The Men Behind the Corpse Paint

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The Men Behind the Corpse Paint

Masculinity and Abject Hegemony in Norwegian Black Metal

Lotte Dolstra s2052776

Master Thesis Arts, Culture and Media. Specialisation: Popular Music. Analysis and Criticism.

Mentors: dr. K.A. McGee and dr. P.J.D. Gielen Zwolle, 20 June 2014

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Verklaring Masterscriptie Faculteit der Letteren, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen

Naam student: Lotte Dolstra

Studentnummer: s2052776

Masteropleiding – programma: Kunsten, Cultuur & Media. Popmuziek. Analyse & Kritiek

Titel scriptie: The Men behind the Corpse Paint.

Masculinity and Abject Hegemony in Norwegian Black metal.

Naam scriptiebegeleider: Dr. K.A. McGee & Dr. P.J.D. Gielen

Hierbij verklaar ik ondubbelzinnig dat de door mij ingeleverde scriptie gebaseerd is op eigen werk en de vrucht is van een onafhankelijk wetenschappelijk onderzoek. Ik verklaar dat ik geen gebruik heb gemaakt van ideeën en formuleringen van anderen zonder bronvermelding; dat ik geen vertalingen of parafraseringen van tekstgedeelten van anderen als onderdeel van mijn eigen betoog heb ingezet; dat ik de tekst van deze scriptie of een vergelijkbare tekst niet heb ingediend voor opdrachten van andere opleidingsonderdelen.

Datum: 20 juni 2014 Plaats: Zwolle

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Norwegian black metal’s lack of female musicians exceeds that of all other metal genres. In this thesis, I explore the gender constructions of the black metal. The Norwegian black metal scene provides its members an escape from the regime of goodness and a place to experience a fantasy of male bonding and transgression. Appropriating Julia Kristeva’s concept of the abject and Claire Sisco King’s notion of abject hegemony, I analyse both music of and discourse

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1. INTRODUCTION

1.1 Norwegian Black Metal: A Blaze in the Northern Sky

There has yet to be a popular music phenomenon that takes the concept of rock rebellion further than the Norwegian black metal scene. Emerging in early nineties, bands such as Mayhem shook up the music field with a new style of extreme metal that befit their name perfectly, and shows that featured blood, on-stage self harm and impaled pigs heads. Within the scope of half a decade the scene evolved into any sensational tabloid’s dream, beginning in 1991 with Mayhem’s vocalist Per “Dead” Ohlin shooting himself through the head with a shotgun and the remaining band members allegedly eating parts of his brain and making necklaces out of pieces of his skull. The following year marked the starting point of a series of arsons of Norway’s famous wooden stave churches by the hands of members of that same black metal scene. Additional claims of grave desecration by this new “Satanic Metal

Underground” (Moynihan and Søderlind) would have been enough to prove Norwegian black metal as the most extreme of all metal. Still, within the scene, the battle to decide who was the best bad boy in class was yet to be fought. In 1993, this problem was solved when Burzum’s only member Varg Vikernes stabbed Mayhem guitarist Øystein “Euronymous” Aarseth to death, earning him the title of the Count of black metal and Norway’s maximum of twenty-one years in prison.

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are unique to metal. Moreover, black metal sets itself apart both sonically and visually. The raw lo-fi recording style, orchestral sound, shrieking vocals, and blast beat drums, combined with the guitar’s diminishing role make black metal into one of the heaviest and specialised subgenres of extreme metal (Hagen, 2011). Visually, black metal adds to this performance of heaviness with its corpse paint (a style of face make-up that resembles a corpse or demon) and black dress with leather details and metal spikes.

Even though black metal has been researched extensively within the academic field, these works rarely go beyond mere descriptions of these characteristics. Moreover, the research that does delve deeper by analysing the meaning of the black metal scene lacks critical engagement with the moral panic surrounding the scene. As a result, aspects such as satanic and heathen influences in the black metal scene have been analysed, whereas there is barely any analysis of the values and meaning within the scene itself. In my thesis, I will look beyond this outer shell of appearances and moral panic to show how black metal’s musical and discursive

characteristics signify strategies of reinforcing gender ideologies.

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help a more nuanced understanding of the values, ideologies and surrounding reception of scene at whole.

My research is based on the presupposition that a key factor in the way meaning is constructed within the black metal scene is based on the performance of a specific masculine identity and that this identity is intrinsically connected to the scene’s emphasis on evil, destruction and war. By analysing and interpreting the construction of masculine identity through such themes of darkness and violence I aim to find an explanation for the absence of women from the scene.

1.2 Theoretical approach

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behaviour, worshipping of evil, etc. At the same time, the woman is, through her body, also intrinsically connected to abjection, as the womb is the place in which the child and mother are still one. In life, the man has to construct his own identity by rejecting the undefined, abject state that the mother represents.

To link this concept to the construction of masculinity in black metal, I need to turn to Judith Butler. Butler argues that gender is performative, that the idea of masculinity is not based on a true material fact but on culturally imposed norms. That what disrupts those norms is abject (Butler 1993). Rock music, especially metal music, has always been a way of expressing, constructing and experiencing concepts of masculinity (Reynolds and Press 1995). Moreover, Norma Coates (1997) explains that the “performance of masculinity in and by rock has served important cultural and ideological purposes, especially given the time of rock’s emergence from US ‘race’ music in the 1950s” (57). In a similar fashion, the cultural and ideological purposes served by the construction of masculinity in Norwegian black metal are connected to the socio-cultural and historical context in which the scene emerged. This entails analysing both black metal’s musicological and sociological environment in order to understand the purpose and reason a performance of gender identity that is based on abjection has for members of the scene.

1.3 Defining Black Metal

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concept, and how they have situated Norwegian black metal within the larger field of global metal. This begins by clarifying the notion of “scene”. By using the term scene instead of the older term “subculture” I am following Kahn Harris’s (2007) argumentation for defining extreme metal, of which Norwegian black metal is a subcategory, as a scene. Not only do black metal artists and fans mostly use the term “scene” themselves, but theoretically the concept best suits the subject too. Subcultures, as defined most famously by the Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies in Resistance Through Rituals (1976), consist usually of working class youths that resist against their socio-economic situation through a specific style of

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Metal music is often described as one of the most globalised forms of popular music (e.g. Walser, 1993; Weinstein, 2000; Kahn-Harris, 2007; Christe, 2003). Even though metal clearly originated in England and the United States, it has spread quickly all over the world with a steady fan base in almost every country. Since there are no extreme differences between metal tastes of fans from completely different cultural backgrounds – Scandinavian doom metal is just as popular in the United States and Dutch female fronted metal is immensely popular in South America as well – it is understandable that this emphasis on the globalised aspect of metal is so prevalent. The danger however lies in overlooking specific local characteristics of metal scenes. Even though these differences may be subtle compared to the local variation in other forms of popular music, and even though a uniquely local scene may only be temporal because of the strong globalising tendencies of metal music, these local differences remain significant in

understanding metal and its many subgenres. This is why Wallach et al. argue in Metal Rules the Globe, a collection of essays of metal phenomena from all over the world, for a nuanced

understanding of both global and local influences on metal genres.

