"Is that me, Baby?" Image, Authenticity, and the Career of Bruce Springsteen

Abstract

In 1985, Dr. Ruth Westheimer declared that is a national monument.1 Anyone in America at that time knew she could only be referring to Bruce Springsteen, the rock star known as The Boss. Although Springsteen is still a star in the early 1990s, he has shifted from center stage, and his image is seen largely as an anachronism. In this paper, I examine the career of Springsteen from rock star to cultural icon, and then back again. I aim to shed light on the construction of rock music celebrity in American culture, suggesting that Springsteen's career illustrates a shift in the nature of rock culture in the 1980s. I do not take the stance of a critic or analyst of Springsteen's music; rather I offer a kind of meta-analysis looking at how the various texts of contemporary popular culture changed his image from one of to one with multiple, contradictory facets. To be a true superstar in the 1980s and 1990s, a celebrity's image must become multifaceted and potentially open to many readings, and Springsteen's became so after 1984. In a postmodern culture of proliferating images, has become one choice among many, but is no longer a defining notion in popular music. Thus the issue is not whether Springsteen is authentic or not. Rather, I seek to explore the salience of the idea of authenticity in rock music culture. Before presenting this analysis, I should provide a brief outline of Springsteen' s life and career up until 1984. He was born in 1949 in the blue-collar New Jersey town of Freehold, of Dutch and Italian ancestry. He dropped out of a local college

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