| dc.description.abstract | In this thesis, I argue that Jazz, a music which finds its basis in improvisation, not
only functions as music, but as an extremely potent means of political resistance to a
number of systems by and through which identity is constructed, distributed, regulated, and
enforced. I also argue that, as a form of music and of resistance, jazz is, quite
paradoxically, a part of the very system(s) that work(s) to construct, distribute, regulate, and
enforce normative and/or compulsory categories of identity—but that resistance always
takes place within the systems that give normative and/or compulsory categories of identity
their intelligibility. And, finally, I argue that there exists a relationship between jazz and
Judith Butler's theory of gender performativity, which functions as a means by which to
unsettle and subvert foundational categories of gender, sexuality, and race. In the following
pages, I examine the ways in which two texts, Ann-Marie MacDonald's Fall On Your Knees
(1996) and Anthony Minghella’s The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999) highlight and dramatize
each of these precepts. While Fall On Your Knees illustrates the various ways jazz and
gender performativity work to subvert and unsettle foundational categories of identity. The
Talented Mr. Ripley, quite alternatively, illustrates the various ways in which jazz and
gender performativity sustain these same foundational categories of identity by allowing
Tom Ripley an entrance into normativity. Although each text—in which jazz and gender
performativity play and intricate role in the subversive practices of signification but are
unable to provide a number of characters a means of sustained and successful
subversion—ends on an ultimately dour note, the fact that subversion occurs at all is what
remains important. | |