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article “Sons of Northern Darkness”, for example, Kennett Granholm exclusively treats the specifically Nordic characteristics of black metal, i.e. its emphasis on Nordic mythologies and pre-Christian religion. Because of this, Granholm sees a close relationship between black metal and folk metal, as both genres often feature similar mythical subject material. Even though Nordic heathenism is an important part of the black metal identity, as I will explain further in the following chapters, it plays an entirely different role there than in folk metal. In black metal, the myths of Odin help construct a masculine identity that is shaped by the glory of war,

whereas in folk metal the myths support a felt connection with the local tales as told for

generations. Because Granholm lacks an understanding of how both genres are situated within the larger field of metal music, he is not able to go beyond a mere observation of the

similarities between the two genres.

In his article “Blacker than Death”, Ian Reyes argues for the opposite by understanding black metal solely as a global phenomenon. Reyes critiques scholars and popular media that

emphasise the local characteristics of black metal, such as the church arsons and Nordic pagan subject matter. He writes:

"While the spectacle of purportedly Satanic crime undoubtedly propelled black metal into public consciousness, those events were overdetermined by material and cultural circumstances specific to the extreme metal subculture of the time" (241).

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opting a particular lo-fi recording style. Again, even though this characteristic of black metal is quite significant indeed, Reyes’s restricted view of defining black metal solely as an aesthetic response to death metal renders the local Norwegian facets of black metal meaningless. As I will argue in this thesis, however, these socio-cultural factors are equally important parts of the meaning and values of black metal.

Keith Kahn Harris similarly disregards the local facets of black metal in his 2000 article “‘Roots’? The Relationship between the Global and the Local in the Extreme Metal Scene”. In this article Kahn Harris regards death, thrash and black metal as belonging to one over-arching extreme metal scene. Since, especially from an Anglo-Saxon point of view, death and thrash metal are much more prominent and well known genres than black metal is outside of Scandinavia, any point related to black metal will seem meaningless in this approach. That is why Kahn Harris is able to make statements that from the perspective of black metal are simply false. For example the statement that “Heavy Metal in the 1980s was defined by and to some extent defined itself in relation to, various ‘moral panics’ surrounding it, particularly in the United States (Walser 1993), the Extreme Metal scene appears to have had a kind of ‘insulation’ from these sorts of processes” (15-16) simply ignores the years of moral panic and media frenzy surrounding the arsons, fear of satanic cults, and all the public attention for Varg Vikernes trial (Grude;

Moynihan and Søderlind). In this case, the result of a lack of understanding of interplay of local and global influences on black metal restricts the author from more in depth research, and even results in misleading statements.

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gender-based perspective, hoping that this perspective will open up new research possibilities, so that black metal can eventually get the academic attention it deserves. It is my belief that to find refreshing and exceptional reflections on a culture and its values, you should look at the fringes of cultural expressions, at the unconventional and extreme arts. Norwegian black metal certainly fits this description.

In this thesis I treat black metal primarily as a local reaction to global developments and phenomena. Surely, black metal is a subgenre of extreme metal that originated and was developed in Norway (and Sweden) as a reaction against the commercialisation and

globalisation of death metal (Reyes). Since most metal genres, even later genres such as nu-metal, come from the United States and United Kingdom, this fact needs clarification.

Arguably, black metal developed in Norway because of its specific socio-cultural and historical context. The discovery of oil caused the rapid economical growth Norway experienced in the second part of the twentieth century and initiated massive cultural changes in the nation. After being overshadowed by its neighbouring countries for centuries, suddenly, Norwegians were forced to deal with being the most prosperous nation in Scandinavia. Witoszek explains that because

“[t]he Norwegians are morally acceptable nouveaux riches because they have been spared from being aggressive, opportunist, ruthless, greedy , or unscrupulous; wealth just “happened to them” in the form of a well-timed discovery of oil” (12).

Now, Norway has taken on the unique double role of “Eldorado and an aspiring moral

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women’s emancipation worldwide. The result of this was a rediscovered sense of nationalism (Licht op het Noorden). This social context, especially the newfound nationalism explains the development of a new, more local extreme metal scene that criticises the hegemony

Americanised death metal scene in the early 1990s.

Moreover, Norway’s regime of goodness explains the need for a site to explore the dark side of humanity. The regime of goodness is a social ideal that has developed in Norway over many generations. In this regime people are expected to be good from a very early age. They are conditioned for the positive, constructive and ethically correct behaviour. This means that anything destructive, evil and violent is considered a threat to society and is dismissed or forbidden (Licht op het Noorden). In this line of thought, violence on Norwegian television has long been censored and many foreign horror films were banned (Moynihan and Søderlind, 41). Also, young people that experience negative and destructive feelings have nowhere to turn to express and discuss their thoughts (Licht op het Noorden). Black metal gave Norwegian youth a medium to express and explore their own darkness (Moynihan and Søderlind, 42).

1.4 Method

In the next chapter I will provide the theoretical framework needed to answer my research question. Here, I will develop my definition of abjection by discussing the definitions and

appropriations of Kristeva, Creed, King, Reynolds and Press and others. I will discuss the ways in which the abject can be featured in art. I will also explain the ways in which abjection is

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2. ART, GENDER AND ABJECTION

As stated in the introduction, I follow Judith Butler’s statement that gender is performative. Researching male and female identity in black metal, therefore, means analysing the

performance of masculinity in the scene. To understand the dominance of men in the black metal scene, I must look specifically at how the performance of a gender identity relates to normative behaviour. This leads me to Julia Kristeva and the concept of the abject.

2.1 Theorising the Abject

It is impossible to write about the abject without starting with Julia Kristeva and her Powers of Horror. In this groundbreaking work for the field of gender studies, Kristeva provides an extensive explanation of the concept of abjection. Later, this sometimes complex work has led to many different interpretations and applications. Therefore, I will start this chapter by

providing my interpretation of Kristeva’s concept of the abject and abjection, before looking at how the academic field has dealt with this.

The atmospheric words used by Kristeva in Powers of Horror to describe the abject perfectly suit the somewhat indefinable nature of this concept, as exemplified in the first sentences of the book:

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Kristeva starts by explaining how the abject is not an object, but not subject either. The abject is that which I, as subject, am not. In this way it is just like the object: “I am me, because I am not that”. An object, however, is part of the same semiotic structure in which it is defined as an object, and in which I am a subject. What distinguishes the object from the abject, is that the abject does not adhere to the rules of semiotics. Subjects and objects are part of the basic stage of human consciousness in which we define things, distinguish borders between I and you; this and that; and, consequently, good and bad. The abject, however, does not play by these rules: “It lies outside, beyond the set, and does not seem to agree to the latter’s rules of the game” (Kristeva, 2). The abject is the undefined place in which there is no meaning.

