“sad girl starter pack”; En musikguide till ledsna lesbiska flickor

Sammanfattning: This study argues that shame and negative feelings such as fear and envy are central in contemporary lesbian music despite the dominant academic narrative that depressing lesbian music was left behind at the turnover to queer theory and culture in the 1990s. Lesbian shame is an area of study that has been overlooked by queer theory despite a consensus that gay and queer shame are important. This paper investigates how narratives of shame are present in contemporary lesbian music. In addition, contemporary music is contextualized using women’s music from the lesbian feminist movement to situate contemporary music in its historical context. Narrative analysis is used to analyze three songs from the sad girl genre as case studies.This paper concludes that narratives of shame and negative feelings such as envy and fear are a consistent theme in contemporary lesbian music. The genre is highly influenced by essentialist ideals from the 1970’s despite today’s supposedly inclusive music industry. Concluding the discussion, sad girl music constructs and reflects a contemporary dominant narrative of lesbian experience and further studies of the topic can continue to analyze and understand the continual narrative construction of LGBTQIA-identities through popular music.