Choreography, controversy and child sex abuse: Theoretical reflections on a cultural criminological analysis of dance in a pop music video
| Date | 01 May 2018 |
| Author | Melissa Dearey |
| Published date | 01 May 2018 |
| DOI | 10.1177/1362480617699159 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/1362480617699159
Theoretical Criminology
2018, Vol. 22(2) 189 –205
© The Author(s) 2017
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DOI: 10.1177/1362480617699159
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Choreography, controversy and
child sex abuse: Theoretical
reflections on a cultural
criminological analysis of dance
in a pop music video
Melissa Dearey
University of Hull, UK
Abstract
This article was inspired by the controversy over claims of ‘pedophilia!!!!’ undertones
and the ‘triggering’ of memories of childhood sexual abuse in some viewers by the
dance performance featured in the music video for Sia’s ‘Elastic Heart’ (2015). The
case is presented for acknowledging the hidden and/or overlooked presence of dance
in social scientific theory and cultural studies and how these can enhance and advance
cultural criminological research. Examples of how these insights have been used within
other disciplinary frameworks to analyse and address child sex crime and sexual trauma
are provided, and the argument is made that popular cultural texts such as dance in pop
music videos should be regarded as significant in analysing and tracing public perceptions
and epistemologies of crimes such as child sex abuse.
Keywords
Child sexual abuse, choreography, cultural criminology, dance, kinaesthetic, music
video
The representation of crime narratives in popular cultural forms as sources for entertain-
ment is ethically deeply fraught (Leszkiewicz, 2016). Adorno’s famous dictum concern-
ing the barbarism of poetry after Auschwitz illustrates the difficulties of using survivor
Corresponding author:
Melissa Dearey, University of Hull, Cottingham Road, Hull, East Yorkshire, HU6 7RX, UK.
Email: M.Dearey@hull.ac.uk
699159TCR0010.1177/1362480617699159Theoretical CriminologyDearey
research-article2017
Article
190 Theoretical Criminology 22(2)
testimony and/or trauma linked to atrocity level crime and suffering for the purposes of
art or entertainment; yet it remains that among the most moving, revealing and politically
challenging expressions of experiences of atrocity have been those rendered in popular
art forms such as posters, short animated films and cartoon strips (Copley, 2010), and
also, in more recent years, in popular music and video (e.g. Martin, 1998). These texts
stand as testaments to the endurance, credibility and legitimacy of memory and the diver-
sity, challenges and innovation of human creativity, often eliciting nuanced and complex
responses from mass audiences, some of whom have suffered similar trauma. Some
members of these mass audiences have had their own memories and experiences of
abuse denied, dismissed or repressed; for some, memories, feelings or experiences are
reinvigorated or ‘triggered’ by what they have seen or ‘consumed’ in popular cultural
media. Others who have not experienced such trauma, or have not had it ‘triggered’ by
such texts, nevertheless also express confusion or concern about the meanings of these
texts, and indeed about the role of popular culture and the right or ethics of artists to
express themselves in a manner that elicits such controversy and pain. These issues have
been raised recently in the social media controversy that has surrounding the dance per-
formance by a then 11-year-old girl (Madeleine Ziegler) and an older man (Shia Leboeuf)
featured in Sia’s pop music video for ‘Elastic Heart’ (Fuhler, 2015). As a criminologist
interested in the representation and public epistemologies of crime in popular media and
art, and also as a dancer myself interested in dance and movement theory, I was immedi-
ately curious about this controversy and what it might reveal about public and institu-
tional perceptions of a crime like child sex abuse, and what dance could offer for
criminological theory and analysis.
Utilizing interdisciplinary methodologies developed within dance and movement
studies (e.g. Adshead (latterly Adshead-Lansdale), 1986a, 1986b, 1988, 1999) and cul-
tural criminology (Ferrell and Sanders, 1995; Ferrell et al., 2004, 2008; Presdee, 2000),
this article presents an interdisciplinary analysis of this controversial dance perfor-
mance in the pop music video genre and audience reactions to it with respect to its
putatively ‘paedophilic’ overtones. At the centre of this analysis is a recognition—and
insistence—of the seminal importance of the dancing body as a moving, emotional and
visceral presence in this type of crime and victimization and public notions of it, and
the need for the integration into criminology of interdisciplinary methodologies
focused on choreography and expressive, emotional, visceral and moving bodies in
relationship to each other. This theoretical approach recognizes and prioritizes the role
of the body as a reliquary of memories of trauma and abuse in real and imagined time
and space, and the role of the arts to express and archive these memories and experi-
ences, as conceptualized within dance and by dance and movement studies. It is sug-
gested that this provides another avenue for understanding the cultural construction of
crimes that elicit high levels of public opprobrium and moral panic, and hence are
especially difficult to discuss, such as child sex abuse, and their representation and
memorialization in and through dance performance and popular culture. Broader meth-
odological and theoretical commentary linking criminology as a social science disci-
pline with dance and movement studies will be provided by way of justification and
background for readers who may be unfamiliar with dance and movement studies, and
its historical links with social science theory.
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