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Band musicians descriptions of women - Coggle Diagram
Band musicians descriptions of women
Attempt to control/determine female traits
'Stereotyping or categorising women makes women manageable; by understanding the stereotype, the bluesmen are able to understand all women.'
'He believes he knows their drives, traits and very nature'.
'Many blues singers were concerned with a woman's performance of duties. It is significant that the unfaithful wife/lover, gold digger and loyal servant stereotypes are all defined by their performance (or refusal to perform) specific expected duties.'
'depicted women in a manner which allowed for easy categorisation (e.g. woman as gold digger, woman as unfaithful wife/lover etc.)'
'the most well-known female image in blues music is the
unfaithful wife/lover.
'
Dussie Mae is unfaithful to Ma Rainey by kissing Levee
this also has the effect of undermining the lesbian partnership, restoring heterosexual order.
'Through this process of universalisation, blues singers as a group promoted a generalized mistrust and suspicion of all women.'
'These images represent the subversion of male control'.
Cutler: The gal, she just look at her man with that sweet dizzy look in her eye. She ain't about to stop!
'Another common female image present in blues music of the period is the
gold digger'
'The gold digger was characterised by a wanton desire for money. In her pursuit of wealth, the gold digger would utilize scheming and trickery to fool unsuspecting men.'
'Nothing was sacred to the gold digger, not even the bonds of matrimony'.
'Scheming and greed were recognized by bluesmen to be natural traits common to all women.'
'What the bluesman found so objectionable was the gold digger's lack of deference to male authority.'
Dussie Mae: A woman like me wants somebody to bring it and put it in my hand. I don't need nobody wanna get something for nothing and leave me standing in my door.
Levee: That ain't Levee's style, sugar. I got more style than that. I know how to treat a woman. Buy her presents and things ... treat her like she wants to be treated. (81)
Though Dussie Mae wouldn't be described as a gold digger, Wilson here propagates the stereotype of women being greedy and motivated by money. It also reflects economic reliance of women on men in patriarchal society (though this is complicated by the difficulty African American men had finding work.
Slow Drag: Levee tried to talk that gal and got his feelings hurt. She didn't want no part of him. She told Levee he'd have to turn his money green before he could talk with her. [...}
Slow Drag: That's why Levee run out to buy so shoes. He's looking to make an impression on that gal. (22)
'In direct contrast to the gold digger, the bluesmen created and idealized what I have chosen to call the "faithful servant"-type woman.'
'showered the man with money and gifts'
'intensely loyal, often to the point of blind obedience.'
'sought after ideal, a refuge from the real world populated by gold diggers and unfaithful wives/lovers.'
Toledo: Now, I married a woman. A good woman [...] married that woman with all the good graces and intentions of being hooked up and bound to her for the rest of my life.' (90)
His wife leaves him, challenging existence of this kind of women - are they all unfaithful?
'Violence, and the suggestion of violence, is a common element in much of the blues music of the 1920s and 1930s.'
'Violence acts perpetrated in the name of revenge, or retribution, or as a territorial struggle between men are not uncommon'
Slow Drag: one of the fellows of them gals he was messing with got fixed on him wrong and Eliza killed him. (p.45)
Cutler: This fellow come in... this gal's fellow... and pulled a knife a foot long on Slow Drag. (55)
'Violence directed toward women, however, frequently has as its purpose the assertion of male control.'
Levee: He grabbed her and she stuck a knife in him all the way up to the hilt. He ain't even fell. He just stood there and choked on his own blood
unusual: female violence against men.
normalisation of groping, sexual harassment
in doing so, her response appears extreme and irrational
Levee clearly relishes the violence, some kind of turn on?
'One area [...] in which women are recognised as having total control - stimulating male sexual desire.'
'all accept it as the natural power of women.'
'essentially a passive trait. A woman does not have to consciously attempt to elicit a response from a man. All that is necessary is her mere presence.'
Dussie Mae: How's you get so crazy? Levee: It's women like you... drives me that way. (
He moves to kiss her as the lights go down in the band room
) (p.82)
Toledo: I done been around and I done loved women to where you shake in your shoes just at the sight of them. Feel it all up and down your spine. (90).
objectification/ Petrarchan disembodiment
Toledo: 'you just wanna be sitting in the same room with her when she cross them big, fine, pretty legs she got.' (29)
Slow Drag: We done laughed together, fought together, slept in the same bed together, done sucked on the same titty... and now you don't want to give me no reefer'.
[...] Cutler: What I want to know is... what's the same titty we done sucked on. That's what I want to know.
Slow Drag: Oh, I just threw that in there to make it sound good. (
They all laugh
) (31-33)
Levee: What is you doing to make it better? You playing the music and looking for your next piece of pussy same as we is. (42)
Cutler: Slow Drag don't need you to find him no pussy. (54)
Slow Drag: Boy that mama was hot! The front of her dress was wet as a dishrag! (55)
Levee: Good God! Happy birthday to the lady with the cakes! (84)
'Bluesmen generally considered male infidelity to be a relatively natural occurence.'
Slow Drag: Just had him a string of women he run around with and throw his money away on. (p.44)
Respect for mothers
(exposing abuse towards them)
indicate infusion of Wilson's attitude towards women?
Levee: I was eight years old when I watched a gang of white mens come into my daddy's house and have to do with my mama any way they wanted. (68)
Next scene is Levee with Dussie Mae (contrasting treatment of women)
Heteronormativity
Part of patriarchal system as ensures that women are reliant on men, can't exist independently. It also works that male control is only achieved relationally to the women.
Toledo: I done been young. Married. Got kids. (90)
Dussie Mae & Levee's kiss