Torment[Her] (Misogyny as an Artistic Device): Alternative Perspectives on the Misogynist Aesthetic of W.A.S.P.’s ‘The Rack’

Abstract

Glam metal of the 1980s represented a notable development in popular music at this time. A subgenre of 1980s heavy metal, glam metal combined elements of late 1960s and 1970s heavy rock, glam rock and punk rock, enriching both the visual and aural aesthetic diversity of 1980s heavy metal as a result. Moreover, 1980s glam metal bands such as Guns N’ Roses and Poison, Cinderella and Mötley Crüe, Ratt and Warrant, dominated the music video airwaves and sold out venues across the United States. Yet, for all its comparative individuality and widespread popularity, the vast majority of mainstream glam metal bands were marginalised by social action groups mainly, but not exclusively, because of misogynist-type themes that the bands represented in their aesthetics.

During the 1990s, scholars began scrutinising 1980s glam metal’s misogynist aesthetics, for example, Lisa Sloat’s (1998) analysis of glam metal’s sexist and misogynist themed song lyrics concludes that, ‘if exploiting women for sex sells, [glam metal] musicians will [continue] record[ing] songs which do so’ (Sloat, 1998, p. 299). Yet none of these accounts seem to be able to sufficiently unpack the idea that 1980s glam metal’s representation of misogyny was anything other than fundamentally egregious. An alternative reading of the aesthetics shows us how many of the bands creatively appropriated misogyny to idiomatically hallmark metal glam, thus differentiating the style from the broadly homogenous displays of machismo that generally defined the aesthetics of other 1980s heavy metal subgenres. In response then, this chapter should be thought of as a doctrine provactive, intended to elicit a debate about the need to look alternatively at how misogyny is/was used as an artistic aesthetic device, not only in 1980s glam metal, but throughout culture more widely.

Citation

Heritage, G. (2018), "Torment[Her] (Misogyny as an Artistic Device): Alternative Perspectives on the Misogynist Aesthetic of W.A.S.P.’s ‘The Rack’", Holland, S. and Spracklen, K. (Ed.) Subcultures, Bodies and Spaces: Essays on Alternativity and Marginalization (Emerald Studies in Alternativity and Marginalization), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 61-80. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-78756-511-120181017