Cover not available

Article published In: Journal of Language and Sexuality
Vol. 8:2 (2019) ► pp.139–165

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload PDF
authorization required

Discourses of (hetero)sexism in popular music

The legacy of Blurred Lines

 | Nottingham Trent University, UK
 | Sheffield Hallam University, UK
Published online: 20 August 2019
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/jls.18007.han
Abstract
This article analyses interview data to explore how participants negotiated discourses of (hetero)sexism in relation to the controversial pop song Blurred Lines. Our previous work, based on questionnaire data, interrogated interpretations of Blurred Lines (Handforth, Rachel, Paterson, Laura, Coffey-Glover, Laura & Mills, Sara. 2017. Reading between Blurred Lines: The complexity of interpretation. Discourse, Context & Media 201: 103–115. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar) and showed how participants drew on discourses of sexism in their responses. Several participants experienced significant conflict in their interpretations, and here we focus on these more complex interpretations, considering the “small stories” (Bamberg, Michael & Georgakopoulou, Alexandra. 2008. Small stories as a new perspective in narrative and identity analysis. Text & Talk 28(1): 377–396.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar) identified in follow-up interviews with participants. Individual narratives acted as mechanisms through which participants linked Blurred Lines to wider issues such as rape culture, drawing parallels between these and their own lives. Following research in queer linguistics (King, Brian W. 2014. Reclaiming masculinity in an account of lived intersex experience: Language, desire and embodied knowledge. In Language and Masculinities: Performances, Intersections, Dislocations, Tommaso Milani (ed), 220–242. London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; Leap, William L. 2014. Queer linguistics, sexuality, and discourse analysis. In The Routledge Handbook of Discourse Analysis, James Paul Gee & Michael Handford (eds), 558–571. London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; Motschenbacher, Heiko. 2010. Language, Gender and Sexual Identity: Poststructuralist Perspectives. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar) our use of thematic analysis, corpus linguistic tools and narrative analysis highlights the various subject positions that participants negotiated in their storytelling, and how these positions both echoed and challenged normative understandings of gender and sexuality.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Studying reactions to sexism and popular music with queer linguistics
  • 3.Methodology
    • 3.1Analytical framework: Corpus-assisted discourse analysis
      • 3.1.1Thematic analysis
      • 3.1.2Corpus linguistic tools
      • 3.1.3Narrative analysis
      • 3.1.4Combining quantitative and qualitative methods of analysis
  • 4.Analysis
    • 4.1Discourses of (hetero)sexism
      • 4.1.1Objectification
      • 4.1.2Unequal power relations
      • 4.1.3Rape culture
    • 4.2Narrative analysis
      • 4.2.1Retelling memories of Blurred Lines
      • 4.2.2Public and social spaces
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
References (61)
References
Baker, Paul. 2006. Using Corpora in Discourse Analysis. London: Continuum.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2014. Using Corpora to Analyze Gender. London: Bloomsbury.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Baker, Paul, Gabrielatos, Costas, KhosraviNik, Majid, Krzyżanowski, Michał, McEnery, Tony & Wodak, Ruth. 2008. A useful methodological synergy? Combining critical discourse analysis and corpus linguistics to examine discourses of refugees and asylum seekers in the UK press. Discourse & Society 19(3): 273–306. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Baker, Paul & Levon, Erez. 2016. “That’s what I call a man”: Representations of racialized and classed masculinities in the UK print media. Gender and Language 10(1): 106–139. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bamberg, Michael. 2009. Identity and narration. In Handbook of Narratology, Peter Hühn, John Pier, Wolf Schmid & Jorg Schönert (eds), 132–143. New York: Walter de Gruyter.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bamberg, Michael & Georgakopoulou, Alexandra. 2008. Small stories as a new perspective in narrative and identity analysis. Text & Talk 28(1): 377–396.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bauman, Richard. 2004. A World of Others’ Words: Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Intertextuality. Oxford: Blackwell. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Baxter, Judith A. 2010. Discourse-analytic approaches to text and talk. In Research Methods in Linguistics, Lia Litosseliti (ed), 117–137. London: Continuum.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Beal, Joan C. 2009. “You’re not from New York City, you’re from Rotherham”: Dialect and identity in British indie music. Journal of English Linguistics 37(3): 223–240. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Braun, Virginia & Clarke, Victoria. 2006. Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative Research in Psychology 3(2): 77–101. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Brinkley, Elly. 2013. Is Blurred Lines a ‘rapey’ song? The Wall Street Journal. <[URL]> (September 25, 2016)
