Conceal & Reveal:
Skepta, Ginuwine & Black Male Masculinities
Ruth Barnes and Joanne Eicher have proposed that ‘dress is both an indicator and a producer of gender’ (1992:7). In providing an example of where this may be the case this essay aims to explore the ‘performative’ acts of contemporary black male musicians who use opposing notions of concealment and revealment through fashion and dress to indicate and produce normative stereotypes of masculinities; through the example of their music videos I have used textual analysis to highlight how this is the case for singer Ginuwine within his video ‘Pony’ and the MC (master of ceremonies) Skepta, within his video ‘Shutdown’.
Gender can be read as the characteristics or traits which relate to either masculinity or femininity, in its singular form, masculinity or femininity may refer to the cultural and hegemonic identification of individuals within a society. The white, western and heterosexual male is a normative and ‘successful’ depiction of masculinity, (Beynon: 2002) and so the term masculinities gives consideration to the interpolation of cultural, historical and geographical factors which contribute to the different notions of masculinity. (Beynon: 2002) Therefore in using the term masculinities within this essay, consideration has been given to how both Ginuwine and Skepta display various characteristics of masculinities such as complicit, hegemonic and marginalised through their identities as black males.
Fashion and dress is a way in which normative gender ideals may be perpetuated, it is suggested that women actively choose dress to display their femininity in order to attract men; (Berger: 1969. Mansfield: 2000. Church Gibson: 2010) styles of clothing are chosen to highlight and accentuate the shape of the body, largely the preserve of women until the ‘commercialisation of masculinity’ from the 1980’s in which the new man dressed in order to be gazed upon and desired. (Beynon: 2002) Traditionally for men, the body itself has signified the patriarchal values of masculinity such as strength, dominance, success and power. Therefore arguably there is no male body-singular- to be desired, but the association of male bodies to athleticism and power is what often visually characterises masculinity (Lehman: 2007) and is displayed through physical, social, political and economic contexts. Men are able to demonstrate dominant, hegemonic power over females due to these factors which govern and control everyday life, whereas for females their femininity is read in relation to men through biological reproduction, sexual objectification or consumerism. (Reed:2013)
As women use clothing to highlight and pronounce the body a visual signifier of femininity is in the reveal of clothing, yet the additional characteristics of femininity through grooming and self care have been appropriated by men since the rise of the metrosexual man in the 1980’s evident through the performative acts of male Rhythm and Blues (R&B) singer Ginuwine in the 1996 music video ‘Pony’, in which he demonstrates a contemporary complicit perspective of hegemonic masculinities through performative acts of revealment through dress.
Performativity can be traced to the conceptualisation and reinforcement of normative gender stereotypes in which young boys are taught to ‘act like men’, ‘acts’ centred around family life and work teach men to act competitively and therefore are socialised into roles which focus on competition such as sports. (Drummond: 1995)
Depictions of black males in popular discourse centres on musicians, actors and sports personalities; these examples reiterate the stereotypes that success and desirability of black males is relative to performance and therefore the body. The gendered actions of both artists have been produced through familial and social expectations dominant in both western and non western cultures in which they are diasporically positioned and therefore perform through repetition of gendered behaviours. (Mansfield: 2000) Therefore performativity as both artists and black males becomes part of their everyday experience.
Similarly Grime artist Skepta demonstrates the same perspective of masculinity through the use of fashionable dress in order to conceal his body. Performativity is expressed through his actions, narrative and stylistic concept throughout the 2015 music video ‘Shutdown’. Whilst fashionable dress is usually attributed to females some of the dress choices within ‘Shutdown’, are fashionable in that they are clearly influenced if not designed by Massimo Osti’s CP company; a popular brand credited with transforming the aesthetics of menswear, through its founders’ inventive combinations of urban sportswear and high tech casual wear. (CP Company Store: 2015) As much an inventor as designer, the creation of unique fabrics suited the functional designs, leading to garments which have become iconic, with some of which being held at Westminster men’s wear archives. (2018) The combination of high tech casual wear with sportswear garments in the video have become fashionable trends for men across both commercial and high fashion. (McCauley-Bowstead: 2018)
In ‘Cultures of Masculinity’ Tim Edwards argues fashion relating to clothes on or off the catwalk as ‘fashion as dress’ and fashion related to ‘codes’ of what is ‘in’ or ‘out’ as fashion as style. (2006) In doing so he presents a relationship between fashion and masculinity offered to a dominant culture, as style is not specific to what is ‘in’ or ‘out’ of a fashion system in which black males are predominantly excluded from. The construction of the [masculine] self through a combination of clothing, hairstyles, accessories and beauty regimes are considered and promoted in displays of fashion, whether or not they are ‘in fashion.’ (Tulloch: 2016) Additionally the nature of black style, has ‘played a starring role’ (Tulloch: 1992) in the development of black culture embodied in dress, music, language and mannerisms (McMillan: 2017) and performed within spaces in which black people are physically and culturally present. Grime artist Skepta boastingly raps about sitting in the front row at London Fashion Week in the track shutdown, his boasts are not due to sitting in the revered front row but because it highlights the singularity of his presence as a black man. Notably, he uses this space to play the ‘starring role’, (Tulloch: 1992) through his choice in wearing a black tracksuit, as part of the ‘tracksuit mafia’ (Boakye:2017) presenting both deviance and masculinity. Whilst marginalised men live simultaneous experiences of both cultural inclusion and exclusion due to their intersectional identities, masculinities wholly hegemonic are contentious as they include only some aspects of male privilege. (Jackson: 2013)
Thus Skepta’s performative act is important to both Grime becoming part of mainstream music culture but also his presence as a fixture within society’s cultural elite. (Boakye:2017) Skepta’s style practices here as a layperson to those in the field of [the] fashion [industry] are used in articulation of his everyday life experiences, through his literal storytelling he is communicating a style narrative. (Tulloch: 2016)
How we imagine black bodies dressed, when we consider media representations of black fashion and styles of dress we are often presented with flamboyance, distasteful excess, bright ‘ethnic’ colours and prints and prominent jewellery referred to as bling. These terms and associations often remove dressed black bodies from what is perceived as appropriate dress to a paradoxical form of costume. Black dress is also viewed through the context of the body; for black males it is either the embodiment of a significant number of garments or exposure of the unclothed body which forms the type of representation in which they can be understood.
