In praise of metal: gender

Metal, as I experience it, seems to contain part silly histrionics and part genuine heroism. The proportion of those parts depends on the context. I'm beginning to frame this experience in terms of gender --- as I've tried to understand why metal as a genre and subculture is so male-dominated, I've concluded that it's not because of a "club" mentality or intentional exclusion of women. (There are plenty of examples, such as Arch Enemy's Angela Gossow, of women who equal and outdo their male counterparts in both skill and presence. These women are accorded enormous respect in the community --- probably more than men, from an acknowledgment that their climb is steeper.) I'm beginning to think that the overwhelming male composition has to do with the activity/identity function that metal provides: the opportunity for a non-destructive expression of traditionally "masculine" activities and values.

In other words, the demands of the music --- technical virtuosity, group coordination, extreme stamina, harsh environment, and risk --- form a fairly complete surrogate for soldiery. Participants are afforded the opportunity to "train" both individually and in groups, then engage in a public "test" (performance) that involves some degree of courage and/or risk, where they must prove themselves to a critical audience which judges skill, innovation, and authenticity simultaneously. If they can do this well and repeatedly, they get to be "heroes" --- achievers in the most concrete sense, physically doing things which seem at least marginally super-human.

This is probably why almost all metal fans have at one time or another been in a metal band. You can't really say this about fans of other genres. This culture of participation and production-imperative is actually quite at odds with the prevailing norms of spectatorship and entertainment consumption. It's one more dimension of the outsider nature of metal and its devotees (that's a separate discussion, though).

Neo-luddites would probably call this kind of subculture a "surrogate activity" which is a result of our daily work's total abstraction from the struggle for biological survival. I don't wholly buy that explanation, but the concept works here in a gender sense. Whatever your opinion of the nature or value of gender, the opportunity for heroism that metal provides is irresistable to many males whose gendered valuation of strength, stoicism, manual skill, and stamina has been declared obsolete or pathological by a post-modern, post-feminist society.

I absolutely do not blame feminism itself for this. I blame the industrialization of killing and the broader mistakes of the 20th century for creating a backlash. In that backlash we have erroneously conflated the masculine ideal with aggression. Even the most grossly patriarchal societies have codes of honor designed to elevate masculinity and contain aggression. What I am saying is that "masculine" ideals which formerly found their expression in conflict and battle must now have other outlets, both because of the inevitable and appropriate obsolescence of honor-governed warfare and because of new ways of living. The problem is that we threw the baby out with the bathwater and disenfranchised a large segment of society -- men who usually have no problem at all with women as their full equals and superiors, but whose very personalities have been inadvertently declared toxic waste by the cultural establishment, because they happen to value traditionally masculine traits and roles in themselves.

This environment will necessarily create the context for outsider subcultures. In our society, the males who feel disenfranchised by gender erasure and least able to adapt to it are also usually the ones least able to mount an intellectual critique against it. This is not because they're stupid, it's because the academy usually finds this type of person unsuitable for intellectual training. These males turn to other outlets, which fall at various places on a continuum from destructive (violence) to valueless (frat-boy antics) to potentially constructive (endurance/survival sports, exploration, etc.). The fact that apathy and destruction are often associated with this venting is probably only a confirmation that there is an underlying feeling of wholesale rejection, or at least a sense that society will never ascribe true importance to these people or their characteristics.

All of this is to say that I think metal often gets placed in the "destructive" or "valueless" categories, because it is seen as either morally detrimental and anarchic or simply immature and crass. While that can be true, I would argue that it is equally often a highly constructive pursuit, particularly for disenfranchised men.

Its constructive nature lies in the heroism I mentioned above. Of course there are myriad examples of the merely-entertaining and the outright lowbrow in metal, just as there are in society at large. These include the silly histrionics mentioned above --- guitar solos for the sake of showing off, shocking stage shows just for stimulus' sake --- that make the genre seem artistically irrelevant. But when a confluence of artistic, intellectual, and especially technical skills and energies are poured holistically into it, metal --- arguably more than other forms of musical expression --- becomes a vehicle for the explosive and the sublime, a collective experience of enormous power. It requires a "heroic" effort and skill to make such an experience possible.

That experience goes beyond entertainment into identification and ritual, which may be the real reason that "mainstreamers" often find metal threatening, though they can't articulate a specific offense. The relationship between performer and listener is reciprocal and vital, which might also explain the imperative of authenticity, and aversion to "poseurs" and hangers-on. If the experience is exclusive, it is only exclusive of those whose personal motives are suspect --- in other words, simply those who do not have the "community's" best interests in mind, because their involvement doesn't have to do with music participation, but rather with image or money. It is almost never exclusive on the basis of identity.

Returning to the point: this experience is not for males only, nor is it about masculinity. I think the form simply attracts a disproportionate number of males because it provides a uniquely suitable outlet for otherwise unvalued "masculine" traits.

These thoughts were forcefully brought home to me while I watched Buried Inside play on Saturday and Sunday night. Their music is technically, lyrically, and emotionally complex, and their performance instantiated and affirmed those qualities. Nick's and Andrew's shouted choruses over the pounding drums and guitars had a tragic melancholy that still contained defiance. It was masculine, but not macho --- a measured sadness about important things expressed with subtlety, yet at earshattering volume. To be so vulnerable, yet so imposing and so skilled, weaving a heart-and-mind narrative in rumble, pounding, and screaming, is truly heroic. It took a very long time for this level of seriousness and complexity to emerge in the form, but here it is. Metal might simply have been growing up all this time, with all the attendant growing pains.

There may come a day when it is no longer so male-dominated, but that would require a mainstreaming of the values and priorities of a "new masculinity" --- probably still very far off, if it is possible at all. Then, either the functions and uses of the form would shift to other areas or it would simply disappear. It's hard to say.

(And to end with a conceited, discriminatory, and completely unfounded assertion: the extraverts gave birth to metal in its histrionic infancy, but the introverts have inherited it in its more heroic maturity. Thus the shedding of the sex-drugs-rocknroll archetype for the crusty, brooding dirge-writer. Natural progression from cocky Achilles to strong-silent George Washington? Ha!)