction to my paper which discusses the viewpoints of men in general

and the criticisms that they have for female artists that would not be had for male artists

and how their purpose of criticizing them was to have control over them and their careers.

FADERMAN, LILLIAN. “Epilogue: THE END OF ‘WOMAN’?” Woman: The American

History of an Idea, Yale University Press, 2022, pp. 414–24. JSTOR,

https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv2bfhhfs.20. Accessed 12 Mar. 2024.

In the article “Epilogue: THE END OF ‘WOMAN’?”, Faderman shows a display of

different article titles referring to different women of recent years and their approaches to

modern feminism, despite going against the gender norms that were placed before them.

Examples include Nancy Pelosi, Cardi B, and Megan Rapinoe as they accomplish things

that are seen as “out of the ordinary” by present-day standards and were met with

controversy by their target demographic. This article focuses on the controversy that

surrounds famous women when they do things that go against gender norms. These

controversies can be seen from how the titles are written or the connotation the writer has

towards the topic being discussed.

This article is helpful towards my research because it focuses on the controversy part of

my research paper. It shows the positivity in things that are seen as “morally wrong” or

not usual behavior that should be completed by women and includes a lot of examples
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that can be used as examples/further research of misogyny in various industries. One

song example that I am using is “WAP” by Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion, which is

one of the articles explained in the article so this will especially be a good source to use

for that example.