Blurred Lines, Androgyny and Creativity
By Scott Barry Kaufman | September 1, 2013
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/beautiful-minds/2013/09/01/blurred-lines-androgyny-and-creativity/There was a time when physical androgyny actually meant something.
According to the The Rev. Jefferis Kent Peterson, the first half of the the 1984 Grammy Awards "underscored a dramatic shift in cultural consciousness that has place in the past twenty years." Highly androgynous musicians Boy George and Annie Lennox competed for the best new artist spot and Michael Jackson cleaned up with seven awards. According to Peterson, the nominations "became a celebration of androgyny and sexual ambiguity." Other important androgynous male figures of that time included David Bowie, Prince, and Elton John. One of the earliest examples of Bowie's androgyny is depicted in his third album The Man Who Sold the World, released in 1970, in which he created his androgynous alter ego Ziggy Stardust.
Of course, let's not forget important female androgynous entertainers such as Madonna, Cyndi Lauper, and Annie Lennox of the Eurythmics. These women had an enormous influence on the youth of that generation. In January 1985, Lauper was named one of the women of the year in Ms. magazine, "For taking feminism beyond conformity to individuality, rebellion and freedom." Artist Andy Warhol also rode the androgyny wave. According to The Getty Museum, he often dressed in drag at parties and admired "the boys who spend their lives trying to be complete girls." In 1981, he collaborated on a set of pictures of himself in drag.
But here's the thing: physical androgyny was creative in the 80s because it was actually innovative. It did challenge gender stereotypes. It got people to think differently about stereotypical male and female roles. It wasn't the superficial physical aspects of androgyny that made it so creative, it was the psychological aspects that it represented.
