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For the Love of Justin
When the current mode of pop "broke," with the emergence of the boy bands in the mid-’90s and Britney circa 1998, various industries (music, fashion, toy, fast food) noticed that girls were avid and disposable-income-bearing consumers; some observers note that a key moment was the 1997 release of Titanic, propelled to huge box office numbers by teenaged girls, who went to see it repeatedly. As Rolling Stone’s Jancee Dunn reported in her 1999 article, "The Secret Life of Teenage Girls," the new trend-setters were initially mysterious and somewhat threatening to those traditional movers-and-shakers: boys (or more precisely, boys who have grown up, more or less, to run vaunted cultural institutions like Rolling Stone, Vibe, MTV, BET and major record labels). Dunn, however, saw the girls as "sophisticated and informed consumers," confident of their own tastes and futures, and fond of ritual, the primary example being mall-shopping. While they might have been troubled by conventional youth quandaries (conformity, identity, familial and peer pressures), the girls were also increasingly aware of their power to "dictate popular culture," while boys, according to one MTV suit, were feeling "disenfranchised because they don’t have as many role models." One lasting effect of this shift is the phenomenon of Justin Timberlake. Three videos currently rotating — "Gone," "Girlfriend" and "This Train Don’t Stop Here Anymore" — amply demonstrate the ways that young (and some older) consumers are reconceiving themselves and their consumable objects in relation to gendered, racial, sexual and even generational categories. Is there a pretty boy band member who is more beloved and blessed than Mr. Timberlake? His star continues to rise, and rise again, even when it would seem about time that things start to go slightly less perfectly for him. Wouldn’t you guess that his standout role in ‘NSync might generate some anxiety or jealousy among his fellows? Even the celebrity coupling with Britney Spears appears to work to the kid’s advantage. And really, for anyone else, such a giant-sized public liaison — sharing a super-fancy L.A. home with the "get it! get it! get it!" girl, who swears she’s still a virgin — would be the stuff of resentment, chastisement and/or ridicule. But for Justin, it’s all good. Many observers would have thought that the band itself would be on its way out by now. But, despite the fact that last year’s Celebrity didn’t sell quite so many bijillions of units as No Strings Attached, they are still pretty much on top of the pop heap. The Backstreet Boys are looking old and even a little slow, compared to the likes of O-Town, who are so super sugary sweet, commercially pappy, and frankly, dull, that the infinitely patient Carson Daly makes amiable fun of them.
But ‘NSync has somehow managed to keep up, to maintain respect and some semblance of cool (even if they are pitching Chili’s restaurants, which surely counts as corny, even if they do it "ironically"). And they’ve maintained something akin to a "senior" boy band status. Who would have thought that writing their own songs (at least partially) and working with cool producers like Rodney Jerkins, the Neptunes and Riprock ‘n’ Alec G would grant the boys what one of them infamously called, in Vibe magazine, their "ghetto pass"? Once the album’s first singles — "Pop" and "Gone" — began airing on black radio and their videos were rotating on BET’s 106th & Park, it was clear that something had changed in the music world’s grand racist balance. And yet, however hip or beautiful or seductive ‘NSync gets, Justin continues to stand out. In the face of Chris’s changing hair color and clothing line, Lance’s budding movie career, and JC’s side project for the Grinch soundtrack, Justin can’t seem to help but steal the spotlight. His buzz cut made him just too adorable for words, his brief credits-sequence performance as a gay hairdresser in Lance’s On the Line was repeatedly cited by young fans as that dreary film’s very brief high point ("You mean ‘N-Stink!"), and his songwriting credits on Celebrity are impressively varied, from "Pop" to "Girlfriend" to "Something Like You." The question is, what is it that makes Justin so irresistible, to so many, from 12-year-old hip-hop girls to 35-year-old pop-fans to gay boys and men of all ages. Like any boy band member worth his salt, Justin’s gendered appeal is complicated, embodying as much as anyone what pop music scholar Gayle Wald terms the boy bands’ "girlish masculinity," an unthreatening, compassionate, sensitive kind of sexuality, oozing and palpable but also delicate and unhurried. His particular girlishness appears to be a function of his youthful appearance — with his thin chest and graceful pop-dance moves, Justin looks perpetually, innocuously adolescent, and so pre-teen and teen girls (and boys) can imagine being best friends as well