Club Friday Q&A: The Prof Teaching a Class on Harry Styles
By Stacy Lee Kong
Image: Louie Dean Valencia
You might already recognize Louie Dean Valencia’s name. An associate professor of digital history at Texas State University and a long-time Harry Styles fan, he was inundated with media requests after announcing he’d developed a new class around Harry Styles this summer—and I was definitely one of them. I always love when academics pay attention to pop culture figures and this course—“Harry Styles And The Cult Of Celebrity: Identity, The Internet And European Pop Culture,” which focuses on the nature of celebrity and weaves in issues of race, gender, etc.—seems like a fascinating example of that. Luckily, Valencia wasn’t interviewed out and had time to chat with Friday Things about why he’s a fan of Harry Styles, the reading list for the course and the nature, and limits, of celebrities’ power.
Let’s start by talking about the course itself. What was your inspiration?
It really started in the summer of 2020 when, like many people, I was trying to figure out how to readjust my life given the pandemic. Normally, I spend my summers researching, usually in Europe, and that summer I wasn't able to do anything like that, so I was trying to think of the type of project I’d want to do. My position is in digital history, and I wanted to work on a project that really dissected what happened to us over the past 10 years, from 2010 to 2020—everything from social media becoming a much bigger part of people's lives to individuals being able to become minor celebrities themselves, to the presidency of a celebrity, Donald Trump, and also trying to figure out how to tie in Black Lives Matter, which was at the forefront that summer, and changing ideas of gender and sexuality.
I also wanted to do it in a way that was accessible, so I thought, ‘How much fun would it be to have a course that looks at the last 10 years through music?’ And from there, I realized Harry Styles would be a perfect anchor to look at these very complicated issues. His first solo song, “Sign Of The Times,” takes on issues around gun violence, and his first album has a song about bodily autonomy (“Kiwi”). I think it's an interesting way that students can think of very contemporary issues through the lens of a celebrity that they all know.
I also thought it would be interesting to see how a person in his position has changed. If you look at 2010 Harry Styles videos, particularly on The X Factor, he said very sexist things, but we’ve seen an evolution; he's moved from being this 16-year-old who said things that he probably regrets to being able to address them. He really moved his politics and his way of speaking about these things over the course of a decade.
I'm also a huge fan; I’m just gonna throw that out there. I think that was one of the first questions that a lot of people asked: ‘Is he a real fan?’ Yes. I played One Direction and Harry Styles all through grad school. That’s what helped get me through grad school.
Earlier this year, I interviewed an academic who studies celebrity feminism. She introduced me to the concept of the star text, the idea that what a celebrity says and does is almost marketing, so to fully understand them, you have to understand what their fans are saying and even the rumors that plague them and the wider narrative around them. In some ways, Harry Styles’ star text is very complicated.
Oh, absolutely. And I think it's partially because he started off when he was 16, and he's had moments where he has been more engaged on social media and less engaged.
One way to think about it is, celebrities like Taylor Swift and Beyoncé have been transgressive in some way. They're building on a legacy that they inherit, but also pushing forward. I think of Harry in the same sense; he comes from the same tradition that Little Richard, Elvis Presley and Big Mama Thornton [come from]; they were part of the early years of rock and roll, and that was picked up by David Bowie, by Prince, by Justin Timberlake.
Celebrities shift culture. I remember back in the day when Justin Timberlake was called a metrosexual because he was a straight guy who dressed well. A celebrity can be reflective of these types of changes in any given moment. And I think Harry's just one of those really prevalent examples right now, because of the diversity of his art, because he's produced so much very relatively quickly as a solo artist, but also because he is inheriting all these other things as well.
I think what Harry does especially well is that he really understands the female gaze, and he’s very good at making you feel like he has a connection with you. Did you see the video from the concert where he was like, ‘Hey, I just want to tell you like, I'm back from Venice. I just popped over quickly to spit on Chris Pine”? He's so good at doling out a little bit of snark and making you feel like you're part of the joke.
