“AMERICAN IDIOT”: EXAMINING READERS’ SUBJECT
POSITION IN ONE OF GREEN DAY’S ALBUMS
A Research Paper
Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirement for Sarjana Sastra Degree in Indonesia University of Education
By:
Admiral Indra Supardan (0806183)
ENGLISH EDUCATION DEPARTMENT
FACULTY OF LANGUAGE AND ARTS EDUCATION
INDONESIA UNIVERSITY OF EDUCATION
AMERICAN IDIOT : EXAMINING
READERS’ SUBJECT POSITION IN
ONE OF GREEN
DAY’S ALBUMS
Oleh
Admiral Indra Supardan
Sebuah skripsi yang diajukan untuk memenuhi salah satu syarat memperoleh gelar Sarjana pada Fakultas Pendidikan Bahasa dan Seni
© Admiral Indra Supardan 2013 Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia
Maret 2013
Hak Cipta dilindungi undang-undang.
PAGE OF APPROVAL
“AMERICAN IDIOT”: EXAMINING READERS’ SUBJECT POSITION IN ONE OF GREEN DAY’S MUSIC ALBUMS
By
Admiral Indra Supardan 0806183
Approved by:
First Supervisor Second Supervisor
Bachrudin Musthafa, M.A., Ph.D.
NIP. 1957031011987031001
Nicke Yunita Moecharam, S.Pd., M.A.
NIP. 198206302005012001
Head of Department of English Education Faculty of Languages and Arts Education
Indonesia University of Education
ABSTRACT
This research paper entitled “American Idiot”: Examining Readers’ Subject Position in One of Green Day’s Music Albums is aimed at investigating the ways by which the sixth album of Green Day, American Idiot (2004), ideologically positioned the implied readers in opposite to the USA political agenda. A qualitative descriptive study is employed in this present study. In analyzing the album, which consists of 13 songs, three theoretical frameworks are used: ideological analysis by John Lye (1997), context framework by Adrian Beard (2001), and John Stephens’ (1992) narrative transactions—where he locates the implied readers as the ideological function of a text. By having those frameworks within the analysis, the study discovers five socio-cultural issues, recognized as an attempt to position the implied readers in opposite the US political agenda in Bush administration. These assumptions within the issues known as a subject position are ideologically offered to the readers or the implied readers through narrative aspects; point of view and narrator.
ABSTRAK
Kajian penelitian ini berjudul “American Idiot”: Examining Readers’ Subject Position in One of Green Day’s Music Albums. Tujuan penillitian ini adalah menganalisa cara-cara yang dikembangkan di album keenam dari Green Day, American Idiot (2004), dalam memposisikan pembaca yang dituju (implied reader) secara ideologis, untuk menentang agenda politis Amerika Serikat. Adapun metodologi yang digunakan dalam kajian ini adalah kualitatif deskriptif. Tiga kerangka teori yang digunakan untuk menganalisa album yang terdiri dari 13 lagu ini adalah: ideological analysis oleh John Lye (1997), context framework olehAdrian Beard (2001), dan John Stephens’ (1992) narrative transactions—yang menempatkan implied reader sebagai fungsi ideologis di dalam sebuah teks. Dengan menggunakan teori tersebut, kajian ini mengemukakan bahwa ada lima isu kultur-sosial yang diyakini sebagai upaya untuk memposisikan implied reader, untuk menentang agenda politis Amerika Serikat pada masa pemerintahan Bush. Asumsi atau isu-isu ini dikenal sebagai posisi subjek (subject position), dan secara ideologis ditawarkan kepada implied reader menggunakan alat yang dikenal sebagai aspek-aspek narasi, yakni: sudut pandang cerita (point of view) dan pembawa cerita(narrator).
TABLE OF CONTENTS
STATEMENT OF AUTHORIZATION ... Error! Bookmark not defined. PREFACE ... Error! Bookmark not defined. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ... Error! Bookmark not defined. ABSTRACT ... Error! Bookmark not defined.
TABLE OF CONTENTS ... vi
LIST OF TABLES ... ix
LIST OF FIGURES ... x
LIST OF APPENDICES ... xi
CHAPTER I lNTRODUCTION ... 1
1.1. Background of the Study ... 1
1.2. Research Question ... 6
1.3. Aims of the Study ... 6
1.4. Scope of the Study ... 6
1.5. Significance of the Study ... 7
1.6. Methodology ... 7
1.6.1. Research Method ... 7
1.7. Clarification of the Terms ... 8
1.8. Organization of Paper ... 9
CHAPTER II THEORETICAL FOUNDATION ... 11
2.1. Framework of Ideology ... 12
2.1.1. Ideology in Linguistics Stance ... 13
2.1.2. Ideology in Literary Text ... 15
2.2. Subject Position and Implied Reader ... 23
2.3. The Ideology of American Empire ... 25
4.1.1. Socio-Cultural Issues ... 38 4.1.2. Reader Subject Position and the Implied Reader ... 47 4.2. Discussion ... 53 CHAPTER V
LIST OF TABLES
LIST OF FIGURES
2.1 Seymour Chatman’s Illustration of the Role of the Implied Reader. 4.1 Frame of Narrative Transactions.
LIST OF APPENDICES
Appendix 1 A Complete Text of the American Idiot Album Lyrics
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
This chapter encompasses the introduction of the study that covers background of the study, statement of problems, aims of the study, research methods, and the organization of the paper.