as mutually swooning soulmates. He’s straight and not straight, queer and not queer. Ideally ambiguous, Justin — or better, "Justin" — is open to every desire. No matter your gender or sexuality, you can want to be his girlfriend, and can imagine that he’s comfortable enough in his femme-boy skin to want to be yours too. Timberlake’s performances in three recent videos reinforce his multiply layered appeal, in ways that both sustain and complicate the fantasy. In "Gone" and "Girlfriend" by ‘NSync, and Elton John’s latest, " This Train Don’t Stop Here Anymore," he plays a series of characters — endearing and grieving, sexy and playful, vivacious and introspective. Like I say, the ideal girlfriend. "Gone," shot in luscious black and white by fashion photographer and video director Herb Ritts ("In the Closet"), opens with a charming, sepia-toned silent-comedy-style skit, Justin popping his eyes and sidling up to his flapper girlfriend on a sofa. The player piano cues the humorous mood, as does the characters’ silent-film-speediness. It’s a savvy set-up, intimating a collectively conceived nostalgia — in the olden days (however you conceive them), things were simpler and a lot more fun. Cut to the sad part: Justin alone, utterly and painfully alone, pining before the mirror or in front of the open refrigerator’s ghostly light (realizing he’s too undone to eat), now that his girlfriend is "gone." Though the sentiment is standard for a boy-band ballad, the tastefully subdued illustration coincides with the liltingly mournful harmonies, all evoking the post-breakup melancholy afflicting poor Justin (and oh yes, the other ‘NSync-ers, who serve mainly as back-up singers here). The song, written by Timberlake and the group’s favorite choreographer and Mayte Garcia’s ex, 19-year-old Wade J. Robson (as was the first single, the deliriously energetic "Pop"), is heartbreaking, but it is also, in surprisingly complex ways, about the demands of gender: "I try my best to be your man and be strong / I drove myself insane / Wishing I could touch your face." The choices — be strong like a man should be or be insane from fretfulness — are familiar, if slightly overheated in the telling. Perhaps the most striking aspect of the video is the way the visuals (delicate gray tones, the boys in quiet poses) correspond to the sheer loveliness of the sound (Timberlake’s lilting solo, then the gentlest of harmonies on the chorus). This combination, so unlike the usual hyperactive dancing in pop videos, make "Gone" simultaneously exhilarating and heartrending. Flashback shots — a joyous birthday party, Justin painting the girl’s toenails — feature him in white shirts. The present time shots show him in a mournful black t-shirt (sleeveless to show off his tat). Shot in domestic spaces — the kitchen, the bedroom (where the sheets have been taken off the bed, as if a corpse has been removed), the bathroom (where multiple mirrors signify the newly single boy’s meditative haze) — the present time scenes focus on Justin’s aching figure and exquisite face, perfectly shadowed and tilted precisely to indicate just how much he misses that girl.
All this emoting, so carefully composed, also implies vulnerability, not so typical for boys. This isn’t the jaunty brush-off of "Bye, Bye, Bye," but a self-accusatory sorrow. Justin, the girlish boy, performs this fragility generously and without fear. It’s a truism that young girls (among others) appreciate boys who can cry; but here Justin does not cry, only acts as if he might: "And time is passing so slowly now / Guess that’s my life without you." Even as "Girlfriend" is less explicit about its focus on Justin, the point of his specialness is hard to escape. Set at a drag race (so trendy, so The Fast and the Furious) that Justin will eventually win, the scene involves the boys (Justin and JC especially) approaching various girls, several in interracial hook-ups (again, trendy, and even cooler, unremarked in the narrative). The boys make their choreographed dance moves on car hoods, and when up close to the girls, swivel their hips, but delicately, invitingly rather than aggressively. At the same time, a few more conventionally manly-looking sorts — angry-looking, unshaven, gnarly — remain on the edges of the crowd, but it’s clear that the girlish boys are the superior choices. These fellow would never be caught dead singing lyrics like the following: "Ever since I saw your face, nothing in my life has been the same / I walk around just saying your name / Without you, my world would end / I searched around this whole damn place / And everything says you were meant to be / My girlfriend." Well, OK, the curse word leans a little PG-13, but it’s appropriate for the setting, where the ‘NSync boys are admittedly conspicuous here, even if they are wearing beat jeans and knit caps: When Justin gets in his car, he winks at the camera, perhaps at you, perhaps at the girl he’s been sweet-talking, or maybe