Exactly. I think that's one of the reasons why people go to his concerts. It's not just the music; it’s the feeling of interaction with him.
I've been to concerts where singers interact with the audience, but usually not to the level that he does. As someone who was a huge fan of boybands, I am not unfamiliar with young female fans saying, “Oh, my God, we had this conversation!!!” But usually, you’d know that really, ‘he’ just looked in her general vicinity. But Harry Styles is having real conversations and joking with people and remembering them from show to show. I don't know if everyone always understands that as a skill, but that is not easy to do.
There’s a whole concept called parasocial relationships, and I think he's very aware of what those are. I don't know if he knows the definition of a parasocial relationship, but he's aware of how they function. I've had conversations with fans at concerts who even reference the term; they very specifically use the phrase, like, “Yeah, I know that this is a parasocial relationship...”
There’s also a meta level to this, too, in the sense that a lot of times, when we're talking about Elvis or the Beatles, or NSYNC or the Backstreet Boys, there was an assumption that the fans—who might be teenage girls or queer boys—are just mindless, obsessive hormonal teens who were engaging in fandom uncritically. And I think what Harry has done is taken that assumption and flipped it. The fans know what's going on. He knows what's going on. And that relationship gives the fans a sense of authenticity.
How are you going to structure the class?
The class is based on understanding European culture, identity, the internet—all of these types of things. To do that, we're starting off the course with Big Mama Thornton and Little Richard, because I think a really important part of understanding anything about the history of rock and roll is understanding it is intrinsically part of the Black American experience and music history. This is also something that, during the Black Lives Matter movement of 2020, Harry brought to the forefront as well. So, the conversation is not just me throwing it out there; it's something that he's referenced himself.
A big part of this class is just thinking about the ways that women, young girls, and queer people are able to express themselves in these concert spaces through his music and why he resonates with them so much. We're going to be reading things like Susan Sontag’s Notes on Camp, which is all about queer issues. It's actually one of Harry's favorite books. A lot of what I'm trying to do is thinking about the material that he is openly identifying as part of his influences but also drawing the line of how these things fit into issues of race, gender, class, and nationality. Fortunately, this is pretty easy to do because he's talked enough about these types of things.
When I was in undergrad I wrote my thesis on fandom, so I read a lot of academic work on fan theory and the history of fandom, and one thing that has really stuck with me is an academic article on young female fans of The Beatles and how so much of Beatlemania spoke to what young girls were allowed to do. So, when boys became fans of things, they were able to go out and actually interact with the world, but girls’ interactions with the world were always mediated in the name of safety. So, it's not actually surprising that a lot of emotion would get put on to the Beatles, because it was about hormones but it was also about how girls were allowed to interact with the world—from home, through media, which is why the music industry worked so hard to commodify their desire. So, it's interesting that some of what you're talking about—in terms of how young hormonal teenagers interact with Harry—feels very similar to that, even though they’re separated by decades.
One way I think about it is, if you were to take a teenage boy who was going to see their favorite sports team and they paint their faces or wear the team’s shirt or whatever, that's often accepted without any sort of question. Grown men can do that, too. Whereas if a teenage girl dresses up to go to a concert and feels empowered to show love for their favourite celebrity, it is absolutely something that's denigrated.
What is kind of shifting with Harry Styles right now, though, it's that it's not just teenage girls. I've had multiple emails from fans who are in their 50s, 60s and 70s, who want to know how they can enroll in my course or just wanting my opinion on X thing. I think that's an interesting dynamic. I mean, he had an article in Better Homes and Gardens, which is not the audience that you typically think of for a former boyband member! So, I think that he's being very smart about growing his fan base as well.
Why do you think celebrities are such useful tools for this kind of political analysis?
