Staging Masculinities: Visual Imagery in Peter Gabriel’s ‘Sledgehammer’ Video

‘Sledgehammer’ was broadcast and achieved popularity after there had been a buyout of the controlling interest in MTV Networks by Viacom International in 1986. Both in terms of its engagement with soul music and in terms of the style of its imagery, ‘Sledgehammer’ would seem to be especially comparable to Peter Gabriel’s later ‘Steam’, which was directed by Johnson-a connection that is often noted. When MTV was launched in 1981, there had already been academic work on constructions of masculinity in rock and pop music, and scholars in this field would eventually turn their attention to music video as well. The process of making ‘Sledgehammer’, Gabriel indicated in an interview, was to ‘lay out ideas as storyboard videos first’. The representation of marginal substances is not, however, effected iconically: one does not see blood or bodily matter in their direct form, but is instead presented with representations of clay, paint and other materials associated with visual representation.