I hope this is not too disjointed..I am taking a very post-modern approach to this post here..so mixing copies of my own words, with academic quotes, and some rambling stuff but I will try to make it semi-clear when I am doing which! :-)
If anyone would like a pretty detailed bibliography of the literature in this area....I would be happy to supply you with that....
First...just a bit to verify or substantiate the general claim that 'Hair matters"!!
Hair is a particularly potent 'sign vehicle for a number of reasons.
…hair is a performance, one that happens at the boundary of self-expression and social identity, of creativity and conformity, and of production and consumption. Hair lends itself particularly well to self-fashioning performance because it is liminal, on the threshold, ‘betwixt and between,’ not only of nature and culture, but also of life and death…more intimate than clothing and yet more reliably prearranged than countenance, hair represents a primary means of staking a claim to social space on the occasion of first impressions (Powell & Roach, 2004 p. 83).
Grant McCracken shows the many transformational images of self that place hair in the “court of deliberation, the place where we contemplate who and what we are” (McCracken, 1996 p. 2). In Big hair: A journey into the transformation of self, McCracken suggests that while others were searching for the solution to the risky business of the needs of the individuation process and how to “exercise the liberty of self-invention and the new arts of personal transformation,” women often use their hair to “audition and annex new selves, to seek out new versatility and variety in the people we are, to make our way from rock to slippery rock in the Heraclitean stream of contemporary life” (McCracken, 1996 p. 4). Big hair is a really fascinating book for anyone interested in the semiotic meanings of hair....both this and Erving Goffman's Presentation of self are really 'readable'....and both enjoyed widespread 'popular' appeal in their day, especially Goffman. Goffman is such a hero of mine that my cat is named after him..lol...
McCracken, Grant (1996). Big hair: A journey into the transformation of self. The Overlook Press: Woodstock.New York
One of the interesting aspects of following Adam is that he unabashedly uses the techniques formerly only permissible to women, to exercise this 'liberty of self-invention' [happily, to me, this liberty is more and more available to men but they still risk the 'stigma' of femininity {which is why criticism of Adam's stylistic choices are better labeled misogyny than homophobia]}.
Rose Weitz makes this claim:
Each day, as we face the mirror and then face the world, we tell others about our occupation, gender, age, ethnicity, values, emotions, and even sexual availability. Equally important, others judge and respond to us in part based on our hair. Those responses, in turn, shape our self-identities. If others treat us as if we are beautiful, we come to think of ourselves as beautiful. If others treat us as if we are unattractive, incompetent, or unintelligent, we may come to believe those things instead. For all these reasons, controlling our hair helps us control our lives, and loss of control over our hair (through aging, illness, disability, religious commitments, imprisonment or anything else) can make us feel we've lost control over our lives (2004, xvii)
So the above is a justification about hair....and why it is such an important facet of our outward 'face'. It is one of the first things we notice about a person...it frames the face....it is easily and quickly altered....and yet it is also 'permanent' in a way that clothing is not. That is, while it is easily changed up, it is always there...we cannot just 'take it off' or not deal with it. If we do decide to 'not deal with it' as in leave it untended, that is a message also. We make identity claims regardless...whether that 'identity claim' is one of 'I don't care what I look like because appearances are superficial and I am DEEP' or 'take it or leave it...I am what I am'. When we suspect people really do not control and/or recognize their presentational claims, we often medicalize their condition as mentally challenged or ill: [for example: Asperger's syndrome [recognition-challenged]; Schizophrenia [control].
This bit is a copy, more or less, from my opening post in the thread linked under it....I would love to get into a further conversation re some of the posts in that two pages...
I would HIGHLY suggest anyone interested in this area....in the dominant theory behind self-presentation and what we so often talk of when we discuss Adam's fashion/appearance choices...read:
Goffman, Erving. (1959). The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, University of Edinburgh Social Sciences Research Centre. ISBN 978-0-14-013571-8. Anchor Books edition
When we interact with others we have no choice but to react to the impression we have of them, and they of us...there is no other basis. Physical appearance [as well as gestures, ways of speaking, etc.] has a profound effect on the impressions we make and the inferences we make of others and they, of us. In fact, vast amounts of money and time are invested in attending to one’s appearance. We know we are profoundly affected by the way we are treated and 'seen' by others.
Erving Goffman claims in The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, that it is in the individual’s best interest to control the response of others to him or her by controlling the way he or she appears to others. He named these attempts to control the way we appear “impression management.” We can have a certain level of control over others because people need to know how to act toward “us' in order to elicit favorable responses from us, in turn. One of the ways we use to control responses is through the use of 'sign vehicles' such as clothing, hair, wrinkles on the skin, vocal tone, accent, gestures. We use these to make our judgments about who and what we are dealing with. Because we cannot possibly be completely certain about every “claim” that is made by these sign-vehicles, they take on what he calls "a promissory character". That is, there is a 'promise' that the inferences given have some verifiability or truth-value of a sort. In other words, if you look like a boy, you are one. If you look like a girl, that is what you are.