For example: when playing a board game, I and my fellow players agree to certain rules. Within the game, these rules are reality. A certain number thrown with the dice have significance, and the lines and drawings on the board are borders that cannot be crossed. The realm of the abject is the meta-level in which these in-game rules are meaningless. Because of this, the abject is a threat to the subject, because the abject shows that the distinctions that give it meaning are just constructs, it shows that it is just a game.

As a threat, the abject needs to be banished. As we have seen, this happens already on a very basic – in gender study terms – pre-oedipal level. Indeed, from the moment we are born we start learning the rules of the game called “consciousness”: We learn that I am I and you are you. The abject makes all of this meaningless. As Kristeva puts it:

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breaking away, with the constant risk of falling back under the sway of a power as securing as it is stifling” (13).

Since this is happening at such a basic level of our consciousness, we give a very basic response when confronted with the abject, namely disgust. At the same time, however, the abject draws us back to the undefined space of the womb. This makes the abject both threatening and seducing. This connotation to the womb also brings us to the first gendered interpretation of the abject, as it is connected to the mother. Expelling the abject here means a child’s (i.e. a young boy’s) breaking away from the mother. Lastly, since death is the moment in which all the meaning and consciousness of life collapses, “[i]t is no longer I who expel, “I” is expelled”, it is the summit of abjection (3,4). And since death is inevitable, the abject is always also a part of us.

Because the abject is part of us, it can never be banished permanently (2). Instead, rituals of identifying the abject and then expelling it have to be learned, perfected and repeated over and over again in order to maintain a sense of being a full and contained subject and to protect a clean and proper society. As Kristeva writes:

“An unshakable adherence to Prohibition and Law is necessary if that perverse interspace of abjection is to be hemmed in and thrust aside. Religion, Morality, Law. Obviously always arbitrary, more or less; unfailingly oppressive, rather more than less; laboriously prevailing, more and more so” (16).

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what happens to naughty children, or the weekly Christian ritual of reaffirming moral

wholeness by rejecting sin. These rituals help us keep believing in the rules of the game; they are essential to our sense of identity. After all: if the rules of the game do not matter, then why are we playing it?

This shows that the abject is not something filthy or “lack of cleanliness or health” per se, as popular use of the word suggests (4). Abjection is caused by that which “disturbs identity, system, order”, that threatens my concept of me as a clean and proper, stable subject (4). That is why bodily fluids – tears, pus, piss – and excrement are classic examples of the abject:

because they “collapse (...) the border between inside and outside” and threaten my identity as a solid and contained subject, they need to be expelled and controlled (53).

When it comes to gender, Kristeva states that “[t]he abjection of those flows from within suddenly become the sole “object” of sexual desire—a true “ab-ject” where man, frightened, crosses over the horrors of maternal bowels” (53). Because of the bodily fluids (menstrual blood, vaginal secretion) the female body is traditionally seen as a place of abjection from a male dominant point of view.

On a cultural level, the abject undermines the structure of meaning and truths on which that culture is founded. In that respect, criminals are examples of the abject (4). Similarly, threats to the ideological foundations of a culture, such as immigrants, coloured people and, indeed, women can be seen as abject in a white male-dominated society.

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How abjection is structured differs from religion to religion. It “persists as exclusion or taboo (...) in monotheistic religions. (...) It finally encounters, with Christian sin, a dialectic

elaboration, as it becomes integrated in the Christian Word as a threatening otherness” (17). Of course, there is a classic gendered aspect to the religious side of abjection as well, as Christian mythology and culture traditionally links the “weaker sex” to the abject: it is Eve that was seduced by the snake, and the worst “treat” to medieval society were the witches, mostly young women seduced by Satan.

According to Kristeva, the artistic experience will always survive the collapse of a religion, because the its cathartic or purifying characteristic make it “appear[...] as the essential

component of religiosity” (17). That is why in contemporary secular society, the arts have taken over religion’s role of defining and dealing with the abject.

2.2 From Autonomous Music to Abject Film

This interpretation of Kristeva’s notion of the abject leads me to a number of presuppositions on which my research is founded. Firstly, I explained that as religion is becoming less influential in people’s lives, the arts have become more important as a site of dealing with abjection. This means that in the arts the basic premises of meaning, culture, ethics and ideology are worked out.

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music’s ability to express anything outside itself is not accepted as naturally as it is in, for example, literature.

Indeed, as Susan McClary points out in Feminine Endings, whereas feminist analyses have flourished in the other art disciplines since the 1970s, feminist music criticism has taken much longer to develop, because the academic world has been wary to attribute gendered or culturally constructed meaning to music (McClary, 5). The effects of this can be clearly sensed; whereas the fields of literature, film etc. have strongly developed methods of analysis and feminist criticism, music studies lacks this legacy of decades of cultural-critical inquiry.

Even though today the work of Bayton, Whitely, Cohen, and many others show that gender studies in the field of music have developed greatly I still find it difficult to apply the methods and results of their particular studies to my research. For example, in “Women and the Electric Guitar” Mavis Bayton questions why there are so few female guitarists. She argues that guitars are part of the culturally accepted “masculinist discourse of rock” that tells women that it is not ladylike to play guitar (43). Bayton argues that this is because certain elements of playing guitar, such as its technological aspects or the physical aspects of playing, are not associated with femininity in our culture.

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accepted discourse. This, however, does not explain the absence of female black metal

musicians, while in other metal genres female musicians were becoming increasingly common.

So to analyse constructs of gender related abjection in black metal, it can be problematic to base my method solely on what the discipline of music studies provides. On top of that, apart from Reynolds and Press’s “Flirting with the Void”, the concept of abjection has not been examined as thoroughly with regards to music as with other disciplines. In the field of

audiovisual culture, however, Kristeva’s concept of abjection has proven to be a fertile source for gender related research. These studies will help me develop a similarly nuanced and grounded theoretical and methodological foundation for the analysis of music, as I will demonstrate in this thesis with Norwegian black metal.

Barbara Creed’s The Monstrous-Feminine has been groundbreaking in applying the notion of the abject to film. In this book, Creed analyses well known horror films and recognises in the female monsters in these films different constructions of the abject female body (3). Creed calls this construction of the abject in female monsters the monstrous-feminine, in order to signify its difference from male monsters. She states:

“As with all other stereotypes of the feminine, from virgin to whore, she is defined in terms of her sexuality. The phrase ‘monstrous-feminine’ emphasizes the importance of gender in the construction of her monstrosity” (Creed, 3).

