2005 Pop Conference Bios/AbstractsKelsey CowgerUCLA
Kelsey Cowger is currently a graduate student in musicology at the University of California, Los Angeles, having previously studied at the University of Chicago and Oberlin College/Conservatory. Her research interests include interdisciplinary performance, minimalism/postminimalism, twentieth century experimental music and musical/cultural intersections.
Panel(s):Self-Portrait in Three Colors: The Mask, Identity, and OwnershipSunday, April 17, 2005, 10:45 - 12:15
Abstract:"
Reading 'Bamp-chicka-waa-waa': Funk, Porn and the Vision of John Shaft"
While the 1970s phenomenon of the 'blaxploitation' film has received a certain degree of credit for its role in promoting ideals of black nationalism and self-determination, it has received an equal amount of approbation for its perceived portrayal of the violent and hypersexualized African-American male. Some critics of the genre maintain that the iconic image of the aggressive, masculinized, overtly sexual black protagonist (à la John Shaft) has eclipsed any of blaxploitation's larger, community-oriented goals. The funk-centered soundtracks of blaxploitation films which underscore these images are themselves subjects of frequent critique, given the associations frequently drawn between 1970s funk and the 'bamp-chicka-waa-waa' of the porn soundtrack. Critics are correct to observe the unusually close integration of visual image and score in blaxploitation; composer Isaac Hayes and director Gordon Parks worked extremely closely on
Shaft. and their example was followed by many. The extension of that idea—that the film's soundtracks were designed specifically as sonic signifiers of black male sexuality—is far more contentious. The practice of using funk idioms to mark sex scenes in porn did not, in fact begin until the mid-80s, well after 70s-era
blaxploitation had, for the most part, died out. From where, then, do the sonic associations between funk and sexuality derive? This paper attempts to explore the uneasy grafting of funk music and sex in the 1980s while investigating what that association says about perceptions of black identity. It concludes by reading these questions backwards onto blaxploitation films and their soundtracks, using the Parks/Hayes collaboration in
Shaft as a case study.
Panel Abstract:
The three papers included in this proposal explore issues of identity appropriation,
reclamation, and self-creation through the perception and use of persona. Paul Gilroy writes:
Diaspora's discomfort with carelessly over-integrated notions of culture, and its rather fissured sense of particularity, fit readily with the best moods of politicised postmodernism which shares an interest in understanding the self as contingently and performatively produced. Diaspora accentuates becoming rather than being, and identity conceived diasporically, along these lines, resists reification. Foregrounding the tensions around origins and essences that Diaspora brings into focus allows us to perceive that identity should not be fossilised or venerated in keeping with the holy spirit of ethnic absolutism. Identity too becomes a noun of process and it is placed on ceaseless trial. ("…to be real," 1995)
Following Gilroy's discussion of the contingency of diasporic identity, this panel focuses specifically on black American musical cultures since 1960. The papers discuss ways in which black musicians have been systematically marginalized through the stereotyping and fossilizing of black culture and how these same musicians have transcended stereotypes through their fluid, ever-shifting performance of self-identity.
