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“In Our Different Ways We Are The Same”: Representations of Disability in the Music and Persona of Morrissey

Manco, Daniel Jeremy
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1245685405

Abstract Details

2009, Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, Popular Culture.
Disability studies, an interdisciplinary field of relatively recent provenance but growing prominence, investigates the social, political, economic, and cultural factors that contribute to definitions of disability as they emerge within specific but ever-shifting historical contexts. Cultural disability studies, a lively subfield, takes particular interest in the role that representations of disability across a variety of media play in shaping both individual and collective (architectural, attitudinal, educational, legal, and occupational) responses to the needs of disabled persons. Despite its centrality to human expression, however, music in general, and popular music specifically, have seldom attracted the attention of cultural disability studies scholars. This thesis seeks to help redress this omission in the cultural disability studies literature by examining representations of disability in the music and persona of Morrissey, singer and lyricist for the seminal 1980s indie rock group The Smiths and, in the two decades since their break-up, a successful solo artist in his own right. Borrowing concepts from music theory and psychoanalysis, I first consider the ways in which the paralinguistic elements of Morrissey’s music, and the discourse that has surrounded it, can be understood as representing disability and articulating a host of attitudes thereto. Then, taking my cue from the negative-image school of disability studies – which aims to identify, catalogue, and challenge pernicious stereotypes of disability that have served historically to devalue real disabled persons – I examine a number of songs penned by Morrissey which take as their subjects characters stigmatized by an array of corporeal differences. Subjecting these songs primarily to lyric analysis (thought not inattentive to the ways in which musical elements and, where relevant, music videos inflect these lyrics’ meanings), I discern an ambivalence toward disability in Morrissey’s work, an equivocation between loathing and loving, although I ultimately choose to emphasize the anti-ableist, progressive potential made available through his artistry. I conclude my analysis by considering the utility to Morrissey’s purpose of continually returning to tropes of disability in his work, and drawing from the insights of a number of disability theorists, I offer some general observations on the politics of Morrissey’s disability representation.
Jeremy Wallach, PhD (Advisor)
Becca Cragin, PhD (Committee Member)
241 p.
Mass Media; Minority and Ethnic Groups; Music
Morrissey; Smiths; Disability

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Manco, D. J. (2009). “In Our Different Ways We Are The Same”: Representations of Disability in the Music and Persona of Morrissey [Master's thesis, Bowling Green State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1245685405

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Manco, Daniel. “In Our Different Ways We Are The Same”: Representations of Disability in the Music and Persona of Morrissey. 2009. Bowling Green State University, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1245685405.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Manco, Daniel. "“In Our Different Ways We Are The Same”: Representations of Disability in the Music and Persona of Morrissey." Master's thesis, Bowling Green State University, 2009. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1245685405

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

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© 2009, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by Bowling Green State University and OhioLINK.