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distinguishing these forms of the ‘monstrous-feminine’ in popular horror films, she is able to show how art can be a place in which issues of abjection are dealt with, as she states:

“This, I would argue, is also the central ideological project of the popular horror film –

purification of the abject through a ‘descent into the foundations of the symbolic construct’. The horror film attempts to bring about a confrontation with the abject (the corpse, bodily wastes, the monstrous-feminine) in order finally to eject the abject and redraw the boundaries between the human and non-human. As a form of modern defilement rite, the horror film attempts to separate out the symbolic order from all that threatens its stability, particularly the mother and all that her universe signifies” (Creed, 14).

Creed thus clearly sees these films as ‘rituals’ to reaffirm the existing ideological structure, by confronting their audiences with the horrifying threat of woman – i.e. the womb – so that the abject can be excluded and the subject can again be certain of a clean, proper self (14).

As many film critics have applied this model to other films (Betterton, England, etc.) Creed’s appropriation of the concept of abjection in order to identify gendered ideologies in horror films has proven very helpful in showing how such an analysis can be constructed. Still, Creed’s interpretation of how art has filled up the gap left by religion to provide rituals of identifying and expelling the abject is too restricted in my view.

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what is considered ‘normal’. In Creed’s interpretation, however, art is only able to reaffirm the usual lines between me and what has to be rejected in order to maintain this state.

2.3 Rethinking Masculinity: Abject Hegemony

What can be concluded from the preceding part is that however interesting abjection is as a framework to analyse gender constructs in cultural expressions, in its practical appropriation the use of the concept is often too rigidly theorised. When exposed, the presupposition that art merely serves as a ritualistic tool to purge the stable and proper male body and male

dominated society of its dirty, feminine Other immediately reeks of exaggerated determinism.

Following this line of thought, Claire Sisco King attempts to broaden the idea of abjection in order to deconstruct the hegemonic ideological formations presented in the film Fight Club (1999). In the article, King argues that masculinity itself is an abject hegemonic ideological construct, and that Fight Club’s revelling in abjection is an example of the tempting quality of the abject.

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“Compelled to eclipse the distance between hegemonic-self and Other, Gramsci advises, hegemony must allow for and incorporate not only that which appears subservient to its laws but also (and in particular) that which appears subversive” (King, 367-368).

This means that, paradoxically, incorporating that which opposes hegemony is necessary for its survival, while at the same time, this mechanism threatens to destroy it. Just like the Bakhtinian carnival is a perversion of the morals and social values that serves to enforce the original

formation, that which shatters hegemonic ideology can at the same time be used to strengthen it. But whereas the carnivalesque is restricted to a “historically specific ritualized practice”, hegemony continuously needs to incorporate that which contradicts and undermines it (King, 368).

Just like the abject body, hegemony is always necessarily changing, contradicting and unstable. Where the abject body’s grotesque form threatens to reveal the hidden undefined, liquid and animalistic sides of the human body, “abject hegemony” unveils masculinity’s reliance on the unstable process of incorporating and negotiation of the Other.

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To accept white masculinity as an abject construct, King argues, not only reveals the unstable and contradicting character of hegemonic ideologies, but also explains why it is that it

continues to fascinate and attract. As Kristeva states, the abject is fascinating because it goes beyond our semiotic structures and moral boundaries. Finally, the most important reason of deconstructing white masculinity as an abject ideological formation, is that by revealing the processes on which white masculinity depends, it shows that white masculinity is not closed and unchanging at all, thus undermining the effect of these processes. Indeed, naming white masculinity abject might serve to undermine its hegemonic power.

King’s interpretation of abjection underscores my previous statement claiming that art, taking over the role of religion, not only serves as a ritual to name and expel the abject, but is also able to critique, reverse and relish the abject. Moreover, whereas other authors might depict

abjection as often restricted to the female body, this article treats white male hegemony as an abject formation itself. It is with this perspective that I wish to reconsider some of the literature on the abject in music and black metal in particular.

2.4 Flirting with the Void: Abject Rock and Transgressive Metal

When researching rock and gender, one will inevitably come across Simon Reynolds and Joy Press’s The Sex Revolts. In this book, the authors look at how gender is constructed in rock music. Their argument is based on the statement that rock rebellion is shaped by its

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In the chapter “Flirting with the void: abjection in rock” the authors analyse examples of rock music that are seduced by the abject. Their definition of the abject, however, is restricted to “viscous fluids (...) that blur the border between me and not-me, inside and out” (Reynolds and Press, 85). It is strictly that which undermines subjectivity by returning to the undefined state of the womb. Accordingly, Reynolds and Press discern a Dionysian tradition in rock, which is characterised by flirting with the destructive formlessness of the abject. As female bodies are sites of abjection, Dionysian rock music expresses the desire to succumb to the lethal flood of feminine seduction. Here, the white masculine ego merely flirts with the threatening Other – the abject female body – but never truly lets it in.

This shallow conception of abject in rock is the result of Reynolds and Press’s narrow

understanding of the abject and of gender in general. Firstly, the authors present masculinity as a constant and stable category. As rock music is a way to reaffirm, explore or shape gender identity, young men can use rock to experience and strengthen their masculine identity by rebelling against the threat of the female Other. Dionysian rock music allows men to safely play on the edge of destruction, by experimenting with the seductive undefined state of the womb.

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before – distinguishing and eventually rejecting that which reminds of the ‘maternal horror’ as abject.

Instead of expelling it, Dionysian rock relishes abjection. Doing so, it reveals its dependence on Others and hidden processes of absorption, adjusting and change. Abject rock is fascinating, even for hordes of female groupies, whose identity is repressed by rock’s hegemonic ideology, because it is grotesque and impossible. Analysing abject rock not only reveals white masculinity as always constructed and contradicting, it also undermines those processes that maintain the facade of a stable masculine identity and allows us to rethink gender in general.

In other words, abject rock is rock that transgresses and loves it. And what type of rock is more transgressive than black metal music? Indeed, metal music has always been a celebration of white masculine domination (Walser, 108). Moreover, when defining extreme metal Keith Kahn-Harris states that transgression is that which makes extreme metal extreme (Kahn-Harris 2007, 30). His interpretation of the abject, however, is also restricted to the undefined state of the womb. Transgressive music, therefore, can only flirt with this state, if not to risk destroying masculine subjectivity. Following this perspective, Kahn-Harris needs to create a safe zone of control that coexists with the chaos of transgression. That is why he looks at how extreme metal transgresses, only to immediately explain how this is done in a very controlled way, for example when stating that the seemingly chaotic sound of extreme metal is actually made up out of “carefully made sonic choices and even virtuosity” (31).

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need to shield masculinity from the threat of the abject, because it itself is an abject construct. In this thesis, on the other hand I will uncover the contradicting, unstable character of

masculinity hegemony by analysing the many ways in which Norwegian black metal collapses structures of identity and meaning.

