Abstract
US President Barack Obama made headlines when he shed a tear during a rendition of (You Make me Feel) like a Natural Woman, performed by Aretha Franklin. Less attention was paid to the overwrought response of Carol King, as though her emotional excess was to be expected. It was Obama’s dignified tear that demonstrated the power of Soul music inasmuch as the tear made headlines because it signified a shift in the acceptable emotional display of a man in power. In this context Sam de Boise has delivered a timely contribution to the study of Men, Masculinity, Music, and Emotions. De Boise critically responds to a diverse and significant body of literature through his transdisciplinary research method, making his book an invaluable resource for those interested in the intersections of gender, music, and affect.
One of the central points of contention in de Boise’s study is the lasting influence of a Cartesian model of emotional control, whereby the separation of the mind from the body encouraged the belief that reason and rational thought could moderate the irrational influence of emotions. In the study of men and masculinities one of the primary consequences of the split between rational thought and emotions has been the feminization of emotion, which has been as detrimental for men as it has been for women. To counter the legacy of Cartesian dualism, de Boise convincingly argues that emotions are tethered to historically contingent discourses and intricately linked to cognitive thoughts regardless of their contextual origin: ‘Even the parts of the brain responsible for what are discursively characterised as emotions, are, therefore, involved with those practices which lead to what is called “rational” action’ (p. 66). Music has played a central role in the correlation between masculinity and acceptable expressions of emotion, being at once rationalized as a cognitive exercise, or else framed as an acceptable and momentary release valve to safely prevent the build-up of negative emotions. Through the discourses surrounding the affective qualities of music, de Boise is able to both trace and dispel the numerous misconceptions that arise when music is associated with gendered identities from past to present.
The intersections of music, emotions, affect, and contested Cartesian philosophies are explored using a ‘mixed-methods’ combination of qualitative and quantitative approaches, including a survey group and case studies (p. 15). De Boise openly acknowledges the limitations of his sample subjects, who are predominately white and middle class, but he has made apparent the validity of opening up the discussion of men and masculinities to the rich discourses of emotions, affect and the role that music has to play in establishing and reflecting accepted gender performances.
While de Boise is methodical in his research and cautious in the conclusions he derives from his interview samples, there is still room for research into more specific case studies in which men perform or experience emotional responses to particular encounters with music. For example, de Boise mentions the spaces in which his interviewees listened to music (with partners, in the car, at home, or in a club), but their answers do not allow de Boise to study the emotional excess of large music events, particularly events associated with hypermasculinity. One only has to witness the aggression of a mosh pit or the hypnotic wave of synchronous head banging to suspect that live music exerts a unique and even especially sought-after emotional experience for men and women, one that owes much of its intensity to the immediacy of the live environment. De Boise is cautious of the hypodermic model of reception, which posits that ‘distasteful’ music has a direct and negative effect on young male listeners (p. 123), and yet there is an opportunity to engage with the emotional states associated with ‘distasteful’ genres when they are rendered acceptable through the masculine rituals of a live concert.
Although specific case studies of affective intensities may be missing, de Boise does engage with the affective qualities of music in his final chapter. By avoiding the ‘liberal relativism’ (p. 156) of affective embodiment, whereby affect is unpredictable and incalculable, de Boise argues that affective responses to music are learned through context and dominant discourses. That the US military used extreme music as a form of torture on male prisoners in Fallujah suggests that the emotional affect of music does indeed depend on context when that very same music played with the same intensity could be the source of great happiness to someone who appreciates the genre (Goodman, 2010: 21). Music as torture is not on the agenda of de Boise. Instead, he sees the positive influence that an appreciation for music’s emotional substance can have on the construction and performance of gendered identities once emotions are accepted as natural and necessary to femininities and masculinities alike.