[For this particular AmericanStudier, there’s no better way to think through another anniversary of September 11th, 2001 than to consider some of the many lessons we can learn from the best cultural work depicting that moment: Bruce Springsteen’s album The Rising (2002). So this week I’ll AmericanStudy pairs of songs from that vital work—please share your own responses, nominations for other vital 9/11 cultural works, and further thoughts for a crowd-sourced weekend post!]
On the
vital role of art about sex in challenging times.
One of the
more frustrating recent debates has been over whether
sex scenes in film and TV are necessary or outdated. Part of my
frustrations have to do with a significant historical mistake: many of those
arguing against sex scenes seem unaware that films were quite sexy until the
emergence of the industry’s restrictive
Hayes Code in the 1930s, and thus that sex scenes are far more foundational
and defining to the genre than they are modern. But even leaving those
important details aside, it’s also very frustrating to see so many folks
arguing that sex scenes in films or TV shows serve no storytelling purposes
other than to titillate or appeal to the male gaze or the like. Of course some
sex scenes might be superficial or unnecessary (or even sexist and shitty), but
the same could be said for virtually any type of scene in cultural works; of
course there are specific issues around intimacy that need to be addressed with
this particular type of scene (and are being conscientiously
addressed these days, it seems), but that’s a distinct question from
whether the scenes themselves contribute to elements like plot,
characterization, and themes.
Songs are
sex are not identical to sex scenes in visual media (although there’s
unquestionably a problematic
history of blatantly sexist music videos), but many of the same questions
could nonetheless apply. More exactly, I’d likewise make the case that songs
about sex similarly can play important cultural and social roles, well beyond
titillation or the like. And one of the songwriters who has most consistently
included sexy songs on albums where they might seem out of place but instead
contribute meaningfully to the whole is Bruce Springsteen. Take “Cover Me,” for example,
which immediately follows “Born in the U.S.A.” at the start of that
album and reflects the speaker’s desire for physical companionship (not
limited to sex, but certainly including it) amidst that challenging 1980s
world. Or “You’ve Got It,”
for another example, which comes halfway through Wrecking Ball and importantly offers sex and romantic love as ways
to counter that album’s dark
and depressing themes.
The Rising includes not one but two such songs,
a pair of sexy tracks that complement each other and collectively represent sex’s
vital role in these kinds of fraught and fragile historical moments. The couple
in “The Fuse” are
already together, and so the speaker’s repeated plea of “Come on let me do you
right” in response to a moment when the “Devil’s on the horizon line” reflects
how existing companionship can counter such darknesses. Whereas “Let’s Be Friends (Skin to
Skin)” is as its title suggests a proposition, one that makes direct (and
maybe slightly cynical, but it doesn’t feel that way to this listener at least)
use of the moment’s uncertainties (“Don’t know when this chance might come
again/Good times go a way of slippin’ away”) to make the case that the speaker
and addressee “get skin to skin.” As with all of Springsteen’s sexy songs, both
of these tracks exist not in spite of nor separate from their album and moment’s
broader contexts, but as important layers to those contexts, reminding us as so
much great art does that sex is fully part of art and world alike.
Last
RisingStudying tomorrow,
Ben
PS. What
do you think? Other 9/11 texts you’d highlight?
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