Rock and Roll

Rock and roll, used both specifically to refer to a 1950s musical style and as a generic term for popular music since the 1950s, is an influential musical genre that first developed in the southern United States. Beginning as a fusion of African-American rhythm and blues music with Southern white country music, rock and roll quickly left the South to become a multiethnic, international musical movement with hundreds of subgenres, spin-offs, and fusions. By the end of the twentieth century, rock and roll had become one of the most recognizable and influential musical idioms ever created (Hatch, 62-78).

From its earliest incarnations to the present day, rock and roll music has functioned as a space for experimentation with portrayals of gender and sexuality. Performers habitually play with cultural norms of gender presentation, often exaggerating or transgressing conventional expectations of male and female behavior. In many forms of rock and roll, sexual displays are a major part of rock musicians' performances, used to place them within traditions and to make commentary on various social issues. Space does not permit an extensive discussion of the all manifestations of gender and sexuality in rock and roll subcultures. Instead, this entry highlights some important moments in the evolution of gender expectations, masculinity, women's participation, and sexuality in rock and roll music (Davis, 99-109).

Early Rock And Roll

Early rock and roll was remarkable for its biracial makeup, especially given the racial segregation of pre-Civil Rights southern society. Through rock and roll African-American performers gained unprecedented access to mainstream radio waves, and white audiences saw musical traditions that had been previously less visible (Aquila, 6-15). African Americans performed songs traditionally associated with rural white culture, whereas white musicians used black musical forms (and songs by black artists) in their own careers. This racial mixing, combined with rock and roll's status as a youth culture, meant that growing numbers of white youth had musical heroes who were black or, at the very least, were greatly influenced by black culture. These cross-cultural influences extended to style and mannerisms as well. Many white artists came from a Southern working-class culture that had always been closely linked with its African-American neighbors, so adopting black speech, clothing, or gestures was unsurprising. However, in the context of white, middle-class expectations of masculinity, such borrowings were often read as flamboyant, obscene, or downright criminal(Lichtenstein & Dankner, 768-775).

The complex layering of race, class, and sexuality in early rock and roll can be seen in the reception of Elvis Presley (1935-1977). Presley was dubbed the Hillbilly Cat for his mixture of lower-class white (hillbilly) and African-American (cat) music and sensibility. Besides singing songs first made popular by black musicians, Presley's persona reflected a new, hybrid masculinity. His pompadour hair and sideburns—common among working-class Southern men—looked simultaneously effeminate and threatening in mainstream contexts, whereas his hip-rolling dance movements (borrowed largely from African Americans) seemed obscene to television censors and older audiences. Despite this opposition Presley's performances were wildly popular, especially among teenage girls, for whom an Elvis ...