On the Threshold of Becoming: Transgender Monstrosity in the Music of Kim Petras and Arca
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Monsters have always existed.For as long as humans have formed societies there have been monsters lurking on the outskirts; a shorthand for everything dangerous, different and unknown.The figure of the monster defines the outer limits of normal; demonstrating when unusual becomes unacceptable and showcasing the revulsion and rejection awaiting wretched creatures who cannot conform.Given this context, it is little wonder that a marginalized group of people would resonate with tales of monstrosity.In "My Words to Victor Frankenstein above the Village of Chamounix" Susan Stryker likens her experience as a transgender woman to that of the Creature in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, a being forced to fumble blindly through a society that is actively hostile to its existence.In this thesis I use Stryker's monstrous affect of transgender rage as a starting point to explore how trans artists Kim Petras and Arca embrace a monstrous aesthetic in their music.I examine the role of the monster in society and in fiction, outlining the queer interpretations of several common archetypes before more closely analysing the monstrous trans affect present in the music and imagery of Petras and Arca.Petras' Turn Off the Light mixtapes draw from the taboo desires of gothic horror, while Arca's Kick quintet centers the uncanniness of alien and cyborgian entities.Both artists present strong figures that deviate from societal expectations due to their assertive sexualities and trans identities, a deviation that earns them the title of monster.This thesis aims to highlight the distinctly transcoded nature of their monstrous personas and frame their music as a continuation of the preexisting practice of queer people finding strength in reclaiming monstrosity. AbrégéLes monstres ont toujours existé.Dès la formation des sociétés, des monstres apparaissent en périphérie, symbolisant le péril, la différence et l'inconnu.En incarnant ce qui dépasse l'ordinaire, le monstre met en évidence la frontière de l'acceptable, démontrant comment la différence devient motif de dégoût et d'exclusion envers ceux qui ne peuvent pas se conformer.Il n'est pas surprenant que des individus marginalisés s'intéressent aux récits de monstruosité dans un tel contexte.Susan Stryker, dans « My Words to Victor Frankenstein Above the Village of Chamounix », assimile son expérience de femme transgenre à celle de la Créature de Frankenstein dans le roman de Mary Shelley, condamnée à avancer à l'aveugle dans une société qui rejette sa présence.Dans ce thèse, j'utilise l'affect monstrueux de la rage transgenre de Stryker comme point de départ pour explorer comment les artistes trans Kim Petras et Arca adoptent une esthétique monstrueuse dans leur musique.Je m'intéresse à la fonction du monstre dans la société et dans la fiction, en soulignant les perspectives queer sur différents archétypes, avant d'examiner en profoundeur l'affect trans monstrueux dans les œuvres de Petras et Arca.Les mixtapes Turn Off the Light de Petras s'inspirent des désirs tabous de l'horreur gothique, tandis que le quintette Kick d'Arca se concentre sur l'étrangeté des entités extraterrestres et cyborgiennes.Affirmant ouvertement leurs sexualités et leurs identités trans, les deux artistes prennent des positions en rupture avec les attentes sociétales, ce qui leur vaut d'être qualifiées de monstres.Ce travail propose de révéler la trans-codification de leurs figures monstrueuses et d'analyser leur musique dans la continuité de la démarche queer qui valorise la monstruosité.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.015 | 0.015 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.006 | 0.003 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.004 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.005 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.004 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".