1.1. Background of the Study
Due to the rapid advancement of technology, today’s society could access any
kind of music all around the globe easily. Despite the fact that technology has a substantial role in music, the writer would rather outline an issue of how ideology manifested in a song might have a massive impact on its society. As a kind of entertainment, the existence of the music or song is identified or perceived differently by the society. Some people might see this role of music or song as a mean or medium to voice the right of marginalized society, a medium of propaganda, and any other things related to social phenomena.
escapistmagazine.com in October 2012, UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon believes
that by its global reach and the implicit meaning lies within the song, he finds it helpful for him in attempt to establish world peace. The song that has been widely known for its world record— topped YouTube viewers of all history (1,308,121,490 viewers , viewed in February 12, 2013) is the reason why he reckons that the song has unlimited reach all around the globe.
The phenomenon on how music could easily widespread among society brings another effect; still, in relation to ideology of the song. One of the negative examples on how the ideology of the song may affect its society can be found on the following tragic event. According to Dailymail.co.uk in 2008, a girl named Hannah Bond (13) hanged herself after allegedly becoming obsessed with “Emo”—fashion which is famously brought by a well-known band, My Chemical Romance in their album Welcome to the Black Parade (2006). She further found out through the Internet the way how emo scenes—emo fanatics live. Therefore, this case marks the existence of ideology in the song album or a song, which is taken a follow up action by those who see this ideology. However, this research would like to examine on how readers or in this case audience, is positioned to the manifested ideology in the song album.
ideology or thoughts, beliefs and attitudes that relates to social and politic as an individual (Thompson, 1984). Furthermore, Fiske on his book Cultural and Communication Studies (1990) states the ideology as a social practice. Indeed, the
song could be a medium to manifest and disseminate ideology in which the writer has previously accentuated on how the existence of the music in the society.
The exact definition of the ideology is difficult to pin down. Nealon and Giroux (2003) in their book The Theory Toolbox characterize the features of ideology as false consciousness, prescriptive, descriptive, and dynamic. While Hollindale`s Three Levels of Ideology (1998) as cited on Wannamaker (2009) notes that ideology is beliefs which are left unexamined by the writer and it slips into the text unseen with people’s bare eyes. Other definitions are stated in the Fiske`s (1990) book which states that Karl Marx defines ideology as a set of ideas used by ruling social class to be accepted in the society as something natural; while Gramsci, cited in the same book, defines ideology as a hegemony which needs to be striven for. Still, the ideology is defined by Beard`s Text and Context: An Introduction to Literature and Language Study (2001) as the attitudes, values and assumptions that refers to the
systems of ideas and characters of an individual or a group.
Day: A Musical Biography (2010) mentions on how the album could create a massive
change in the band, yet it is the mark of the top career of the band itself by having more than 25 awards for its album in range 2005 to 2006. The album, which would be filmed in 2012 (Egerdahl, 2010), was released in 2004 or around the time when American society faced an aftermath of devastating event in September 11, 2001 or known as 9/11. Billie Joe (a lead vocalist, guitarist and main songwriter of Green Day) on his interview in 2011 said that his band was anxious to voice the feelings of their society and tried to protest the government under the reign of G.W. Bush. Indeed, what is being criticized by the album is the ideology of what Ryn (2003) called as American Empire Ideology.
This ideology generally introduces United States as the leader in order to make the world not only safer but also better that the writer tends to call it as a utopian belief. The ideology appeared in the album as a cliché thing. This “nearly
messianic role” (coined by Washington Post) of US had brought another humanity
agenda that the writer thought was so dehumanizing; such as the raid on Iraq. That agenda, the raid, had been marked as Bush’s justification for the sake of the tragedy
of 9/11 of his grandiose plan to annihilate terrorism.
cover a context framework; writer`s, text`s, reading`s, and language`s context. This methodology will be discussed further in chapter three; not to mention that Stephens’ theory (1992) of implied readers and subject position is further explained, due to the basic needs of the analysis of readers’ subject position in the text.