Bucholtz, Mary & Hall, Kira. 2004. Theorizing identity in language and sexuality research. Language in Society 33(1): 469–515.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Burgess, Melinda C. R. & Burpo, Sandra. 2012. The effect of music videos on college students’ perceptions of rape. College Student Journal 46(4): 748–763.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Butler, Judith. 1990. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1993. Bodies that Matter: On the Discursive Limits of “Sex”. London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cameron, Deborah. 1992. Feminism and Linguistic Theory. Basingstoke: Macmillan. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cameron, Deborah & Kulick, Don. 2003. Language and Sexuality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cobb, Michael D. & Boettcher, William A. 2007. Ambivalent sexism and misogynistic rap music: Does exposure to Eminem increase sexism? Journal of Applied Social Psychology 37(12): 3025–3042. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Coffey-Glover, Laura. 2015. Ideologies of masculinity in women’s magazines: A critical stylistic approach. Gender and Language 9(3): 337–363. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Eckert, Penelope & McConnell-Ginet, Sally. 1992. Communities of practice: Where language, gender and power all live. In Locating Power: Proceedings of the Second Berkeley Women and Language Conference, Kira Hall, Mary Bucholtz & Birch Moonwoman (eds), 89–99. Berkeley, CA: Berkeley University.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Edley, Nigel & Wetherell, Margaret. 2008. Discursive psychology and the study of gender: A contested space. In Gender and Language Research Methodologies, Kate Harrington, Lia Litosseliti, Helen Sauntson & Jane Sunderland (eds), 161–173. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Edwards, Derek & Middleton, David. 1986. Joint remembering: Constructing an account of shared experience through conversational discourse. Discourse Processes 9(1): 423–459. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Edwards, Derek & Potter, Jonathan. 1992. Discursive Psychology. London: Sage.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Foucault, Michel. 1972. The Archaeology of Knowledge. London: Tavistock.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Goffman, Erving. 1974. Frame Analysis. New York: Harper.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Handforth, Rachel, Paterson, Laura, Coffey-Glover, Laura & Mills, Sara. 2017. Reading between Blurred Lines: The complexity of interpretation. Discourse, Context & Media 201: 103–115. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jansen, Lisa & Westphal, Michael. 2017. Rihanna works her multivocal pop persona: A morpho-syntactic and accent analysis of Rihanna’s singing style. English Today 33(2): 46–55. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Juzwik, Mary. 2014. Spoken narrative. In The Routledge Handbook of Discourse Analysis, James Paul Gee & Michael Handford (eds), 326–341. London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kalof, Linda. 1999. The effects of gender and music video imagery on sexual attitudes. The Journal of Social Psychology 139(3): 378–385. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kilgarriff, Aadam, Baisa, Vít, Bušta, Jan, Jakubíček, Miloš, Kovář, Vojtěch, Michelfeit, Jan, Rychlý, Pavel & Suchomel, Vit. 2014. The Sketch Engine: Ten years on. Lexicography 1(1): 7–36. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
King, Brian W. 2014. Reclaiming masculinity in an account of lived intersex experience: Language, desire and embodied knowledge. In Language and Masculinities: Performances, Intersections, Dislocations, Tommaso Milani (ed), 220–242. London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Koehler, Sezin. 2013. From the mouths of rapists: The lyrics of Robin Thicke’s Blurred Lines . The Society Pages. <[URL]> (September 9, 2016)