I will argue that whereas both male and female fans can be fascinated by the grotesque, indefinable and impossible nature of the abject in black metal, producing black metal is an exclusively white male process of male bonding. In Norway’s emancipated regime of goodness, black metal provides young men with a means to experience the forbidden joys and satisfy the tabooed needs of rage, evil, transgression, lust for war and death and being like the men from the Edda.

The socio-historical context from which Norwegian black metal emerged is not at all like the ones in which extreme metal scenes arose. Also, even though all extreme metal scenes share a love for transgression, the way this transgression is constructed and valued differs from scene to scene. So even though Kahn-Harris gathers all extreme metal under that same umbrella term, I will only treat Norwegian black metal in this thesis.

In the following study of abject masculine hegemony in the Norwegian black metal scene, I will follow King’s example by analysing how masculinity is constructed in black metal. First, the discursive characteristics of the scene and, secondly, the musical characteristics will be explored. I will argue that the characteristics that provide black metal with its “masculine” identity at the same time reveal black metal’s attraction to abjection. Black metal’s

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3. ABJECT MASCULINITY IN NORWEGIAN BLACK METAL: CASE STUDY

3.1 Introduction

In the previous chapter I have explained Kristeva’s notion of the abject as that which threatens the construct of a whole and stable ego. As a threat, it needs to be excluded in order to

maintain a clean and proper body or morally and ideologically just society. At the same time, however, the abject fascinates us and is always a part of us as it reminds us of the undefined state of the womb and promises us of the undefined state of death. Examples of the abject are bodily fluids, excrement, the corpse, and, importantly, the female body. Since the abject can never be fully separated from ourselves, the rituals used to define and reject the abject constantly have to be repeated.

Continuing, I stated that whereas religion had provided the rituals for dealing with abjection in the past, this role has gradually been taken over by the arts in the last decades. Whereas religion merely reproduces existing construction of what is abject, the arts allow different ways of engaging with abjection, by reaffirming, criticising, exposing, reversing, etc. This possibility is often overlooked by academics.

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In this chapter, I aim to clarify how masculinity is constructed in the Norwegian black metal scene. I will use the case studies of the early 1990s work of the bands Burzum and Mayhem. However tricky it is to reduce an entire music scene to one or two representatives, Burzum and Mayhem’s importance and influence on the Norwegian black metal scene make their selection obvious. Whenever necessary, I will also make more general claims about the scene.

King argues that “while signals of the abject within hegemonic masculinity may disturb its claims of coherence and wholeness, disruption (…) within masculinity’s dominant fictions allow it to open up, make room, absorb and, thus, ensure continued hegemony” (373-374). In her analysis of Fight Club she reveals abject hegemony at work. In a similar fashion I will uncover Norwegian black metal’s dependence on the abject. I will do this by arguing how both in the formal structure of the music as in the discursive aspects of black metal apparently exclusive binary oppositions collapse, such as masculine and feminine; control and chaos; speed and stasis; self and Other; freedom and restraint; evil and good; perpetrator and victim; life and death.

3.2 Mayhem and Burzum: The Lords of Chaos

Mayhem are often considered the founders of the Norwegian black metal scene. They released seven studio albums between 1987 and 2014, of which their second album – De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas from 1994 – is commonly regarded the most influential black metal album. Starting as a raw death metal band in 1984 in Oslo, through the guidance of guitarist Øystein

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and style. They were also the band that first started popularising leather clothing with metal spikes and corpse paint to a scene that until then was dominated by the American death metal style of jogging suits and baseball caps (Moynihan and Søderlind, 36).

In late 1980s and early 1990s, the black metal scene slowly started to form around the band Mayhem. Aarseth’s extreme metal record store “Helvete” (Hell) was the centre of this new underground scene, and he and his friends formed the “Black Circle”, the inner core of the scene (73).

Mayhem are not only known for their musical and stylistic contribution to black metal, but also for their involvement with crimes, such as the burning of churches. Moreover, when Mayhem Vocalist Per Yngve Ohlin – aka “Dead” – committed suicide in 1991, the remaining band

members ate part of his brain and sold pieces of his skull as souvenirs. Finally, Mayhem’s tragic fame was complete when in 1993, Aarseth was stabbed to death by Burzum’s Varg Vikerness.

Unhappy with the lack of ambition of his former band Old Funeral, Varg Vikernes had turned to his one man project Burzum in 1991. In this time, Burzum was part of a wave of new Norwegian black metal bands emerging around Aarseth and Helvete. Burzum produced twelve releases between 1992 and 2014, ranging from the raw black metal of the early albums to later releases featuring dark ambient electronic music.

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ideologies and became an active writer on neo-Nazi heathen beliefs. In 2009, after serving Norway’s maximum sixteen year sentence, Vikernes was released from prison (Micheals).

Mayhem and Burzum have been two of the most powerful forces shaping Norwegian black metal’s sound, image and reception. Consequently, the following case study of transgression in Norwegian black metal will focus mainly on these two bands. Next to interviews, performances and media coverage, I will examine the albums De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas from 1994 by Mayhem, and Burzum’s Burzum from 1992 and Hvis lyset tar oss from 1994.

3.3 Abject bodies and identities

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Personally, I would translate the title “Snu Mikrokosmos Tegn” as “Return the symbols of the Microcosm”. The choice of the Norwegian language already points towards a strong affiliation with that language and culture. The microcosm here is the Nordic people that, as part of the larger secularised world, has lost its ancient mythical symbols of wolfs, bears, trolls and demons that belonged to the age of heroic battles. According to Burzum, a forest without that threat of danger is dead.

Reynolds and Press describe black metal’s glorification of war as a performance of a hygienic militaristic masculinity (102-3). I would argue, however, that, especially in the battle frenzy of black metal, war also means dirt, blood, defeat and death. This side is especially important in black metal, as can be seen in songs like “War” from Burzum’s album Burzum.

Snu Mikrokosmos Tegn

Ingen stillhet her ute - en drøm Her hvor månen rår - en drøm Jeg hater denne skog

Hvor ingen fare truer Ingen ulv

Ingen bjørn Intet troll Puster

Ingen onde ånder Ingenting

Puster

Bare meg og natten - bare meg og natten En natt skal jag reise

Til Helvete

Turn The Sign Of Microcosm (English translation from Burzum.org)

No stillness out here - a dream Here where the moon rules - a dream I hate this wood

Where there is no danger No wolf No bear No troll Breathes No evil spirits Nothing Breathes

Only night and me - only night and me A night I shall journey

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The opening phrase “This is War” immediately states that what follows is the reality of war. There is no glorious victory, but helplessness, cold and death. Instead of the rock and roll rebel that breaks free from all maternal shackles, these warriors cry out for their mothers; and even they are dead. But despite the reality that “this is war”, “we must never give up war”.

