This thesis will examine Grace Jones in 1982’s One Man Show. Based on live concerts filmed in London and New York, the video serves as an archive of Jones’s experimental work in music.
Whereas her character roles in films such as Conan the Destroyerand A View to Killembodied common stereotypes about black sexuality, her music repudiates these traditional roles.
One Man Showillustrates Jones’s increased control in the production of her image. She combined visual references to industrial society, primitivism, and fashion with music that provided an alternative narrative to our cultural history.
By doing this, Jones exemplified the cooperative aspect of popular culture and its public, which is far from passively watching. I would like to explore the relationship between Grace Jones, the persona that she created in performance, and the significance of the persona in popular culture.