Ginuwine uses style narratives to present various facets of masculinities through the element of reveal in ‘Pony’. The performances of men in 90’s R&B music may imply a feminine or homosexual identity (Denski: 2012) in the way in which they promote the active gaze at their own bodies, with the gaze reflected back at oneself, in the way that a woman might gaze at herself in the mirror. Yet Ginuwine displays complicit hegemonic masculinity through his toned muscular body and song lyrics in which he uses the metaphor of horse riding to call women to the act of sexual intercourse. Here he demonstrates power and dominance through the repetition of persuasive language highlighting his patient waiting and the performative acts on stage in which his oversized and open white shirt is used as a specific prop to reveal his masculine body. In dominating space across the stage Ginuwine is able to continuously position and reposition the gaze, and in possessing the gaze, the females within the audience become its object. (Mulvey:1975) To an audience of females and the perception of other males, his actions are viewed as masculine. (Denski:2012) So this reversal of roles in which Ginuwine acts out a sexualised performativity, attributed to women still fails to realistically address the power imbalance between men and women nor between races as his acts are viewed as normative and masculine, bereft of any threat that the reversal of this act may cause. (Lehman:2007)
Ginuwine’s use of clothing further highlights the performative aspect of hegemonic masculinity through garments which are characteristically men’s wear, the oversized white shirt and baggy jeans are the antithesis of both the type and cut of garments worn by women to indicate their femininity, yet his clothing must also be analysed from an intersectional perspective. The hat worn by Ginuwine is significant in that it differs from those worn by other males within the video, it is not a cowboy hat which would imply blue collar or manual work in the fields but more similar to a bowler hat indicating white collar work and respectability. As the video connotes an era prior to the 1990’s, the hat becomes symbolic of the Jim Crow era in which racist etiquette prevailed as the wearing of a hat and especially one which signified respectability could have led to arrest. (Tulloch: 2016) The sagger of Ginuwine’s jeans reveal his underwear beneath (McMillan:2017) forming a masculine diasporic style narrative (Tulloch: 2016) which can be traced back to the West Indian ‘sweet bwoy' .
The revealment of clothing through the un-buttoned and open shirt show a muscular, smooth chest, devoid of hair and oiled, suggestive of the metrosexual, yet this was the derigeour of black urban artists in America in the 1990’s. An aesthetic of cultural production, creating racial difference which was popularised and therefore visually cemented as part of a black male’s identity, in so much that words become secondary to visual displays (Gilroy: 2016) Since the 1980’s there have been changes in the approach to the representation of the male body within the mass media, words and garments have become secondary to the body upon which they are related. (Cole:2013)
“Long refused access to honorific depiction, black bodies were confined to the frames of the criminal, the pornographic, the ethnographic, the comedic photograph or to the margins of sentimental portraits of whites”. (Raiford: 201:09)
As little room is given to vocally express that which opposes and contradicts historical stereotypes, they are perpetually reinforced within the media. Both artists in ‘Pony’ and ‘Shutdown’ re-appropriate the stereotypes of their black identity by using fashion and dress performatively and through ownership of space in order to highlight the largely unchanged stereotypes rather than promote or reinforce them.
