Singing the romance: Gendered and racialized representations of love and postfeminism in popular music

Abstract

This paper uses mixed methods to examine how representations of romantic love in popular music vary along lines of gender and race. Logit analysis determines that among those with hit songs on the Billboard charts, love songs are most likely to be performed by women of color. In line with extant scholarship on postfeminist media representations, a discourse analysis of love song lyrics next establishes that women of color are portrayed as empowered through their expressions of love. Empowerment is conveyed through repudiations of infidelity and references to material wealth, and taken together, these narratives signal the persona of the strong Black lady. Against the cultural backdrop of images of jezebels and welfare queens, the postfeminist portrayal of the strong Black lady is empowering not simply because she is able to spend in a society that values consumerism, but because the persona creates distance from denigrating racial stereotypes. Yet harmful stereotypes are not erased by postfeminist representations of the strong Black lady; rather, they are incorporated as a silent reference category. I argue that, much how postfeminist modes of representation undercut gender equality through the suggestion that it has been achieved, racialized postfeminist portrayals in love songs elide considerations of racial inequality.