Choreography, controversy and child sex abuse: Theoretical reflections on a cultural criminological analysis of dance in a pop music video

Abstract

This article was inspired by the controversy over claims of ‘pedophilia!!!!’ undertones and the ‘triggering’ of memories of childhood sexual abuse in some viewers by the dance performance featured in the music video for Sia’s ‘Elastic Heart’ (2015). The case is presented for acknowledging the hidden and/or overlooked presence of dance in social scientific theory and cultural studies and how these can enhance and advance cultural criminological research. Examples of how these insights have been used within other disciplinary frameworks to analyse and address child sex crime and sexual trauma are provided, and the argument is made that popular cultural texts such as dance in pop music videos should be regarded as significant in analysing and tracing public perceptions and epistemologies of crimes such as child sex abuse.

A guilty pleasure: The legal, social scientific and feminist verdict against rap

“…Theorization of governance and carceral feminism elucidates how certain renditions of gender justice seize power through a ‘politics of injury and of traumatized sensibility’ (Halley, 2008: 210) to manifest social control strategies and punitive logics (Bernstein, 2010). Cultural criminology situates the criminal justice system within a broader cultural context (in this case, in relation to social science and feminism) to produce ‘public epistemologies of crime’ (Dearey, 2018: 190). Moral panic theory will be referenced throughout (Cohen, 2015), signifying a socio-legal overreaction to rap as a seemingly new threat to society, grounded within the race–crime nexus (Hall et al, 2013).…”