Hollywood musicals, the film reader

221 Pages·2002·2.327 MB·English

by  Steven Cohan

HOLLYWOOD MUSICALS,
THE FILM READER
Hollywood Musicals, The Film Readerexplores one of the most popular genres in film history. The
mainstay of film production throughout the studio era, the musical endures today through
animated features, teen dance films, and features such as Evitaand Moulin Rouge.
Combining classic and recent articles, each section explores a central issue of the musical,
including genre and stardom, gender and spectacle, race and sexuality, and features an
editor’s introduction setting debates in context. From Gold Diggers of 1933to Dancin’ in the Rain,
Hollywood Musicalsdemonstrates that musicals were always more than simple entertainment,
and examines why certain topics, films and stars have become central to studies of the genre.
Sections include:
• Generic forms– examines how musicals achieved their cultural currency through their form
• Gendered spectacles– considers the representation of sexual difference in spectacle
• Camp interventions– reads against the grain of the genre’s outward appearance of ‘whole-
some’, ‘straight’ entertainment
• Racial displacements– traces the significance of race and ethnicity in the musical’s use of

entertainment traditions
Contributors: Rick Altman, Lucie Arbuthnot, Carol J. Clover, Steven Cohan, Richard Dyer,
Jane Feuer, Patricia Mellencamp, Linda Mizejewski, Shari Roberts, Pamela Robertson, Michael
Rogin, Martin Rubin, Gail Seneca, and Matthew Tinkcom.
Steven Cohanis Professor of English at Syracuse University. He is author of Masked Men:
Masculinity and the Movies in the Fifties(1997) and co-editor of Screening the Male(Routledge 1993)
and The Road Movie Book(Routledge 1997).
In Focus: Routledge Film Readers
Series Editors: Steven Cohan (Syracuse University) and Ina Rae Hark (University of
South Carolina)
The In Focusseries of readers is a comprehensive resource for students on film and cinema
studies courses. The series explores the innovations of film studies while highlighting the vital
connection of debates to other academic fields and to studies of other media. The readers
bring together key articles on a major topic in film studies, from marketing to Hollywood
comedy, identifying the central issues, exploring how and why scholars have approached it
in specific ways, and tracing continuities of thought among scholars. Each reader opens with
an introductory essay setting the debates in their academic context, explaining the topic’s
historical and theoretical importance, and surveying and critiquing its development in film
studies.
Exhibition, The Film Reader
Edited by Ina Rae Hark
Hollywood Musicals, The Film Reader
Edited by Steven Cohan
Horror, The Film Reader
Edited by Mark Jancovich
Marketing, The Film Reader
Edited by Justin Wyatt
Forthcoming titles:

Experimental, The Film Reader
Edited by Wheeler Winston Dixon and Gwendolyn Audrey Foster
Hollywood Comedians, The Film Reader
Edited by Frank Krutnik
Music, The Film Reader
Edited by Kay Dickinson
Reception, The Film Reader
Edited by Barbara Klinger
Stars, The Film Reader
Edited by Marcia Landy and Lucy Fischer
HOLLYWOOD MUSICALS,
THE FILM READER
Edited by Steven Cohan

London and New York
First published 2002
by Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2002.
© Steven Cohan for selection and editorial matter;
individual chapters © their authors
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced
or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means,
now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording,
or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available
from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data
has been applied for
ISBN 0–415–23559–6 (hbk)
ISBN 0–415–23560–X (pbk)
ISBN 0-203-20660-6 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-203-20663-0 (Glassbook Format)
Contents
Acknowledgements vii
Introduction: Musicals of the Studio Era 1
PART ONE: GENERIC FORMS 17
Introduction 17
1 Richard Dyer, Entertainment and Utopia 19
2 Jane Feuer, The Self-reflective Musical and the Myth of Entertainment 31
3 Rick Altman, The American Film Musical as Dual-Focus Narrative 41
4 Martin Rubin, Busby Berkeley and the Backstage Musical 53
PART TWO: GENDERED SPECTACLES 63

Introduction 63
5 Patricia Mellencamp, Sexual Economics: Gold Diggers of 1933 65
6 Lucie Arbuthnot and Gail Seneca, Pre-text and Text in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes 77
7 Steven Cohan, “Feminizing” the Song-and-Dance Man: Fred Astaire and the
Spectacle of Masculinity in the Hollywood Musical 87
PART THREE: CAMP INTERVENTIONS 103
Introduction 103
8 Richard Dyer, Judy Garland and Camp 107
9 Matthew Tinkcom, “Working Like a Homosexual”: Camp Visual Codes and the
Labor of Gay Subjects in the MGM Freed Unit 115
10 Pamela Robertson, Feminist Camp in Gold Diggers of 1933 129
11 Shari Roberts, “The Lady in the Tutti-Frutti Hat”: Carmen Miranda, A Spectacle
of Ethnicity 143
vi CONTENTS
PART FOUR: RACIAL DISPLACEMENTS 155
Introduction 155
12 Carol J. Clover, Dancin’ in the Rain 157
13 Michael Rogin, New Deal Blackface 175
14 Linda Mizejewski, Beautiful White Bodies 183
Select Bibliography 195
Index 201
1
2
3
Acknowledgements 4
51
6
7
8
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11
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14
15
1. Richard Dyer, “Entertainment and Utopia” from Only Entertainment(London, Routledge, 16
1992), pp. 17–34. © 1992 Richard Dyer. Reprinted by permission of the publisher. 17
2. Jane Feuer, “The Self-reflective Musical and the Myth of Entertainment,” in Quarterly 18
Review of Film Studies, Vol. 2 No. 2 (1977), pp. 313–26. © 1977. Reprinted by permission of 19
Gordon & Breach Publishers. 20
3. Rick [Charles F.] Altman, “The American Film Musical as Dual-Focus Narrative” from The 21
American Film Musical(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987), pp. 16–27. © 1987 22
Charles F. Altman. Reprinted by permission of Indiana University Press. 23
4. Martin Rubin, “Busby Berkeley and the Backstage Musical” from Showstoppers: Busby 24
Berkeley and the Tradition of Spectacle(New York: Columbia University Press, 1993). © 1993 25
Columbia University Press. Reprinted by permission of the publisher. 26
5. Patricia Mellencamp, “Sexual Economics: Gold Diggers of 1933” from A Fine Romance: Five 27
Ages of Film Feminism(Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1995), pp. 50–73. Reprinted 28
by permission of Temple University Press. © 1995 Temple University. All rights reserved. 29
6. Lucie Arbuthnot and Gail Seneca, “Pre-text and Text in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes,” in Film 30

