Staging rock n' roll : performing race, sexuality, mascuilinity and counterculture

This thesis examines the ways racism, sexism and heteronormativity are deployed\ud and exercised in popular music and performance. I discuss the prominence of female\ud artists of color in creating and innovating the blues and trace some reasons for their\ud absence in rock n??? roll music. Using theories of performativity, power and resistance,\ud disidentification, and cultural appropriation I discuss how physical bodies are a necessary\ud component in the process of creating social constructions and their subsequent\ud hierarchies. To do this I contextualize the appropriation of the blues by rock n??? roll artists\ud in conjunction with the rise of the corporate music industry. Finally, I conduct an analysis\ud of performances by James Brown and the Famous Flames, Lesley Gore, and The\ud Supremes at the Teenage American Music International Show (1964). I conclude that\ud white patriarchal privilege shapes and informs subcultural music genres, like the blues, as\ud they emerge into dominant culture