White cultural hegemonic representations of the black male body are visualised through a gaze of colonial fantasies, based on the creation of fear and desire. (McMillan: 2017) Fear is created by advertising or creating cultural difference between groups, with the differences utilised and exploited to make distinctions. (Barth:1969)
Both symbolism and the gaze are used to highlight these representations within ‘Pony’, the video opens with the arrival of individuals stepping off a bus suggesting the entrance of an unknown territory. Objects within the bar such as animal horns, white males in cowboy hats, long moustaches and heavy jewellery signify bikers and cowboys- also characterised through the name of the song- and neon signs depicting rodeos at the back of the stage. These feature in contrast to the presence and dress choices of black people whether Ginuwine himself, or the other black figures who enter the bar, suggesting they are out of place within a non metropolitan, urban area. The spectator’s gaze upon Ginuwine in the form of the principal white woman in the shot shows desire rising out of initial curiosity, (Lehman:2007) as Ginuwine displays his masculinity performatively in what is clearly considered a forbidden space- specifically for black males- as towards the end of the video black females who have entered the bar are welcomed into conversation.
The use of dress in performative acts of masculinities is therefore also important in relation to space and how this can be seen as an indicator and producer of gender.
Stylistic elements in Skepta’s shutdown video such as frames featuring grainy and pixelated visuals serve to show its central characters being watched under surveillance, these frames are cut between others which show characters in layers of clothing and accessories of tracksuits, hoodies, heavy jackets and gloves which form a barrier and disguise, thus equated with concealment and implied anti social behaviour and disorder, however the amount of figures within the scene show dominance over the urban space in which they perform.
Concealment through dress then becomes a way to obscure surveillance and intrusion, clothing by the CP company and its sister company Stone Island have used the notion of surveillance within its design. “Through the personal perspective of its people, Eyes On The City explores different urban scenarios and exceptional landscapes that develop a unique narrative.” Perhaps a more romanticised perspective, as concealment here is a way to conceal deviant and anti social behaviour, whether actual or perceived, attributed to males within subcultural groups, whose displays of masculinity have historically been performed in public, urban spaces. Perception and assumption of deviant behaviour contributes to a desire to conceal the body; a protective armour within the context of prejudice and discrimination. The desire for, as opposed to the provision of, protection, security and defence are commonly perceived as feminine characteristics; therefore as gender is a socially constructed concept, a fixed masculine identity can be difficult to continuously perform. Particularly for marginalised masculinities in the intersectional contexts of race and class, personal and affirmative expressions of fashion and style are contained within the realities of their situation in a culture fraught with antagonism. (Gilroy:2013)
Grime artists such as Skepta are outwardly perceived to display fixed normative masculinities, the pressure within a male dominated field ensures that stereotypical depictions of masculinity are promoted. (Boakye:2017) However the marginalised male in fact has a fragile hold on there complicit and normative masculine identity and therefore performs a variety of masculinities. The fragility and threat to gender roles can then be projected outward through competitive actions of masculine behaviour. (Mansfield:2000)
Black [and white] youth… embrace the ‘bad bwoy' look (McMillan:2013) even if no deviant behaviour takes place because the image was and is perceived as having a level of cool which transcends race, space, class and place. (McMillan: 2013) Yet the ‘tracksuit mafia’ look of dark colours, tracksuits, windbreakers and curved peak hats worn low is an inherently UK aesthetic, (Boakye: 2017) which serves in contrast to the brash US rap aesthetic through clothing of displaying wealth through heavy jewellery, brighter colours or the groomed, physicality of the male body shown through R&B singers such as Ginuwine.
Black and white males share the same scenes, clothing and displays of behaviour in ‘Shutdown’. Yet the voiceover of a fearful and arguably white female suggests the aggressive dancing of males [dressed] in black is not what she expects to see, which could be read as what she wishes or desires to see in the dominant cultural space of prime time television.
As Fredrick Barth states it is not the differences in cultural content of ethnic groups which is important as they are used to mark cultural difference between groups, but what is is important is the way in which the differences are utilised or exploited to make distinctions.(1969)
Yet both artists, actively use dress and concealment or revealment to engage in their own ‘cultural content’ and highlight how this has been depicted historically. Their ability to dominate their space and environment in which they perform within is significant as these are spaces in which their active presence has been excluded from.
Whilst “Shutdown reconciles the paranoia that has historically typified Grime with the confidence it has garnered through years of grind”. (Boakye: 2017: 244) It is specifically through the use of dress within both this video and Ginuwine’s Pony that both males are able to present hegemonic and complicit masculinities highlighting the duality of their presence as black males within society. So within both videos the masquerade of dress is not just an indicator and producer of gender but also serves to highlight the [black] performer’s subordinate place within a community. (Tulloch:2016)
Ginuwine and Skepta present their masculinity in significantly different ways which shows that popular cultures depiction and promotion of one type of masculinity has been reinterpreted to allow for a plurality of masculinities to be encountered, therefore there is room for discussion as to whether these now differing perspectives of masculinities support, reinforce or reject the status quo. (Edward: 2006)
What is clear however is that for both artists, their performance is enacted by engaging in subcultural acts and subversion through style. Through a framework of race and ethnicity both artists through their acts of concealment or revealment have made displays of masculinity a dangerous ensemble. (Tulloch:2016)
These stereotypes then come to define the character as “identities can never be isolated from or adequately understood outside the institutions of identification that work to produce them in the first place”. (Fuss:1992: 716)
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