“I Think I'm Gonna Throw up …”: Toward a Cultural Theory of Shock Radio

Abstract

Focusing on the period 1999–2003, this study examines the cultural content of the Howard Stern Show in order to develop a theory of shock radio. We argue that while Stern's sexist and anti-feminist agenda framed his treatment of women's bodies, his broader obsession with bodily excess reflected the particular cultural moment of the late 20th century and the long-term problem of embodiment via the radio medium. We draw on Linda William's concept of body genres, M. M. Bakhtin's grotesque body, and recent radio scholarship in order to conceptualize the relationship among the voice, the body, and the medium in shock radio.

Notes

Notes

¹ We used a random number generator to create a list of numbers between 1–31 in order to choose 2 days per month of MarksFriggin.com program summaries. If a number/date fell on a weekend, we sampled the next available weekday. We sampled two summaries per month for 6 months of each year, excluding “best of” shows, which usually had truncated summaries. We sampled the months of February, March, April, September, October, and November because they are months of high listenership and include the periods when producers vie for audience ratings.

² We distinguish non-sexual from sexual practices based on whether or not they are framed as sexually titillating by show participants. We are not claiming that there is any fixed distinction between what is or is not construed as a “sexual act” under particular social, cultural, or other circumstances.

³ These performances echo a history of “shock comedy” cinema, most notably director John Waters' successful films like Pink Flamingos (1972), Desperate Living (1977), and Polyester (1981). Waters' films implicitly reference more obscure “shock” art-house films such as Kenneth Anger's Scorpio Rising (1964), and indirectly draw on Tod Browning's Freaks (1932). All of these films are derived in one way or another from very early silent cinema shorts, which often used the spectacle of the human body to sell tickets (e.g., The Edison Company's Sandow the Strongman [1894]). Finally, as much as Stern's body trick gags seem influenced by shock cinema, gross-out prankster/trickster television shows of the early 2000s such as Jackass and The Tom Green Show seem just as heavily influenced by Stern.

⁴ Scott Wilson (2010) offers a very different interpretation of Fear Factor's rituals of public humiliation as abject experiences that discipline bodies, and confirm the hegemony of capitalist ideology.

⁵ This happened in an episode of the HBO series Six Feet Under (2001–2005). Stern's guest, then, may have been a case of life imitating art, art imitating life, performance art, or something else all together.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Joy Elizabeth Hayes

Joy Elizabeth Hayes (Ph.D., University of California, San Diego, 1994) is associate professor in the Department of Communication Studies at the University of Iowa. Her research and teaching interests include the cultural history of broadcasting in the U.S. and Mexico, community radio in Latin America, and media history and theory.

Dana Gravesen

Dana Gravesen is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Communication Studies at the University of Iowa. His current research interests include nationalism and identity with regard to Dominican-American media, U.S. broadcasting history, and critical cultural media theory.