Reader, 1982, pp. 13–23. Reprinted by permission of the publisher, Department of 31
Television/Radio/Film, Northwestern University. 32
7. Steven Cohan, “‘Feminizing’ the Song-And-Dance Man: Fred Astaire and the Spectacle 33
of Masculinity, in the Hollywood Musical” from Screening the Male: Exploring Masculinities in 34
Hollywood Cinema(London: Routledge, 1993), pp. 46–69. © 1993 Steven Cohan. Reprinted 35
by permission of the publisher. 36
8. Richard Dyer, “Judy Garland and Camp” from Heavenly Bodies(New York: St Martin’s Press, 37
and Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1986), pp. 178–86. © Richard Dyer. Reprinted by permission 38
of St Martin’s Press, LLC and Palgrave. 39
9. Matthew Tinkcom, “‘Working Like a Homosexual’: Camp Visual Codes and the Labor 40
of Gay Subjects in the MGM Freed Unit” from Cinema Journal35, No. 2, Winter 1996, 41
pp. 24–42. © 1996 the University of Texas Press. All rights reserved. 42
10. Pamela Robertson, “What Trixie and God Know: Feminist Camp in Gold Diggers of 1933” 43
from Guilty Pleasures: Feminist Camp from Mae West to Madonna(Durham: Duke University 44
Press, 1996), pp. 62–79. © 1996 Duke University Press. All rights reserved. Reprinted with 45
permission. 46
viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
11. Shari Roberts, “‘The Lady in the Tutti-Frutti Hat’: Carmen Miranda, a Spectacle of
Ethnicity” from Cinema Journal32, No. 3, Spring 1993, pp. 9–23. © 1993 the University of
Texas Press. All rights reserved.
12. Carole J. Clover, “Dancin’ in the Rain” from Critical Inquiry21, Summer 1995, pp. 722–47.
© 1995 University of Chicago. Reprinted by permission of the University of Chicago Press.
13. Michael Rogin, “New Deal Blackface” from Blackface, White Noise: Jewish Immigrants in the
Hollywood Melting Pot(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996) pp. 177–91. © 1996
Michael Rogin. Reprinted by permission of University of California Press.
14. Linda Mizejewski, “Beautiful White Bodies” from Ziegfeld Girl: Image and Icon in Culture and
Cinema(Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1999), pp. 176–90. © 1999 Duke University
Press. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.
Hollywood Musicals,
The Film Reader
Introduction: Musicals of the Studio Era
This reader brings together scholarship on the Hollywood musical of the studio era, those lavish
entertainments produced during the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, now remembered primarily for
Fred Astaire’s graceful footwork, Judy Garland’s affecting voice, Carmen Miranda’s outrageous
costumes, or Busby Berkeley’s kaleidoscopic camera work. Once synonymous with Hollywood
product as a whole, the movie musical is an outmoded genre by today’s standards. To be sure,
musicals of the studio era have not disappeared since they are reissued on home video, shown
on cable networks, exhibited at museum screenings, and taught in college courses. Many viewers
appreciate these old films for their nostalgic value as conservative, wholesome entertainment
of a bygone era. When a financially troubled Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer repackaged numbers from
its most celebrated musicals in the anthology That’s Entertainment(1974), the publicity appealed
to this audience by exclaiming, “Boy, do we need it now!” This nostalgic gloss invests musicals
with new value as a commodity, different from the past when dozens were produced each
year. Nostalgia for old musicals measures the historical distance of recent audiences from the

genre’s once important cultural function as the epitome of mass-produced, mass-consumed
entertainment.
There are just as many contemporary viewers, however, particularly younger ones, who do
not care about or recognize the genre’s nostalgic pleasures. To them musicals are an odd species
of entertainment: the plots seem not only escapist but hackneyed, recycled from film to film; the
characters lack psychological depth and their passions are corny, chaste beyond belief; the Tin
Pan Alley songs are out of synch with contemporary musical styles; the big production numbers
are too over-the-top to be taken seriously. Most alienating of all, the convention of a character
bursting into song or breaking into dance with inexplicable orchestral accompaniment, the
hallmark moments in any movie musical, occasions laughter rather than applause because it
breaks with cinematic realism.
Although formal conventions of studio-era musicals have been successfully imported to
music videos, which are essentially solo or production numbers without the burden of being fitted
into a narrative, today the genre resurfaces only occasionally as a full-length theatrical feature.
Audiences have no trouble with animated musicals, such as Disney’s Beauty and the Beast(1991),
presumably due to animation’s grounding in fantasy. Otherwise a new musical has great difficulty