ABSTRACT
In the contemporary goth scene in Germany, there is a wide range of characters, tropes, and formations of what could be described as melancholy sadness, pathetic softness, and evilness. One could argue that the goth scene in general and the one in Germany in particular has not only embraced hetero-normativity but unfortunately also an aesthetics of misogyny. This often thinly disguised sexist attitude in the scene is manifested in, for instance, the clichéd images of women ‘nailed to crosses in sexy lingerie’. Whereas constructions of gender and representations of gender roles have already received considerable critical attention, other important dimensions of the goth scene in Germany and other German-speaking countries, namely music and related issues, for example distinct styles closely related to musical genres, need to be examined, to a greater extent than it already has been, by musicologists.