My quick and easy answer is that nobody would doubt that you can study The Beatles to understand something about the 1960s, right? Or study Picasso to understand his period, or go down the list of artists who represent their period. But I think understanding something about what we're interested in, and who we're interested in today, gives a lens to all of these issues. I don't think every celebrity would work for this type of study—there are some celebrities who have more material out than others or more public lives than others. Harry, just by the nature of his celebrity, has a lot of material out there, which makes it easier to get into these types of issues.
Even the people who've talked about my class have surprised me—Donald Trump Jr. actually referenced it recently. When I announced the class, Carson Daly was talking about it. People are paying attention to a class that I’ve made, that’s for 20 students. But they’re not doing that because of me, the professor. They’re doing it because of the amount of power that somebody like Harry Styles has. There’s always interest around him, and they know that people will tune in or they will click. And when there is that type of ecosystem around someone, it makes it really easy to delve into all sorts of issues through the lens of one person.
I'm so glad that you said the word power because I think sometimes the notion of celebrity is diminished as meaningless or unimportant. I obviously disagree with that, but I also think it demonstrates a flawed understanding of power, because it is not only political or practical. Being so compelling that people will pay attention to you in multiple different contexts is a form of power.
It's what academics call cultural capital. It's the ability to change conversations, to inspire people to reconsider their opinions. If you want another example, Shawn Mendes often talks about sustainability and mental health issues; anytime his name comes up outside of his music, it’s usually one of those things, and I think being able to bring attention to those types of issues are absolutely evidence of power.
But it's not just that celebrities have power; they get that power from the people who celebrate them. If you have no fan base, then you have no power. And look at Ronald Reagan—he was a celebrity before he was a politician, so this isn't even a new phenomenon. And celebrities can use that power for good or ill in the world, which I think is another way to think about it: the celebrity is very much showing the values of the fans and the people who follow them. Sometimes it's just, ‘Okay, well, he's a good actor.’ But often, when it reaches the next level of stardom, it's more about what he stands for, what his positions are.
This is making me think about the celebrities who are the biggest in the world, what they stand for and what that says about us, as audiences that love them. Do you think the popularity of celebrities that are espousing progressive values, like Harry Styles, like Beyoncé, like Taylor Swift, says anything meaningful about where our society has gone or is going, politically and morally?
Oh, I would say absolutely. For example, I can't tell you how many straight guys I see now wearing what would have been very transgressive five years ago—pearl necklaces, painted fingernails. Harry's not the first person to do this, obviously, but I think he's mainstreamed it in a way that has really resonated with these types of [societal] changes, like the very specific change in what is considered masculine. If I were to point to any ideology behind Harry Styles, it's how do you combat toxic masculinity? From there, he does talk about race, he does talk about gun control, but his big message is treating people with kindness, and what’s interesting is, that concept is so broad and malleable. It's not that different from ‘do unto others,’ right? It's not an earth-shattering idea. But it is flexible enough that you can say, ‘Well, we should be talking about issues of equality, of anti-racism.’ These are flexible ethics that are easy for people to understand [and] can apply to a broad swath of ethics.
On the flip side, I'm also curious about the limits of celebrity. How much meaningful change can we actually expect to see that stems directly from what celebrities say?
I think the best example is when Taylor Swift, during the 2020 elections, told people go register to vote and voter registration spiked. That's a very concrete change. But, I also think culture often changes before laws change. So, if we ask, what are the hard concrete things that Harry Styles has done to change the world? We might not see that immediately because culture shifts first, and then we get the shift in laws and whatnot. People were largely pro-same-sex marriage before there was any sort of legal structure around that. So this type of cultural shift that celebrities are often at the forefront of is usually a precursor of things that happen.
Is there anything I didn't ask you about that you wanted to mention about the course, Harry or your work?
Harry Styles is a fantastic lens to understand the world that we live in. But I think if we had enough information about the average person, that would be as interesting of a focus for a class. Harry Styles has a lot of work, a lot of media attention, a lot of material, a lot of art. But a class like this can be done about just about anybody if we have enough material. So in that sense, celebrities are not the only people that we should be interested in studying.
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