This is the sixth blog post in a projected series reviewing The Legacy of Elise Hall: Contemporary Perspectives on Gender and the Saxophone, edited by Kurt Bertels and Adrianne Honnold, published by Leuven University Press, 2024.
This post focuses on the fifth chapter, or the first of two chapters in Part III labelled Beyond Elise Hall: Gender, Media & Culture in the 1920s. This chapter, “He puts the pep in the party”: Gender and Iconography in 1920s Buescher Saxophone advertisements, is by Sarah V. Hetrick.
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French is a funny language. Words have genders. Perhaps we can blame patriarchal thinking for le vagin, le sein and l’ovaire.
Otherwise, gender association appears to be totally arbitrary. Take musical instruments in the female category:
la voix, la flûte, la clarinette, la percussion, la clarine, la harpe, la trompette and la guitarre.
And in the male category:
l’hautbois, le basson, le cor anglais, le trombone, le tuba, le pianoforte, l’orgue and le violon.
Et nous, nous jouons le saxophone.
Is the saxophone a masculine instrument?
Hetrick suggests it is, and that one way this identity-association came about emerged in the late 1920s when advertisements for Buescher saxophones shifted focus. Instead of extolling the virtues of the instrument, as had been done in the past, these new ads indicated, “…that the purchase of a saxophone would bring social, romantic, and financial gains.” (page 138)
But not for women.
Instead, applying what is described today as the, “male gaze theory” (page 137) where, “…women are objectified to appeal to heterosexual male desires…” (page 138) this type of aspirational ad positioned women as prizes, not players.
You know the trope: The man has the skills. The woman flashes her lashes.
According to Hetrick, this advertising strategy, employed by Buescher, “…ultimately perpetuated the saxophone as a symbol of masculinity.” (page 138)
Ah, yes.
“The instrument of love,” was the response I got when I told my optometrist that I played the sax back in the 90s.
“Women really go for tone,” was the sly advice provided to a male friend of mine who also played the sax.
Change the a to an e—you’ve got an association that’s hard to deny.
But there were other types of advertisements. Hetrick notes,
“Extensive survey of advertisements between 1915 and 1930 returned a few categories of advertisements: those that solely market the ease of learning the saxophone, those that feature endorsing artists and popular music ensembles, and those that depict amateurs in social settings. In addition to advertisements that feature a few prominent female-presenting artists and teachers, such as Kathryne E. Thompson, there are a small portion of Buescher and C. G. Conn advertisements featuring female-presenting amateur figures and music ensembles.” (page 138)
It seems other approaches were explored, indicating that instrument manufacturers were aware of the various motivations that may inspire a person to pick up a saxophone. While not targeted, women were not entirely excluded either.
In one Buescher ad from 1924 (Figure 5.1) the opening text reads as follows:
“Learn at Home
Without a Teacher
It’s easy—thousands of others are doing it right now—men, women, boys and girls—on this wonderful
Buescher
True-Tone
Saxophone” (italics/bold mine)
And while, in some ads, the presentation of the saxophone as an, “…agent for masculinity…” (page 141) in undeniable, especially with regard to the images selected, the majority of the text is more broad in scope, mostly highlighting how easy the instrument is to play.
Did the people reading these ads readily accept these overblown claims? As a natural skeptic I have a hard time believing that advertisements from any time and place represent the reality on the ground.
Still, saxophones were selling like hotcakes in the 1920s, and it would appear that these ads have left a historical residue on our collective understanding. While passively flipping through a magazine and seeing these types of ads, both men and women may have been left with the impression, however vague, that the saxophone is an instrument to be played by men. Advertising shapes perception. Unintentionally absorbed first impressions permeate a society, and then, over time, a culture.
Even today the saxophone skews male. In most other cultures there are more men than women players. These are people whose ancestors would have never laid eyes on American magazine advertisements and who only feel American influence at a distance. Myriad factors must be at play. Some motivations are still unseen or at least unclear to this saxophonist.
Luckily, these fabricated ideas, constructed by admen in the 1920s, have failed. While traces remain, the objectives suggested in the ads—finding love, making friends and most hilariously, becoming financially successful seem distant if not obsolete.
We have better reasons to play the saxophone today.
Thankfully, those who study the saxophone seriously learn to respect it for what it is: An inanimate object, neither male nor female, when, in the right hands, is capable of the highest forms of musical expression.
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