Music and identity politics have been a burning topic ever since humanity invented the institutionalisation of music. The reason why it matters whether someone listens to pop, rock, house, jungle or whichever other genre available today (and we sure have a lot of them) is because these codes are used for some kind of a remote identification with a certain subculture and the whole baggage that comes with it. We all know that, but we also know about the rejection to identify to any subculture, bringing thus a new kind of fusion culture, which moves beyond the scope of any other subculture in particular and blends it all into one. This fusion culture came and washed away all the boarders, while still remaining heavily marked by identity politics, and refusing to experience any particular subculture at all.
Now how does it manage to do that? Cultures and subcultures and all that comes with it undergo commodification and become an accessory to whomever has access to it. A whole new desired set of meanings can be assigned if one simply bought in the idea of that new fusion culture. Fusion culture (some would call it hipsterism) screams: You can be whatever you want to be. You don’t have to bow down to nothing. Except to your own desires. And that’s where the sparks come from.
To bring the matter to this video, the one desire many can agree to have is acceptance. Acceptance comes in the shape of visibility: visibility of ourselves, those like us and/or those we can identify with. At this point, identity politics comes in pretty handy in the context of music. This documentary follows Scream Club, Nicky Click and some other self-identified queer artists who are protagonists of, as the director Julia Ostertag puts it, the new queer self-esteem. These artists are seeking for queer identity through the creation of queer music and creating a space where we can be more than that one option we are often confronted with. So that we can belong, here, there and everywhere we want.
Find out more about the documentary here >> www.andyoubelong.com
And You Belong Trailer
A film by: Julia Ostertag
Co-Produced by: Jürgen Brüning
Ft: Scream Club
Supporting protagonists including: Mz Sunday Luv, Nuclear Family, BadKat,
DJ Metzgerei, Heidi Mortenson, Nicky Click and Joey Casio