The writer finds many researchers have conducted the same study about lyrics, such as: Oppression Against Children in Iwan Fals Song Lyrics by Munawaroh, (2011), and Identity Construction As Depicted in Avril Lavigne`s Songs: An Analysis of Characterization Using Transitivity System by Laela (2011). Even
those researches were analyzing about lyrics, but none of them investigated the ideology that exists in the text. Munawaroh’s research for instance, as it is cited in repository.upi.edu (2012), she investigates a song lyrics by employing semiotic
approach proposed by Barthes and theory of oppression by Young (1990). While Laela scrutinizes Avril Lavigne`s songs by applying Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) that aims to seek the answer of two formulated research questions: the identity construction as depicted in the Avril Lavigne’s song’s lyrics and the types of
1.2. Research Question
The writer would like to examine readers’ subject position in Green Day`s
album American Idiot. To do so, here is a question that the writer would like to establish:
In what way(s) does Green Day’s album American Idiot ideologically position
the implied reader(s) in opposite to the USA political agenda?
1.3. Aims of the Study
In line with the question above, the aim of the study will be listed as follow: To find out on the way(s) of Green Day’s album American Idiot ideologically
positions the implied reader(s) in opposite to or against the USA political agenda.
1.4. Scope of the Study
In narrowing down the scope of the study, the writer puts only the first Green Day`s concept album, American Idiot, which was released on February 21, 2004. In order to grasp the way the album positioned the implied reader(s) in opposite to the USA political agenda, the writer sticks on the Beard`s (2001) approaches, Ideological Analysis initiated by Lye (1997) and Stephens’ (1992) theory of implied readers and
1.5. Significance of the Study
It is expected that the readers will be more aware of how ideology operates in texts that positioned readers in a certain way to either reject or conform the ideology in song lyrics. To some extends, this research will hopefully inspire the writer`s own society, especially musicians to create their works even better.
1.6. Methodology
1.6.1. Research Method
This study employs qualitative approach in accomplishing the main goal of the study. It focuses on describing, interpreting, analyzing, and criticizing the ideology of Green Day`s album American Idiot (2004). In doing so, the tool in dissecting the ideology will rely on Beard`s (2001) a context framework and Lye`s (1997) Ideological Analysis. Stephens (1992) theory of implied readers and subject position are utilized due to the basic needs of examining readers’ subject position in the album. Further details of methodology will be presented in chapter III.
1.6.2. Data Collection and Analysis
library research to enrich the understanding of ideological position in text. To conduct the research, the writer follows some steps as follow:
1. Collect the data from the album of American Idiot.
2. Read the theory of Beard and Lye (1997) on context and ideology, and Stephens’ (1992) theory of implied readers and subject position.
3. Listen carefully to the whole songs.
4. Identify and list some issues in the album, and interpret the songs. 5. Apply Beard and Lye`s approaches into the text.
6. Elaborate the whole songs, the questions, and the information that has been obtained earlier from articles, journals, interviews and books.
7. Determine the subject position along with implied readers and implied author of the album.
8. Draw conclusions and suggestions based on the findings and results of the study.
1.7. Clarification of the Terms
Since the research explores many studies to be discussed, the writer will reassert them under the clarification listed as follows:
and series of attacks were launched on America (BBC.co.uk). Furthermore, the reign of G.W. Bush put its society on panic because of his controversial series of policies, including the agenda of Iraq invasion.
2. Ideology: Theoretically speaking, ideology is what people think before people think or act (Nealon & Giroux, 2003). Thus, the ideology is hidden behind the text. Critically speaking, the term ideology itself refers to the ideology initiated mainly by Beard (2001) and Lye (1997).
3. Song Lyrics: In defining the term lyrics, it is often associated with the literary work which is written based on someone`s point of view which is subjective. In accordance to Online Etymology Dictionary, the term lyrics refer to “words of popular song”, that consists of choruses and verses that main message of the lyrics itself can be told whether implicitly or explicitly.
4. Readers’ Subject Position: Defining readers’ subject position might engage in a discussion about a moment where a reader interprets the text’s implicit ideology—
known by Stephens (1992) as a process of subjection. He further asserts that literary text, as an object of reading, and reader as a subject both have their own sense of self. Therefore, a reader’s subject position will always confront with a numerous subject positions within a text.
1.8. Organization of Paper
CHAPTER I
This chapter contains background of the study, research questions, aims of the study, scope of the study, significance of the study, clarification of the terms, and organization of the paper.
CHAPTER II
It consists of theoretical review that provides a basis for conducting the research problems.
CHAPTER III
This section contains the research methodology, discussing the steps and procedures of the study, and the data resources in conducting the study.
CHAPTER IV
In this part the result of the research will be presented. This chapter contains the research findings and discussion.
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER III
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
3.1. Research Problem
The writer would like to examine readers’ subject position in Green Day`s
album American Idiot. To do so, here is a question that the writer would like to establish:
In what way(s) does Green Day’s album American Idiot ideologically position
the implied reader(s) in opposite to the USA political agenda?
