MERCURY
AND GLOBALISATION
Malcom Waters (2001) defines the process of globalisation as ‘[a] social process in which the constraints of geography on economic, political, social and cultural arrangements recede, in which people become increasingly aware that they are receding and in which people act accordingly’ (p.5). Waters’ definition suggests that as the borders between nations subside in this social phase, civilisation adapts and people act according to a new method of organisation. For all economies, politics and cultures to work together it suggests that there needs to be a common system. This causes world-wide conflicts as it indicates an inevitable form of homogenisation. For instance, Benjamin R. Barber predicted, in 1992, that the world could be progressing towards a ‘McWorld’. This term refers to the spread of McDonald chains which results in an American company dominating the fast-food markets across the globe. Moreover, in these restaurants there is a certain familiarity which is resonant of its American roots that pervades local cultures where these franchises are built. The effect of this is ‘a dull and homo-
From Asian roots to global success. The transition between left to right does not seem so shocking, because
there is a clear British influence in Mercury's school uniform.
Figure 1.
Figure 2.
are built . The effect of this is ‘a dull and homogenised place’ (Waters, 2001, p.222) due to the loss of traditional cultures in favour of Western attitudes from the ‘developed’ world.
This case study will be looking at the band Queen which was a global success in the 1970s and 1980s and how the process of globalisation impacted on its conception and image. Although Queen is culturally synonymous with a concept of being British, the band’s frontman Freddie Mercury (who was the biggest contributor towards this image) was in fact Asian. He was born Farsu Bulsara in Zanzibar to Parsi heritage parents, and educated in India. He did not move to Britain until he was seventeen, at a time when ‘Asian youths were often stereotyped and portrayed as passive victims, trapped between two cultures and un cool’ (Donnell, 2002, p.207). Little comment was made about Mercury’s ethnicity in the media even when the Asian music scene was starting to be represented in the late 1980s (p.208). Due to ‘his pale Parsee skin, few questioned the cultural origins of Mercury when he was alive [furthermore, he] never publicly admitted his Indian ethnicity [and] this deception is a poignant reflection of the 1970’s and 1980’s, when it was thought that Asians could not be popular music stars’(Donnell, 2002, p.200). This indicates that
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