Dexy's Midnight Runners were a major 80s chart band - Come on Eileen and Jackie Said being notable anthems. The BBC confused the soul legend of the latter with the obese Scottish darts player... (video)
When flamboyant singer Kevin Rowlands released a covers album with himself in lingerie on the cover, the hegemonic response; the dominant discourse was that he was having a breakdown. I remember reading and buying into that myself.*
Decades later and he's released a new video for a song from that album, Rag Doll. It's yet another example of how the industry seeks to exploit back catalogue as a major revenue source (minimal production costs even for remastered releases).
It's also a great example of queerness in music video. Don't confuse the word with the homophobic slur it was reclaimed from - QUEERING means to intentionally, playfully (can be challenging at the same time) blur established, hegemonic boundaries and identities; categories. So, Judith Butler's performativity of gender is a queer theory for example.
I imagine some of you will be squeamish at the video - it's not explicit, and has a nice pay-off at the end, as well as featuring a reflection on the massive shift in the position and acceptability of queer identify in pop culture from 1999 to today ; well worth a look.
This Grauniad article brought it to my attention. Male gaze concepts are also playfully deconstructed (deconstructionism like queer theory being a strand of postmodern theory). At least (nod to Stuart Hall!) that's MY reading! Lily Allen is an example of how a critique of one form of hegemonic power and dominant cultural discourse and representation can go wrong by blindly reflecting another...
*Of course, my skewed view was based on print magazine coverage. Yesterday saw the announcement that perhaps the last great, iconic music magazine, Q, has been killed by the pandemic blitz on media advertising revenue. For me, an absolute tragedy, albeit inevitable and predictable.