3.2. Research Method
The study focuses on describing, interpreting, analyzing, and criticizing the ideology of Green Day`s album American Idiot (2004). In doing so, the tool in dissecting the ideology relies on Beard`s (2001) a context framework and Lye`s (1997) Ideological Analysis. The role of Lye`s approaches itself is more applicable for this study. Thus, the role of Beard theory itself is operated as the main framework; so that ideology could be identified in certain ways.
In addition, the study involves Stephen’s (1992) frame of narrative transactions to seek the ideological position of the album through the perspective of narrative process. Furthermore, by putting this theory into the analysis, the writer expects to gain some relevant findings related to subject position and implied reader as the ideological function of the album—discussion that deals with the main question.
3.3. Data Collection
The data were gained from Green Day`s album American Idiot (2004). The album lyrics were taken from the cassette tape cover and it has been re-synchronized with the songs. Those thirteen songs are: 1. American Idiot, 2. Jesus of Suburbia, 3. Holiday, 4. Boulevard of Broken Dreams, 5. Are We Waiting, 6. St.Jimmy, 7. Give Me
Novacaine, 8. She`s a Rebel, 9. Extraordinary Girl, 10. Letterbomb, 11. Wake Me Up
was converted into word texts from the lyrics that is found on the cassette tape cover text in order to ease the analysis. In order to answer the research question, the data is made in a form of words, phrases and to sentences. The section below elaborates the writer`s data analysis in a detailed way.
3.4. Research Procedures
The structure of the songs in the album remains unchanged due to several issues within. The song entitled Wake Me up When September Ends, for instance, is intentionally put as the twelfth song; since it encloses an issue of 9/11 tragedy. However, the image presented in the album was not included since the analysis of this study revealed only the contents of the songs in the album.
To grasp the meaning, the writer then replayed each song more than ten times. This was meant to make the song fully understood, for the reason that a song entitled Rock and Roll Girlfriend was sung by the drummer Tre Cool has its meaning: it
recalls the life of Cool himself. This was also meant to inspire the writer in analyzing the album.
After the previous point, while the writer was identifying and listing several issues, he was interpreting the songs as well. In this process, the writer finds a specific term that took in the grand issue. The term used in this study is The Ideology of American Empire by Ryn. The writer considered this term to be more relevant after
he read two different books, Green Day: American Idiots & The New Punk Explosion by Myers (2006) and musical biography of Green Day by Egerdahl (2010).
Further steps taken was both applying Beard, Lye`s approaches, and elaborating the whole songs, questions, and any information needed. It is followed by putting Stephens (1992) methods on implied readers or as a part of narrative process into the album. This step was taken before the writer drew the conclusions and suggestions based on those findings and result of the study.
3.5. Data Presentation
These assumptions cover things that are natural, just and right. Yet, it shows
the other issues of “What and who do these assumptions distort or obscure?” and
things which are mystified.
Table 3.1
The more complete references of the data are available in the appendices.
Songs Assumption Comments
Bush’s administration is through pointing the media that had been used to
disseminate the
CHAPTER V
CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS
This chapter encapsulates the present study based on the previous chapters; I, II, III, and IV. Furthermore, it features suggestions for further study related to the analysis of ideological operation in literary text.
5.1. Conclusions
It has been accentuated in chapter one that this study draws on Green Day’s sixth album American Idiot (2004) as the primary source and is aimed to seek the answer on: “In what way(s) does the album ideologically position the implied reader
To seek the answer of the main question, the writer starts with examining the basic ideology that operates/manifested in the album. The study discerns that the album generally works as a vehicle to oppose the US government political agenda. This assumption has been examined by deploying Lye’s approaches (1997) in
analyzing ideology in the text, strengthened by the Beard’s approach (2001).
Through Lye’s approaches, five socio cultural issues have emerged throughout the
album, those are: The role of media as the “truest” source of information, domestic affairs comes second in priority, society is the site of government’s propaganda, the
President of USA had absolute power, and USA turns into a dystopian nation. The
issues are considered as the initial ideology of the album or the ideological stances of the album. Therefore, having introduced to those negative perceptions towards the US is considered as one of the ways directed to lead the implied readers into opposing the government political agenda.
Another way used to position the implied reader against the US political agenda is through the analysis of the narrative function of the album American Idiot. The use of persona and point of view have both designed by the implied author to invite the implied reader’s mind to get involved with the idea, and to familiarize it,
the choice of words such as “we/our/you/I” are all applied throughout the album. This
That is to say, the answers of the main question are basically rooted in two major approaches; by introducing five negative socio cultural issues and constructing the role of persona along with the point of view or the perspective imbued with ideological value.
5.2. Suggestions
References
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