War is a conglomerate of abject elements presented as clean masculinity. War is not a clean man machine devoid of abject filth and femininity; war is abjection. In black metal, war, i.e. abjection, is glorified and even eroticised. Reynolds and Press compare this to the eroticisation of war in Klaus Theweleit’s Male Fantasies, that features writing by the Freikorp soldiers (109). Wargasm is the ejaculation-like release of built up emotional and sexual tension by

annihilating one’s enemy, that in black metal is replaced by the music’s relentless speed and power.

According to Reynolds and Press, the destruction of the enemy, called the ‘bloody miasma’,

War

This is War

I Lie Wounded on Wintery Ground With Hundred of Corpses around

Many Wounded Crawl Helplessly around On the Blood Red Snowy Ground

War

Cries of the (ha, ha) Suffering Sound Cries for Help to All Their Dead Moms War

Many Hours of Music Many Drops of Blood

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“ensures the soldier’s wholeness”, after the release of tension during the ‘black out’ threatens to destroy the ego (109). However, I would argue that after his “little death” the black metaller is not whole at all. Instead, “[a]s Bataille reminds us, violence allows the fighter ‘to throw himself suddenly outside of himself,’ his identity disrupted, disordered, dislodged: abject” (King, 376).

The male bodies in black metal are strange and battered. The corpse paint and clothing differentiate the black metal body from the man behind it. Nor is the identity of the black metaller unified or clearly defined. Black metal artists often call themselves by pseudonyms, such as “Euronymous” for Øystein Aarseth and “Dead” for Per Ohlin. This custom reveals a schism between the identity of the person and the act. Moreover, the nature of the

pseudonyms most often used by black metal artists add to the dehumanising process initiated by the makeup and clothing. The masculine identity performed within the black metal scene is thus his and not his, human and not human, at the same time.

The survival of masculine hegemony depends on its ability to incorporate different, sometimes contradicting forms of masculinity. Therefore, the multiple and unstable, abject identities performed in black metal can be viewed as tools to maintain hegemony.

3.4 Ideology and beliefs Death and suicide

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only fight and destroy their enemies, but also harm and destroy themselves.

The lyrics of “Life eternal” by Mayhem are an example of this glorification of death.

Here, Mayhem states that in order to be really free one has to die. But death, being the ultimate threat to life, is the summit of abjection. Black metal’s glorification of dying thus exemplifies its attraction to the abject.

Defeat and suicide contradict the idea of the rock and roll rebel as imagined by Reynolds and Press. The rock and roll rebel breaks free from the restraints of his mother. The mother, of course, signifies the abject, undefined state of the womb.

Discussing Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain, Reynolds and Press argue that grunge is a castrated form of hard rock, lacking the masculine strength to break free from domesticity. Because Cobain was not able to escape the suffocation of the womb, he develops the desire to “revert to the lowest

Life Eternal

A dream of another existence You wish to die

A dream of another world You pray for death

To release the soul one must die

To find peace inside you must get eternal I am a mortal, but am I human?

How beautiful life is now when my time has come A human destiny, but nothing human inside What will be left of me when I'm dead? There was nothing when I lived

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possible level of irritation, to become inanimate”, and eventually kills himself (97).

This argument is based on the supposition that masculinity is a unified and stable category. This would mean that masculinity always works to expel the abject state of the womb. For grunge to not do this implies a lack of masculinity. In this thesis however, masculinity is itself an abject formation. It depends on constant renewal and on the incorporation of different, contradicting identities in order to survive. Suicide, therefore, is not a lack of masculinity, but abject

masculinity at work.

The lyrics to “My Journey to the Stars” from Burzum’s self-titled album perfectly illustrate this abject masculinity.

Burzum narrates the process of letting go of life in the first lines: “I immaterialize, and slowly drift into the unknown”. The word “drift” instead of “fly” or even the ambiguous “float”

My Journey to the Stars

I Immaterialize And Slowly Drift Into the Unknown

With the Cold Winds with Soul The Wintery Plains Lie Untouched I Ride on My Elements

Towards the Stars Unseen A Quest For Knowledge In the Astral Luminous Stench Intensifies As I

Near a Spectral Sphere

After a Hundred Men's Lifetime In Analyzing I learn To Consume The Sphere Of Immense Power And To Become Immortal

Darkness Hate and Winter Rules the Earth when I Return War

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suggests that the narrator is moving through something fluid instead of air, which can be related to amniotic fluids. “Stench intensifies” reaffirms the association of the undefined state of death with the womb and the idea of the female reproductive organs to be dirty.

Burzum continues by describing how he learns to “consume the sphere of immense power”: by incorporating death into his identity death is no longer a threat and, thus, he becomes

immortal. So death and femininity are not expelled as forms of the abject, nor do they cause the destruction of man. Instead, he consumes what once threatened him, thus becoming immortal. This is very much like masculinity’s incorporation of the abject in order to maintain hegemony.

Approached more physically, moreover, suicide and death are manifestations of black metal’s glorification of the abject body. This is most clearly illustrated by the events surrounding Dead’s suicide in 1991. Notoriously, as Aarseth found Dead short after he shot himself in the head, Aarseth photographed him, took pieces of his skull to make souvenirs, and brought part of his brain back to the band for them to cook and eat it. In 1995, the picture of Dead’s corpse

functioned as the cover of the bootleg live album Dawn of the Black Hearts (see fig. 3.3) Clearly “Aarseth appeared to feel little sorrow over the loss of Dead, instead glorifying his violent departure in order to cultivate a further mystique of catastrophe surrounding the band” (Moynihan and Søderlind, 59).

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undermines the idea of the clean and contained body. For Mayhem to use this as a way to prove their authenticity as an extreme band shows how their performance of masculinity entails a laudation of the abject male body.

Satan and the Regime of Goodness

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Nina Witoszek calls the regime of goodness; i.e. the cultural practice in Norway to suppress and deny the negative and destructive aspects of life and society.

The title of Mayhem’s De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas (Latin for “about lord Satan’s mysteries”) already points to an important expression of this exploration of evil in Norwegian black metal: Satanism. Many black metal bands claim to be Satanists, use Satanic imagery or at least profile themselves as anti-Christians. In the black metal documentary Out of the Black, Dr Thomas Bossius emphasises the importance of the state church in Norway. In modern Norwegian Christianity, however, Satan and evil no longer hold significant symbolic power. Within the Regime of Goodness, the other side of the positive is denied. Satanism allows young people to explore these darker parts of their identity and spirituality where the traditional institutions fail (Moynihan and Søderlind 77). To worship Satan means to worship destruction, death and evil, i.e. the abject.

This worshipping of evil has also taken on a more general and real role in the Norwegian black metal scene. Just talking about how dark and evil you are is not enough. To prove authenticity black metallers had to back up their words by committing increasingly transgressive actions.

