Heavy Metal - Controversies and Countercultures - Titus Hjelm
‘[I] hate girls and emo[tion]s’: Negotiating masculinity in grindcore music
Heavy Metal - Controversies and Countercultures - Titus Hjelm
Rosemary Overell
University of Melbourne
Description
In this chapter, the author uses feeling brutal as an entry point for a discussion on how affect relates to, and troubles, metal masculinity. There is a recurrent assumption in metal studies that Western metal is sexist, masculinist, and even misogynist (Arnett 1996; Kahn-Harris 2007; Walser 1993; Weinstein 2000). The author questions whether grindcore participants really do, following a song title from band Blood Duster, ‘Hate Girls and Emotions’. Overell concurs that metal imagery, particularly in death metal and gore-grindcore, regularly represents women as sexualized objects at best and objects for rape, torture and murder at worst. Metal signifiers, often literally, scream masculinity