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COPYRIGHT 2007 Professors World Peace Academy
Music can be a powerful medium for social change when artists use their songs to promote peace. But, this study shows that women anti-war celebrities are limited in their ability to affect social change by dominant gendered discourses connected to country music in the United States. The anti-war statements by men in the genre do not suffer the same kind of backlash women receive. This difference is examined using comparative discourse analysis for the Dixie Chicks, an all-female band, and Willie Nelson, a male singer-songwriter. This comparison demonstrates how the statements of country music artists who protest war are received differently based on their gender, and reveals how country music reflects public discourse and reinforces limited ideas of peace through promoting traditional views of gender.
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Music can be a powerful form of protest and medium for social change, enabling artists to use their songs and resulting media access to promote a discourse of peace through their statements. A study of this potential is particularly relevant to peace and conflict studies since music may be "an important part of nonviolence, contributing to campaigns in myriad ways." (1) After all, music can stimulate mass emotion (2) and plays an important role in social movements. (3) Moreover, as cultural representatives, celebrities play a particularly significant role, based on the special brand of social power they possess. (4)
By engaging with unconventional topics in the peace studies field, this research illuminates the need for examining the daily discourses we take for granted, as they can significantly affect our ideas about war and prospects for peace. I do not, however, suggest that music is inherently progressive or that musicians' statements should not be studied with a critical eye. Although little attention has been paid to the impact of gender in this context, it is noteworthy that gendered societal expectations often constrain artists' ability to have their messages heard. In American country music, certain gendered discourses dominate, wherein men are expected to exhibit traits considered masculine, such as aggressiveness, reason, rationality, and protection; women should demonstrate the corresponding feminine attributes: peacefulness, caring, emotion, and vulnerability. (5) In country music, as elsewhere, 'masculine' attributes and beliefs have been privileged over those seen as 'feminine,' and, as compared to other genres, these expectations appear more binding. These gender dichotomies, as imposed by critics and the media, have impeded our ability to use all available options in seeking peace. Rather than limiting ourselves in this way, I suggest that we should consider how musicians might use their talent and platform to enhance our prospects for peace. Investigating how such views have gained and maintained credence is an important step toward illuminating and challenging the ways these dominant discourses uphold prevalent views of women as victims who need protection and likewise encourage war through a culture of militarism whose construction is dependent upon the presence of a devalued femininity. (6) This limits the strategies we can use to achieve peace--when certain ideas and concepts in national security discourse are deemed feminine and therefore devalued, they immediately become very difficult to speak, hear, or seriously consider even if someone is brave enough to speak them, and this omission "degrades our ability to think well and fully." (7)
RESEARCH QUESTIONS AND METHODOLOGY
Given this situation, we should consistently be asking ourselves questions such as why the Dixie Chicks were driven out of their field for their beliefs, what that has to do with gender, and how it impacts our prospects for peace. In order to consider this issue systematically, I use case studies of responses to anti-war statements by the Dixie Chicks, an all-woman band, and Willie Nelson, a male solo artist, both hailing from Texas and popular with mainstream country audiences prior to speaking out against the 2003 Iraq war. Using discourse analysis, I look at how both artists have been constructed through the media and how both artists' statements reflect this same gendered language. Discourse analysis focuses on language, enabling researchers to consider how talk and texts can produce meaning and allowing them to explore the means by which language can be employed to compel particular conclusions and to validate certain claims while denying others. (8) I do not try to explain why this occurs, but rather how the texts accomplish this. (9) Moreover, in this essay I consider how contextual issues in external social relations, such as gender roles, can influence power relations in different speaking positions. (10) Such analyses are worthwhile not only in providing theoretical insights, but also because discourses can have practical implications. I began this investigation of language by using Factiva news retrieval service to locate numerous American newspaper and magazine articles. To find relevant articles, I specified the search around the terms "Dixie Chicks" or "Willie Nelson" and "anti-war" or "protest," and in each case limited the search from the date the comment in question was made up through the time of writing in April 2006. After reviewing those articles, I narrowed the field to those I found to be representative of the rhetorical tactics used by prominent industry insiders, political figures, and other artists to divert the argument from the discussion of the war's morality and prospects for peace. Relevant general media examples are also included to show how such ideas were adopted by the wider media.
In the following sections, I explore the ability of women anti-war artists to use their celebrity to affect peaceful change and find that it is limited by dominant gendered discourses that appear in statements by industry insiders, political figures, and other media portrayals of the artists. Antiwar songs by men in the genre are also marginalized and predominantly absent from the radio, but their statements do not seem to lead to the same kind of personal backlash women receive. Overall, I find that a man who disagrees with the pro-war discourses that currently dominate country airwaves is romanticized as a 'rebel' or 'outlaw,' respected terms associated with several male country music legends, while a woman who speaks out is characterized as an irrational 'slut' and a 'traitor,' unfortunate opposites of the ideal country woman. The structure of this essay is as follows: First, I present a background of the Dixie Chicks' career and anti-war protest. Next, I use discourse analysis to discuss the outcomes of their position. Following that, I offer a corresponding overview and discourse analysis for Nelson's case. Finally, I conclude with an analysis of the findings from both cases.
BACKGROUND
How might this apply on the cultural level for musicians? For one thing, male artists' abilities to effectively promote peace may be hindered by the need to 'prove their manhood'...
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