Read more:
atop.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=inspired&action=display&thread=701&page=1#ixzz23MXJx2CNGoffman coined the term impression management but the term lost his non-judgmental connotation when "Impression management" theorists began to use it, and the term “self-presentation” almost always as an equivalent of “mispresentation” (contrasted with self expression, private reality, etc.) A discrepancy between how a person behaved or appeared in two separate but identical instances in all respects except for the public/private dimension became attributed to authenticity or inauthenticity. The public 'presented self' was seen as inauthentic and the private one as the 'true' or 'real' self. " Thus, unlike Goffman, impression management theorists use the terms “private” and “public” not as indicators of self- consciousness but as indicators of sincerity (private) vs. duplicity (public)" (for a discussion see Tseelon, 1991b; 1992).
Along came psychologist, Arlie Hochschild and her concept of Emotional labour. She read C.Wright Mills' claim that "When white-collar people get jobs, they sell not only their time and energy but their personalities as well. They sell by the week or month their smiles and their kindly gestures, and they must practice the prompt repression of resentment and aggression” and that resonated with her but was missing something. She was looking for a way to theorize this personality-selling as a form of labour and went to Erving Goffman's work on impression management to show that there was a conscious effort taking place. But she also applied that public/private split with an assumption of inauthenticity or duplicity.
Hochschild defined emotional labour as paid labour that requires one to either induce or suppress feelings in order to exhibit a particular proscribed 'face' in order to produce "the proper state of mind in others.” She claimed that the effort to create that 'face' often "draws on a source of self that we honor as deep and integral to our individuality.” She claims there are serious health repercussions for the worker who is forced to deny who they ‘really are’ and what ‘is really going on,’ and suggests that the emotional worker often either suffers emotional burnout from living in a constant state of emotional suppression, or feels a sense of alienation and inauthenticity.
Read more:
atop.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=inspired&action=display&thread=701&page=1#ixzz23NOfBs2EOne last theoretical concept is that of Aesthetic labour....which is founded on the same assumptions as Emotional labour, but the focus is on appearance and indicators of class distinction. The seminal, original paper on this was titled "Looking good, Sounding right"...so that gives you a good indication of what aesthetic labour is looking at. Again, these theories are theories of work and workers well being.
These concepts are very relevant to discussions of Adam and the seeming contradictions in his claims of "realness" and especially, at the moment, in the changes he is making in his appearance...which are anything but "natural."
The disconnect with what Goffman would say is that we are confusing NATURAL with REAL! Why is a clean face indicative of 'real' or 'true' or 'authentic'? I think Adam actually made a bit of a PR mistake when he made such a big issue of being more REAL with this album and in this era as so many interpreted that as wearing less make-up etc and he reinforced that notion by removing much of the make-up he was wearing and producing a video that further reinforced the paradox.
Now the theoretical questions re Emotional Labour in this case are such as How does Adam feel about having to minimize his outrageous nature? His gay snarkiness? His femininity? His frustrations with media/label decisions/fan expectations/radio fakery-politics? When he puts on his 'good face' does he see it as an inauthentic presentation that makes him feel a little false? Or does he see it as some sort of game one has to play but ...what the hey? What are the implications of the answers to these questions, on us as fans?
Goffman lets us off the hook...by recognizing that these are 'games' we all play and are the way we make society work...it is how we maintain social order. We all know you do not behave the same way at a wedding, a company party or a funeral.....so why should we expect a celebrity to behave the same in an interview as he/she does at home?
The questions we ask re Aesthetic Labour in Adam's case are those such as Did he really want to start wearing less make-up or did he feel he had to do that to further his fan reach and acceptability? If he did change up his look, was this his decision or was he highly encouraged by others? If he has been using botox, should he feel badly about that? Why should he feel that way? What is any more 'wrong' with this act and why do peeps feel so indignant at the question? [don't shoot me but I am pretty sure he has for a few months now...remember it wears off...go look at all the pics from the Elton John party...not a wrinkle to be seen] What is so 'more' right or wrong about bleaching the hair vs injecting botox? What should he answer if he is asked? Given the attitude of so much of the fandom, should he avoid/prevaricate on that question? Then how should he feel about that...as part of a game, or mild shame at being caught doing something vaguely 'wrong'?
The point I continue to try and make...and I know some of you are still going to think I am making NASTY accusations of inauthenticity...is that I believe that we all alter our ways of being and our appearance to control the impressions we make on others AND WE KNOW THIS. Dark Adam is no more authentic than blond Adam [especially as we know neither color is natural...even if that were a legitimate criterion]. No make up Adam is no more authentic than glittery Adam. Disco Adam is no more authentic than WLL Adam, or Sleepwalker or Trespassing Adam. They are all the same person....what is changing is the SITUATION.
A lot of people on this board use the term code switching...I don't really care for that term...it is very specifically used when looking at inter-cultural communication but it is applicable to Adam's ability to seemingly mirror the general demeanor of whoever he is conversing with. That is not the same thing as what we are talking of here....just sayin...
