The heavy metal music genre arose in the early 1970s from rock and roll, but it has distinctive differences from that genre (Weinstein 11). Groupies in the heavy metal environment are not just adoring fans but "essentially and exclusively sexual beings" (Weinstein 36). The portrayal of women in heavy metal videos is decidedly sexual, as the Western culture's music mythology is expressed in the "visual language of music video...[in] that it acts as an expression of sexual desire and that voice, in particular the female voice, is a representation of the body" (Heile). Gender roles in heavy metal music are bent and stretched. Heavy music aficionados, commonly termed "metalheads" or "headbangers," understand the heavy metal world as "an arena of gender, where spectacular gladiators compete to register and affect ideas of masculinity, sexuality, and gender" (Arnett 7). The portrayal of men in heavy metal music is-like that of women-also decidedly sexual. The heavy metal music realm is a world unto itself, where men are not men and women are not women but merely people playing the roles of those genders. Not surprisingly, both the musicians and their followers are to varying degrees disenfranchised in the everyday world and often comfortable only in the constructed world of heavy metal.
Weinstein (228) depicts groupies as a "specialized subset of the audience that bonds with and expresses gratitude." The groupies provide the members of the band with "sexual services" both before and after the concert (Weinstein 67), so they act out in reality what the band members depict in stylized form on stage. Weinstein (228) points out that before MTV became popular, groupies generally wore "micromini skirts, fishnet stockings, and spiked heels," but now that the same look "is a popular option for female headbangers...only a small fraction of those who might look like groupies really are." Groupies are "not appreciated" by th...