/31 Psychotic Reactions

Originally rock expressed male, adolescent sexuality. The electrified guitar, microphone-projected voice and body of the performer became phallic symbols. In a Miami performance, Jim Morrison was arrested by the police. He had allegedly exposed himself. He had come to believe that rock, having become big business, was dead. The exposure of his penis was read by the public as a pathetic gesture re; for Morrison it meant the death of his prowess as a rock star. By showing his (pathetic) penis, instead of making his body and performance phallic, he wished to question the mystique of rock as spectacle. Morrison's earlier performances had taken the form of the ritual. In this "death of rock" ritual he wanted to reenact the castration complex. Through the star's own emasculation he expressed his desire to see rock bring about the destruction of the Oedipal order.