Kvinnokroppen som diskursivt slagfält: avvikande visuella representationer av genus i Pussy Riots musikvideor.

Abstract

In this paper I will examine the five Pussy Riot music videos that the group has published online on their official You Tube website. I will examine them through a “gender lens” looking at their visual representations of gender vis-à-vis the hegemonic gender discourse in Russia. In addition I will examine their potential effects and if/how these visual representations can be understood as resistance. In my study I will take on a constructionist approach and the main theories being used to understand and analyze the Pussy Riot music videos are discourse- and representational theory including deconstruction, performativity and the social construction of gender as well as “in-between” and deviant representations. These will serve as tools to understand and analyze the visual representations that I find during my rigorous study of my material. To show how these visual representations of gender could be understood as a strategy of resistance I will lean on research covering the dominant gender discourse in Russia and draw parallels to previous research about similar actors. The conclusions made are that many of the visual representations of gender found in the Pussy Riot music videos are deviant representations vis-à-vis the hegemonic gender discourse in Russia and that they can be understood as a way of resistance of normative representations of the female body and sexuality.