Brother “Killer” Kane: Resistance, Identification, and the Intersection of Rock Music and Religious Values in New York Doll

Abstract

ABSTRACT This essay contributes an analysis of a popular culture text as a mediated representation of conversion and religious identification. Using Kenneth Burke’s (1984) critical concepts of identification and framing, the 2005 independent film New York Doll is analyzed as a site of the intersection between religion as tradition and music as resistance. An inductive analysis of the film is conducted examining a) the cultural processes of identity, oppression, and resistance and b) the tension between punk rock culture and Mormon culture. Kane, the ex-rock star and LDS convert protagonist of the film presents a locus of the tension between these cultural processes. Ultimately, though this tension remains unresolved, the author concludes that both music and religion can be mutually oppressive and resistant.