Dissertation
The black box of burlesque: motivational salience, intersectional domination, and situated resistance to hegemonic femininity in recreational and semi-professional burlesque
University of Iowa
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), University of Iowa
Autumn 2020
DOI: 10.17077/etd.005705
Abstract
A major thread that weaves through burlesque (whether career professional, semi-professional, or recreational performance) is taking control of things that have been denied, specifically related to the body. While there is universal appeal for performers in wishing to be seen, heard, and celebrated—in body and mind—motivations into burlesque performance manifests variably according to the complex intersecting nature of experiences and social structural barriers faced by performers. Specific daily constraints and indignities vary in patterned ways by subject location, therefore producing different repressions and reliefs in the performance of burlesque. As the United States is a pluralistic society with competing cultural and ideological messages, it is imperative to understand situated lived experiences to fully make sense of any behavioral motivation in this national context.
For this dissertation project, I conducted multiple forms of qualitative data collection—including participating observation, archival research, and in-depth interviews of 33 burlesque performers or affiliates in three differently structured local groups and outside performers from the larger national field in which local groups were situated—to explore the ways in which organizational structure shapes burlesque performance and gender construction. I found that motivational salience and social network homophily were primary drivers of the filtering of performers into three different local groups.
In chapter three, I examine how varying constellations of constraints and privileges shape both the salience of particular motivations for burlesque as a vehicle for self-expression and also shape the experience of burlesque in different settings. In a slight re-focusing of the “choice-within-constraint” model, I find that the same choice is made based on these complex intersections and therefore the meaning of the choice cannot be readily distilled, with broader implications for choice compared to structural feminism. Burlesque is appealing for a variety of reasons and those were embraced or selectively adopted based on how closely constellations of motivation matched messages sent by group leaders.
In chapter four, I respond to the claim that raunch culture predominates the experience of coming to understand one’s sexuality. I find, instead, that multiple influences across habitus shape sexual scripts. For those in my interview sample, purity culture was as strongly salient to motivation into burlesque as was having a sexually libertine upbringing. Finally, religious habitus interestingly shaped motivations into burlesque—either through the rejection of restriction, the continued love of spectacle, or other elements of monotheistic influence.
These first substantive chapters illuminate the ways in which individual choices, all made in a specific habitus that varies by social location, shapes behavioral motivation and the salience of domains of marginalization in the practice of semi-professional or recreational burlesque. In the penultimate chapter, I bring these insights to bear on the role of local burlesque groups in the rejection or perpetuation of intersectional domination. Local burlesque is an ideal site for this inquiry, as each of the groups in my sample actively reject elements of hegemonic femininity, particularly as exemplified in the current Western context as being “unthreatening/unaggressive” and exhibiting “sexual purity.” I find instances of resistance to hegemonies, maintenance of intersectional domination, and liminality in deconstructing hegemonies.
Overall, this project shows that at the individual level, constraints are felt differently by social location and thus individual motivations or perceptions of resistant actions can only be understood in context, even if resistance does not move beyond the individual level.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- The black box of burlesque: motivational salience, intersectional domination, and situated resistance to hegemonic femininity in recreational and semi-professional burlesque
- Creators
- Nicole Bouxsein Oehmen
- Contributors
- Sarah Harkness (Advisor)Karen Heimer (Committee Member)Mary Noonan (Committee Member)Michael Sauder (Committee Member)stef shuster (Committee Member)
- Resource Type
- Dissertation
- Degree Awarded
- Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), University of Iowa
- Degree in
- Sociology
- Date degree season
- Autumn 2020
- DOI
- 10.17077/etd.005705
- Publisher
- University of Iowa
- Number of pages
- xi, 136 pages
- Copyright
- Copyright 2020 Nicole Bouxsein Oehmen
- Language
- English
- Description illustrations
- color illustrations
- Description bibliographic
- Includes bibliographical references (page 120-125).
- Public Abstract (ETD)
To study the ways in which burlesque performance changes based on different group structures, I learned and performed burlesque in three different groups for 22 months and conducted interviews with 33 performers. I found that social background, combined with upbringing, geographic location, and social connections are important motivators into burlesque performance. This combination of factors made different elements of performance more important to individual performers, who were able to pick and choose which messages from group leaders to embrace. I also found that different messages about how people should express their sexuality, often provided in the context of religious upbringing, motivated those I interviewed to perform burlesque. Finally, I found that burlesque allows for different gender expressions that sometimes promote gender equality and sometimes maintain hierarchy. Overall, the same behavior—one of resistance in the case of local burlesque—is uniquely shaped by the background and constraints of performers. The degree of resistance for an individual performer, then, can only be understood in the context of their lived experience.
- Academic Unit
- Sociology and Criminology
- Record Identifier
- 9984035893602771
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