Tranquility can become Disaster. David Bowie as a Modern Trickster

Essay from the year 2010 in the subject Didactics - English - Discussion and Essays, grade: 1, University of Colorado at Boulder (GSLL), language: English, abstract: This short essay analyses the British artist David Bowie as a modern trickster. Throughout his career, Bowie has changed personas and played with sexual orientation. In general, he has deconstructed many stereotypes.

William Hynes argues, ¿the sheer richness of trickster phenomena can easily lead to conclude that the trickster is indefinable. In fact, to define is to draw borders around phenomena, and tricksters seem amazingly resistant to such capture; they are notorious border breakers¿ (Hynes 33). This description perfectly matches the gender-bender David Bowie who reinvented himself over and over, and who constantly changed his personas as soon as the critics thought they had gotten a hold of him and thus defining him as a trickster who plays with expectations is a worthwhile thought to follow.