even at his opponent, who revs his engine and looks determinedly away. This awareness of the camera becomes more pronounced in "This Train Don’t Stop Here Anymore," a video that expands on the concept of Elton John’s previous single, "I Want Love," wherein Robert Downey Jr. wanders through a huge empty house, lip-syncing John’s poignant lyrics. In "This Train," Justin adopts John’s younger persona, wearing a shiny striped suit (with vest, of course), glitter glasses, and fabulous silver platforms, as he makes his way from his dressing room to the stage, through various hallways and well-wishers’ party rooms. Led by his manager (Paul Rubens) thorough this maze-like situation, Justin/Elton moves in slightly slow motion, his lip-syncing increasingly unmatched to the lyrics. Greeted by a series of gorgeous air-kissers, and one very pretty boy wearing only gym shorts who offers up a Donald Duck-decorated cake, Justin/Elton looks more and more distressed. "I used to be the main express," he sings, "All steam and whistles heading west / Picking up my pain from door to door / Riding on the storyline." Now, John reveals that the storyline doesn’t hold up, that its artifice is destructive and depressing. The manager stops the crowd, who wave their albums and autograph books in frustration, as Justin/Elton goes on alone, stumbling, then collapsing against the wall outside the janitor’s closet: "I never really understood that stuff / All the stars and bleeding hearts / All the tears that welled up in my eyes / Never meant a thing to me." Just before he reaches the stage, he opens another door, for a split second glimpsing a sex orgy, where someone is dressed up like a giant bunny. "When I said that I don’t care," he concludes, "It really means my engine’s breaking down / The chisel chips my heart again / The granite cracks beneath my skin / I crumble into pieces on the ground." Shutting the door, Justin/Elton picks up his white feather boa and makes his way to the stage where fans are cheering wildly: The camera observes from behind him, and through the door, you see only darkness. Being a pop celebrity, it appears, is not everything it’s cracked up to be. This seems like it would be a gloomy thought for the enthusiastically star-worshipping viewers of TRL, where John and Timberlake appeared to premiere the video. But they cheered and whooped as usual, unquestioning in their love for their boy Justin, so daring in his retro outfit and receding-hairline wig. Omigod, he looks just like that old guy used to look! The video for "This Train Don’t Stop Here Anymore" is, of course, marvelously attractive, bridging fan generations and commemorating the persistence of pop, as culture and faith. The concept is obviously spectacular, this pairing of so-similar superstars, both renowned as splendid, crowd-loving performers, stylish dressers and persistent romantics. The video also conveys other layers of connectedness between the artists, in terms of their appeals and their talents. Nowadays, of course, Sir Elton is appreciated as a "classic" musician, knighted by the Queen of England, beloved by the late Diana, as well as any number of industry colleagues who used to think he was a little, well, strange, not to mention gay/bisexual, which he was openly, before it was fashionable or even very OK in standard pop and rock (his flamboyance made him resemble Liberace more than Mick Jagger; though, looking back, you start to see just how influential Liberace has been for so many "showmen" who have followed him). For all Elton John’s own excesses (addictions and other well-documented miseries), his principles have remained keen, to the point that he supported Eminem’s freedom of artistic speech and got him to hold hands with him on a really big stage, making the same case for tolerance, to everyone from would-be censors to homophobes to gay activists. Where John’s challenges to gender and sex protocols are well known, Timberlake’s are working more subtly. This is due in part to the fact that John and others laid the ground for the current generation’s freedoms and assumptions years ago. But it’s also due to continuing changes in attitude, such that young listeners are increasingly able to own their own gender and sexual ambiguities, their own conscientiously transgressive desires and well considered consumption choices (however disposable their income, most girls spend their money carefully). This shift, this newly visible fluidity in identity and identification processes, is hardly business as usual, and need not be dismissed because it is so colossally popular. As he rides and represents this shift, Justin is the boy I most want to be my girlfriend. Cynthia Fuchs, an associate professor of English, African American studies, and film & media studies at George Mason University, is the film/TV editor for PopMatters and film reviewer for Philadelphia Citypaper. Related Sites
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