The church burnings in the early 1990s are the most famous examples of these transgressive actions. Especially in Norway arson is considered a most heinous crime. Moreover, the wooden stave churches are part of Norway’s national heritage. Because of this, the church arsons were labelled “crimes against culture” by the authorities (Williams, 60).

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claims that the church burnings were not meant to destroy Christianity, but to force it to recognise evil again: “We support Christianity because it oppresses people, and we burn churches to make it stronger. We can then eventually make war with it” (43). This quote underlines how these masculine evil actions of black metal paradoxically depend on Christianity. It thus reveals the abject nature of hegemony.

3.5 Sonic Transgression

In “Musical Style, Ideology, and Mythology in Norwegian Black Metal”, Ross Hagen writes that:

“[t]he musical style and production values of black metal as forged in Norway and pursued around the globe display several key stylistic components that differentiate them from other styles of heavy metal” (183).

Most importantly, since black metal is a reaction against the commercialised death metal scene, these stylistic components differentiate Norwegian black metal music from death metal (Reyes).

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masculinity is a stable category that needs to maintain strict control over itself to shield itself from the destructiveness of the abject.

I, however, understand masculinity itself as an abject construct. This position enables the possibility of rituals of symbolising masculinity to revel in abjection. Indeed, Norwegian black metal is considered masculine and macho because it sounds extreme. I will argue, however, that this extreme sound depends on disrupting boundaries such as freedom and control, speed and stasis, and masculine and feminine.

When it comes to sonic transgression, these are the borders set by death metal. This genre was thought to be the most extreme form of metal, but at the same time its commercial success made death metal too approachable in the eyes of purists to deserve this role. To analyse sonic transgression in black metal, therefore, means to compare it to death metal.

Overall sound and recording values

The most prominent characteristic of Norwegian black metal is its unpolished, raw sound and lo-fi recording style. In death metal’s full wall of sound, in which all of the well recorded layers provide deep bass, well defined drum violence and crisp vocals, high quality recording

techniques promise to deliver great sounding loudness. In black metal recordings, however, the sound is less full. The layers are not clearly defined, but instead mixed together “to create an atmospheric wash of sound” (Berger 2011, 187).

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lost. Finally, the vocals are not the deep, vibrating grunts of death metal but high pitched, monotonous black metal shrieks.

So, whereas death metal’s clear and full sound delivered in a very controlled way, black metal is presented more like chaotic noise. On the one hand, this makes black metal more raw, heavy and masculine (Reyes). Simultaneously, however, the sound is far less powerful and full. So, this ultimate masculine sound can only be attained by sacrificing the traditional aesthetics

associated with power. This reveals male hegemony as “always amalgamated and ambiguous” (King 371).

Modes

The mode of popular music is usually Ionian or Mixolydian, which sounds familiar to any Western listener. Extreme metal, however, is usually composed in the less familiar Phrygian or Locrian mode, which were historically associated with the devil (Kahn-Harris 2007, 31).

Moreover, in black metal, these unfamiliar modes contribute to an overall feeling of uneasiness. This effect is strengthened by the fact that, in black metal, harmonic changes happen much more slowly than in death metal.

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On the one hand, the Phrygian modes give “Freezing Moon” its heavy and transgressive sound, but only within the strict boundaries of this church mode. So to achieve its transgressive sound, “Freezing Moon”, and other black metal music, strict conformity is necessary. This paradox reveals the unstable, and thus abject, nature of the masculinity performed in Norwegian black metal.

On the other hand, the A# in the fourth measure creates a dissonant augmented fourth on E. The use of tritone “was discouraged by the medieval Catholic Church and referred to as the diabolus in musica” (Kahn-Harris 2007, 31). Because of this, the tritone is associated with evil and darkness. In “Freezing Moon”, however, on top of the A# an F is placed, creating a

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The guitar is traditionally the signifier of phallic power in metal music (Walser, 42). The power chords, distorted sound, and sheer volume of the instrument gives metal its masculine

strength. Interestingly, black metal music also allows an important role for synthesisers, to create a more dark and atmospheric sound (Hagen, 183-184). Synthesisers, however, are usually associated with pop music. As Norma Coates argues in “(R)evolution Now? Rock and the political potential of gender” pop music is gendered as feminine, whereas rock music is

considered masculine (52-53). So again, black metal’s dark sound depends on transgressing the border between masculine and feminine music.

Walser has stated that the power chord is an important part of metal’s masculine power:

“It [the power chord-LD] is at once the musical basis of heavy metal and an apt metaphor for it, for musical articulation of power is the most important single factor in the experience of heavy metal (...). Its overdriven sound evokes excess and transgression but also stability, permanence and harmony” (Walser, 2).

In black metal guitar play, power chords are often replaced by full chord voicings. There is also an emphasis on tremolo picking: the extremely fast picking of one guitar string. Tremolo picking makes playing power chords impossible, since the notes of chords cannot be played

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The deep and guttural vocal style of death metal, grunting, give the genre part of its extreme sound. The famous growls of Arch Enemy’s Angela Gossow demonstrate that grunts always sound masculine, even when performed by a female vocalist.

In Norwegian black metal, however, grunts are often replaced by shrieks. As can be heard in Burzum’s music, shrieks are very highly pitched screams, that sound distorted and demon-like. We have defined the abject or grotesque body as excessive, animal-like or disfigured,

undermining “classic images of the finished, completed man” (Bakhtin, 25). In the same way, the abject voice, like the black metal “shriek”, is deformed, undefined and animal-like. It goes against the idea of the human voice as a recognisable, meaningful sound.

While shrieks add to the evil and dark sound of black metal, they also resemble a woman’s scream. Shrieks will indeed always sound more feminine than grunts. Paradoxically, the extreme nature of black metal vocals depends on incorporating a more feminine sound.

Rhythm and Tempo

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way, the speed of black metal creates a kind of “paradoxical stasis” (Kahn-Harris 2007, 33), in which the music is very fast, yet appears to be standing still.

To recapitulate, we have seen how black metal’s performance of masculinity depends on the presentation of extreme sounds. These extreme sounds, however, turn out to be based on shattering the very dichotomies on which male hegemony is based: It’s raw sound entails a loss of power. Using “devil modes” means conforming to traditional church modes. Black metal’s evil atmosphere requires incorporating feminine synthesisers and sacrificing one of the pillars of metal’s strength, i.e. the power chord. It’s vocals are extreme and dark, but at the same time quite feminine. Finally, black metal is a display of true macho speed, which nonetheless gives an impression of stasis.

Black metal’s musical characteristics, therefore, just like the discursive features, expose how male hegemony needs to be contradictory, unstable and fluid in order to maintain its position of power. But it simultaneously reveals male hegemony as an abject formation.

3.6 No Girls Allowed?

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understanding of male bonding in television1, Robert Walser states that the same happens in heavy metal: “to represent and reproduce spectacles that depend for their appeal on the exscription of women” (115).

