Performative Utterances 

There are many performative utterances that we use, to signify a completion, or official end of an event-taking place. Examples we spoke about in class were, 'I do', 'I hereby name this ship' etc. What about Happy Birthday? When I looked into this further, the utterance, 'Happy Birthday', is a statement we use to wish someone to have a happy birthday, rather than, 'Sad Birthday', which would be, well, sad. We use this utterance in the form of a song, that we typically hear before our delicious cake is served to us; this whole ritual is a performance we have every year, in fact, singing this song almost completes this experience of our birthday, making it in a way, 'official' that our birthday has occurred. Happy Birthday is a song we hear once a year, and rarely do we have someone sing it to us on the other 364 days of the year. 

Thinking about a specific example, the classic moment in history when Marilyn Monroe sang, 'Happy Birthday' to President JFK. Video link is below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqolSvoWNck&sns=em

 As we can see, the song was set out to wish JFK a happy birthday, which I think was done by Marilyn, but in a way that he or maybe even the world didn't expect. Typically when we hear this song, it is an upbeat caring tune to express the love from family and friends and celebrating the completion of another 365 days of life, but Marilyn took a turn in her performance that completely changed the context of the song. Her rendition of Happy Birthday, was a sexy, sultry interpretation, which was saying way more than 'Happy Birthday', the amount of sexual undertones in her performance changed the meaning of the song. Though Marilyn was still wishing him to have a happy birthday, she was also hinting at, possibly, how she could make it a happier birthday, or how she now made it a happier birthday than before. What also should be mentioned is the fact that the song was elongated and added lyrics to make it personal to the president, which is also a disruption of this performative utterance that we all have come to expect. 

The other part of this example with Marilyn brings me to our Butler article we read about gender and sexuality. Clearly Marilyn is giving into a social view of what it is to be a sexy woman. She is repeating an idea that she has learned about her gender, the breathy voice, the glam gown, all point to what society deemed attractive and effeminate. In many ways people can argue that she was an original character, but she made herself that way to be the most loved and likeable version of herself for the public, to try to establish a feminine norm. 

Needless to say, Marilyn was definetly remembered as an icon, of the feminie mystique, that many women to this day still admire, so in a way she was the birth of a new female norm. We remember her beauty and her rendition of Happy Birthday, for they disrupted our way of thinking, and the social norm that was established at that time.