Labov, William. 1972. Language in the Inner City. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Labov, William & Waletzky, Joshua. 1967. Narrative analysis: Oral versions of personal experience. In Essays on the Verbal and Visual Arts: Proceedings of the 1966 Annual Spring Meeting of the American Ethnological Society, June Helm (ed), 12–44. Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lai, Jennifer. 2013. “ Blurred Lines” is cocky, yes. But rapey? No. Slate . <[URL]> (November 19, 2016)
Leap, William L. 2014. Queer linguistics, sexuality, and discourse analysis. In The Routledge Handbook of Discourse Analysis, James Paul Gee & Michael Handford (eds), 558–571. London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Love, Robbie & Baker, Paul. 2015. The hate that dare not speak its name? Journal of Language, Aggression and Conflict 3(1): 57–86. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lynskey, Dorian. 2013. Blurred Lines: The most controversial song of the decade. The Guardian. <[URL]> (September 25, 2016)
Mabry, Linda. 2008. Case study in social research. In The Sage Handbook of Social Research Methods, Pertti Alasuutari, Leonard Bickman & Julia Brannen (eds), 214–228. London: Sage. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Makarechi, Kia. 2013. Blurred Lines’ director Diane Martel defends music video against claims of misogyny. Huffington Post. <[URL]> (November 19, 2016)
Mautner, Gerlinde. 2009. Checks and balances: How corpus linguistics can contribute to CDA. In Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis, Michael Meyer & Ruth Wodak (eds), 122–143. London: Sage.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
McEnery, Tony & Hardie, Andrew. 2012. Corpus Linguistics: Method, Theory and Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
McRobbie, Angela. 2007. Post-feminism and popular culture. Feminist Media Studies 4(3): 255–264. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mills, Sara. 2008. Language and Sexism. London: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2013. “Now everybody can wear a skirt”: Linguistic constructions of non-heteronormativity at Eurovision Song Contest press conferences. Discourse & Society 24(5): 590–614. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2016. Language, Normativity and Europeanisation: Discursive Evidence from the Eurovision Song Contest. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(ed). 2018. Corpus Linguistics in Language and Sexuality Studies: Developments and Prospects (special issue: Journal of Language and Sexuality 7.2). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mulvey, Laura. 1975. Visual pleasure and narrative cinema. Screen 16(3): 6–18. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Murphy, Meghan. 2014. ‘No, “female appreciation” is not the same thing as feminism. Feminist Current. <[URL]> (September 25, 2016)
Potter, Jonathan & Wetherell, Margaret. 1987. Discourse and Social Psychology: Beyond Attitudes and Behaviour. London: Sage.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Riessman, Catherine. 2005. Narrative analysis. In Narrative, Memory and Everyday Life, Christine Horrocks, Nancy Kelly, Kate Milnes, Brian Roberts & David Robinson (eds), 1–7. Huddersfield: University of Huddersfield Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Romano, Tricia. 2013. “Blurred Lines,” Robin Thicke’s summer anthem, is kind of rapey. The Daily Beast. <[URL]> (September 9, 2016)
Scott, Mike. 2012. WordSmith Tools version 6. Stroud: Lexical Analysis Software.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sunderland, Jane. 2004. Gendered Discourses. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Taylor, Charlotte. 2016. Mock politeness and culture: Perceptions and practice in UK and Italian data. Intercultural Pragmatics 13(4): 463–498.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Thornborrow, Joanna. 2014. Narrative analysis. In The Routledge Handbook of Discourse Analysis, James Paul Gee & Michael Handford (eds), 51–65. London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wallis, Cara. 2011. Performing gender: A content analysis of gender display in music videos. Sex Roles 64 (3–4): 160–172. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Werner, Valentin. 2012. Love is all around: A corpus-based study of pop lyrics. Corpora (7)11: 19–50. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (4)

Cited by four other publications

Diapana, Aaron
2024. The Problem and Its Scope. SSRN Electronic Journal DOI logo
Dashiell, Steven
2023. ‘You feel that?’ Examining gay porn discourse as hegemonic discursive soundtrack. Porn Studies 10:1 ► pp. 20 ff. DOI logo
Oyebanji, Olubunmi Funmi
2023. Illegitimation of same-sex sexualities in news reports of selected Nigerian newspapers. Discourse & Society 34:3 ► pp. 273 ff. DOI logo
Motschenbacher, Heiko
2021. Language and sexuality studies today. Journal of Language and Sexuality 10:1 ► pp. 25 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 13 november 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue