Year of Publication

2020

Competition Category

Humanities: Creative

College

Arts and Sciences

Department/School

Political Science

Abstract

This paper closes the gap in research which has long neglected the study of representations of women's bisexuality in American popular music. Previous research has concluded that in all forms of media including magazines, television, music and films, references of bisexuality or bisexual people make up less than 1% of instances (Bond 111). This paper studies how bisexual women are erased and depicted in popular music by coding released singles (n=184) categorized using Billboard’s “Top 40 Year-End Artists,” charts from 2008-2018. This research found these singles to portray women/women narratives into the following three categories: 1) portraying behavioral bisexuality, 2) portraying stereotypes of bisexual women, or 3) portraying romantic scenes of same-sex female attraction. While examining how gender expression has an influence on the way the video is perceived by an audience, this analysis considers varying manners in which sexualized scenes in music videos are illustrated. The findings reveal that representations of bisexual women have been scarce and often negative. Included is a discussion of how bisexual-identifying artist, Halsey, has challenged pervasive stereotypes of gender and sexuality in her field.

Notes

Haley Hintz won the first place in the Humanities: Creative category.

Dr. Tara Tuttle was the faculty mentor.

Download

Share

COinS