Abstract: ‘Throats are part of the erotic act, commanding, whispering, swallowing. Through his cries, whispers, groans, whines, and grunts. Michael Jackson occupies a third space of gender.’ Francesca Royster explores the sexualisation of Jackson’s voice throughout his earlier solo works, ‘Off The Wall’, ‘Thriller’ and ‘Bad’ while contextualising his voice within the wider concept of African-American sexuality and its representation.
Essay by Francesca T. Royster, Professor in the Department of English at DePaul University. She is the author of Becoming Cleopatra: The Shifting Image of an Icon and Sounding Like a No-No: Queer Sounds and Eccentric Acts in the Post-Soul Era.
REFERENCE AS:
Royster, Francesca T. “‘Hee Hee Hee’: Michael Jackson and the Transgendered Erotics of Voice.” The Journal of Michael Jackson Academic Studies 1, no. 3 (2014). Published electronically 18/09/14. http://michaeljacksonstudies.org/hee-hee-hee-michael-jackson-and-the-transgendered-erotics-of-voice/. Originally published on National Sexuality Resource Center (NSRC) 28/07/05. http://nsrc.sfsu.edu/print/2499.
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‘Hee hee hee’: Michael Jackson and the Transgendered Erotics of Voice
By Francesca T. Royster
Click here to access a PDF of the ‘Hee hee hee’: Michael Jackson and the Transgendered Erotics of Voice’, published here with the author’s permission.
Francesca T. Royster, Professor in the Department of English at DePaul University. She is the author of Becoming Cleopatra: The Shifting Image of an Icon and the landmark monograph, Sounding Like a No-No: Queer Sounds and Eccentric Acts in the Post-Soul Era (Michigan University Press, 2012), a book which ‘traces a rebellious spirit in post–civil rights black music by focusing on a range of offbeat, eccentric, queer, or slippery performances by leading musicians influenced by the cultural changes brought about by the civil rights, black nationalist, feminist, and LGBTQ movements’. Find out more about Francesca here.
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