Rebecca Goldfine, 2023年7月25日出版

We're Here, We're Hyper, 和 We're Popping: A Queer Analysis of Hyperpop

kue Anh Tran ’25 discovered hyperpop when she was living at home during the COVID years. She relished its extreme 和 playful approach to more traditional pop music. “这是一种非常解放的音乐. You can let go while you listen to it,她说. "And that is really nice to have when you are in lockdown."

kue Anh Tran肖像 — kue Anh Tran, a double major in gender 以及女性研究和 computer science, has a fellowship this summer to pursue independent, faculty-mentored研究.

Hyperpop—to those of a certain age who might not be hyper-tuned to youth culture—is a "microgenre that is very much characterized by maximalism,Tran解释道. “很多夸张的说法都被夸大了. It's more an attitude of being excessive 和 celebrating that."

像Charli XCX这样的音乐家, 已故的苏菲, 和 100 gecs use technology 和 distortion to create new sounds while relying on the catchy melodies of pop.

As Tran began paying more attention to hyperpop, she noticed something else. "A lot of hyperpop artists are queer 和/or trans, 和 I realized that a lot of the demographics who listen to hyperpop are queer 和/or trans,她说. “我当时想，‘这是为什么?' I wanted to find out why this music is drawing in so many people who identify as queer."

《买球平台》，作者:Charli XCX: "Hyperpop never takes itself seriously,Tran说. "A lot of the ideas are playful 和 sexual in nature, 和 this song is one of those. 后人类因素的概念出现了, 因为一个半人, half-robot entity is telling the narrative in the song. I think this is another example of where hyperpop challenges our underst和ing of 快乐意味着什么?."

《买球平台》，索菲著在这首歌里, 苏菲, 谁是跨性别艺术家, 玩弄身体的含义, driving it to a point of rejecting the material where bodies can be regulated,Tran说. 她还玩弄了性别的概念, when we no longer use bodily markers to determine who we are."

100格斯的《买球平台》(Money Machine): "Even for hyperpop, they're on the more extreme side," Tran admitted.

Last spring, she asked her advisors in the gender, 性, 以及女性研究 department, Angel Matos 和 Keona Katrice Ervin, whether she could dedicate the summer to answering this 和 other questions. 在他们的支持下，她得到了一份工作考夫曼家庭奖学金 from Bowdoin to spend her days on campus reading theory, 与她的指导老师会面, 和写作.

She made a decision early on to analyze hyperpop through a post-human technological lens, to figure out how hyperpop fosters what she calls a "queer future-oriented thinking,“尤其是身体周围, 亲属关系, 和欲望.

She's basing her thesis on the ideas of theorist José Esteban Muñoz, who conceptualizes queerness "as something always on the horizon,这就是, 作为一个有抱负的国家, 为之奋斗的东西. He argues that we "not be complacent about the present but always try to make things better 和 move toward queerness,Tran说.

One way hyperpop makes a case for a certain kind of future is by exp和ing our notions of the physical body, extending or distorting bodies through lyrical storytelling, 数字技术, 化妆, 和服装. It's a way to defy social 和 physical restrictions, Tran said.

“我们可以看看社会是如何, which is very much defined by heteronormativity, tries to regulate 和 organize bodies 和 how people relate to one another. And with queer individuals, that 监管 can be even more intensely felt,Tran说.

"In hyperpop you have a revision of what bodies mean, 什么是关系?, 快乐意味着什么?,她接着说. "What does it mean for people to relate to one other if you're not thinking just about the physical body, but you're also thinking about the semi-physical aspects of yourself?"

酷儿电子游戏, with Assistant Professor of 性别、性与妇女研究天使丹尼尔·马托斯: "That was my introduction to queer theory 和 to gender, 性, 以及女性研究, 和 I was really fascinated by this idea that something could be queer beyond just the representational or narrative level. 我真的很喜欢阅读, 和 it was a really fun class because we were talking about video games through an academic lens. It still remains my favorite class at Bowdoin because of how transformational it was for me; it opened up this whole new area I wasn't aware of before."

青少年电影中的性别与性, with Matos: "We watched a variety of teen movies, ranging from time periods 和 from around the world, 和 we talked a lot about what teenagehood means, 和 about how this category of adolescence separates childhood 和 adulthood, 和 that it is an interesting age range because there is still so much control, 监管, 对这个年龄段的人进行监督. And we explored how different movies either tried to resist that control (many teen movies have this parental figure as an obstacle to the journey to maturing), 和 we also looked at more specifically queer teenagers 和 at the conflation of the coming-out narrative with the coming-of-age narrative."

数据结构, with Assistant Professor of Computer Science 大卫·伯德: 数据结构 is one of my favourites at Bowdoin because it was really fun to work on the lab assignments in the course, which was like solving puzzles that were equally challenging 和 gratifying. CS classes also exercise my brain in a very different way from GSWS classes, which makes for a much more balanced academic experience.