Man-sized inside : a history of the construction of masculinity in The Tragically Hip's album Fully Completely

Abstract

Although The Tragically Hip’s Fully Completely is an unorthodox historical text, in-depth exploration of the landmark album prompts us to reconsider the role of musical experience in the production of gender in late twentieth-century Canada. This thesis frames gender as a reiterative performative-discursive production consisting of four interrelated elements: cultural symbol-systems; normative concepts; the politics of social institutions and organizations; and subjective identity. These elements operate symbiotically in a field of multiple, mobile, and routinely unequal relations. In order to further trace the construction of masculinity in Canada during the early 1990s, this thesis outlines the interacting historical contexts The Tragically Hip navigated through while writing, recording, and producing Fully Completely. Careful interdisciplinary consideration of the songs “Looking For A Place To Happen” and “Fifty-Mission Cap”provide specific examples of the performative-discursive formation of masculinity in the best-selling recording. This thesis concludes that Fully Completely functioned as an important platform for the constitution of gender in Canada. The album deployed and formed multiple comparative and contrasting masculinities as part of the compulsory maintenance of sexual difference as gender. This study of English-Canadian rock music urges scholars to continue exploring the role of musical experience in the production of gender identities.