Similarly, black metal satisfies a need for young Norwegian men to escape the regime of goodness and revel in a fantasy world full of spectacle, transgression, and excitement. For this male bonding to take place, the exscription of women remains necessary.

Following Fiske, Walser argues that metal reaffirms the image of white male identity, as “[t]he purpose of a genre is to organize the reproduction of a particular ideology” and that because “such representations [of male identity – LD] can never be definitive or totally satisfying (...) they are always open to negotiation and transformation” (109-10). This thesis, however, argues that this open, unstable nature of male hegemony proves its abject nature. Therefore, a genre that is centred on male bonding not only reproduces, but also challenges male dominant ideologies.

Countering Walser, the exscription of women from the scene, or the creation of a world in which the existence of women is denied, is not simply because they are masculinity’s threatening Other (110). Instead, as exscription creates a world in which there is no Other,

1

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there is no threat to male bonding through a performance of masculinity that is overtly heterogeneous, contradicting and unstable, i.e. abject.

This also helps understanding black metal’s tendency of reflexive anti-reflexivity (Kahn-Harris 2004). In “The ‘Failure’ of Youth Culture”, Kahn-Harris questions why black metal, despite of its ideological expressions, has never really initiated real social change. He states that, with its dark ideology and discourse, the black metal scene is a reflexive community:

“Reflexive communities are continually active, self-searching and contingent. They are founded on the breakdown of certainty that modernity engenders. The concepts of reflexive community highlights the reflexive character of contemporary music scenes such as the black metal scene” (Kahn-Harris 2004, 99).

However, black metal is anti-reflexive as well, as the disapproval of the black metal scene to openly admit that the scene is about anything else besides the music simultaneously results in depoliticising tendencies, and no real political change is initiated. As abject hegemony both confirms and challenges ideological constructs, it can be stated that abject hegemony in general demonstrates reflexive anti-reflexivity.

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masculinity that is always changing and evolving in order to maintain belief in the myth of male dominance.

Moreover, reflexive anti-reflexivity explains the presence of female black metal fans: since the scene’s ideologies never result in actual rules and boundaries, women are not withheld from entering the scene. Exscription of the feminine logically precludes the misogyny that is present in other metal scenes that do acknowledge the existence of women. Because of this, the black metal scene may feel liberating and open for the female fan.

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4. CONCLUSION

4.1 Recapitulation

In this thesis I have examined the construction of masculinity in the Norwegian black metal scene. My research was based on the presupposition that the absence of women is related to how masculinity is constructed in the scene. The scarcity and one-sidedness of gender-related research on masculinity in popular music caused me to look at more general feminist and poststructuralist theory. Most importantly, this was the concept of the abject by Julia Kristeva.

In short, Kristeva defines the abject as that which threatens a whole, clean identity. It is that which undermines the system, because it does not follow those rules. The abject is also that which threatens the clean, whole body. Because of this, the abject has to be rejected. Women are often related to the abject, because they threaten the society’s acceptance of male

dominance. Also, the female body is abject, since the female bodily fluids and vagina all

challenge the notion of the clean, whole body. The womb, lastly, reminds us of that undefined, abject phase, in which I was not yet an autonomous subject.

For a long time, religion has had the task to provide the necessary rituals of identifying and expelling the abject. In the last couple of centuries, secularisation has given that task to the arts. Academically, however, not all art disciplines have given equal attention to its involvement with rituals of the abject.

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existing ideologies. Instead, I argued that art is also capable of negotiating and challenging ideologies.

Following yet another work from the field of film studies, I have stated that black metal is a performance of abject hegemony. In her article, Claire Sisco King argues that white male

hegemony is not a stable, clearly defined category, but instead depends on the incorporation of and negotiation with that which threatens its identity. Therefore, white male hegemony is unstable, paradoxical, impossible, in other words: abject. Countering Kristeva, King states that subjects can never truly get rid of the abject. This is because the abject simultaneously and equally repels and fascinates.

King states that the film Fight Club is an example of a giving in to the seductiveness of

masculinity’s abject hegemony. She supports this by analysing how the depiction of masculinity in Fight Club depends on collapsing contradictions such as male/female, closed/open and self/other. Arguing that Norwegian black metal also revels in white male hegemony, I have analysed Norwegian black metal according to King’s model.

The characteristics that account for Norwegian black metal’s powerful, masculine identity simultaneously contradict the narrative of a stable, autonomous masculinity, thus revealing male hegemony as an abject construct. Focussing first on the discursive characteristics of the Norwegian black metal scene I have concluded that:

 the scene positively valorises male bodies that are hurt, bleeding, grotesque and/or feminised;

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 black metal does not glorify war as a clean ideal of the machine-soldier, but eroticises its meaning of death, blood, and dirt;

 the church arsons, instigated by the scene’s collective anti-Christian ideology, depend on Christianity to have meaning;

 in black metal, the mutilated, hurt, dismembered and dead body is considered more masculine, as the glorification and appropriation of Death’s suicide shows.

Subsequently focussing on the musical characteristics of Norwegian black metal show that:  the raw and masculine character of black metal’s overall sound depends on sacrificing a

sound that traditionally is associated with power;

 the ‘diabolical’ modes used in black metal also restricts the music to the rules of the ancient church scales;

 the synthesisers that create black metal’s evil atmosphere are also associated with female pop music;

 in black metal, the extremely fast picking on the guitar means letting go of the signifier of metal’s powerful masculinity: the power chord;

 black metal’s shrieking vocals sound more extreme than death metal’s grunts, but also more feminine;

 the tempo of black metal is extremely fast but is paradoxically also perceived as standing still.

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masculinity the scene does not have to take the threat of the feminine Other into account, since her existence is simply denied. Together with black metal’s reflexive anti-reflexivity this allows for female fans to enter the scene, while the recognition of female black metal artists is not possible.

4.2 Local ideologies versus global adaptations

In this thesis, I have focussed solely on the Norwegian black metal scene. As explained in the introduction, however, the interaction between local and global aspects in black metal is very complex. Not only did black metal emerge as a local answer to global phenomena, black metal itself has spread globally.

As the socio-historical context in which the scene functions has proved to be essential in determining what the ideological foundation of the scene is, and, how this is dealt with.

Norway’s regime of goodness and rediscovered national pride set the stage for a local extreme metal scene that challenges the globalised death metal and deals with topics of evil, death and destruction. Emerging as a relief from living in a moral superpower labelled “the best country in the world” (Witoszek), black metal takes abject male bonding very seriously indeed.

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Similarly, as death metal is an American extreme metal scene, in the United States, black metal is not nearly as differentiated from death metal as it is in Norway and other European

countries. The American death metal scene contains a relatively greater number of female musicians, and since many of black metal’s traditional values do not work within an American context, American black metal follows this example. That is why in the United States, female black metal musicians are not that rare at all.

The Men Behind the Corpse Paint