Hooray for Hollywood

I first picked up this book and got really excited because it's called The Musical: Race, Gender and Performance...but I would argue it's a deceptive title because the book is actually about movie musicals which we know is an entirely different ballgame. Susan Smith picks race related movie musicals to discuss in part one (Cabin in the Sky, Show Boat, West Side Story, Fiddler) of the book which I didn't read but looked promising. Chapter 2 of the book was about gender. The emphasis was really on "the female singer." She chose of modge podge of movies, mostly those dealing with female characters who were singers in the context of the movie: Singin' In the Rain, San Francisco, Love Me of Leave Me, A Star is Born, What's Love Got to Do With it? wait...one of these things is not like the other.

She starts by looking at Funny Girl and My Fair Lady. Both of these sections were interesting but also frustrating for me because while there are some interesting gender issues in both movies they didn't start out as movies. When she goes back and forth between referring to Eliza and Hepburn I feel like she doesn't always delineate between character and actress. I was a little worried that she wasn't going to mention that Hepburn was dubbed but she did end up talking about that in relation to further female suppression.

The bit on Singin' in the Rain was nice. She talked a lot about Lina's voice and the only way we don't feel really bad for her being dubbed in the film is that she's so nasty to Kathy. Oh Singin' in the Rain. The thing I'd love to look at in this film is the way they treat the women (even decieving Kathy at the end) in relation to Betty Comden's involvment. Since Comden and Green wrote the story, did she not care about how they treated the female characters? Did she just know that that was what sold because she'd already been in the bussiness long enough? I'm really curious but I guess I should just find a Betty Comden biography and figure all that out. Oh and we can't forget the most ironic part of the movie...that they actually dub Debbie Reynolds' voice when she's singing for Lina...just unbelievable...especially since they released the recordings of her singing it and she sounds just fine. Stupid moives.

The rest of the of sections were interesting but because I hadn't seen the movies (bad Becky...must Netflicks) I didn't really get the full affect. They were all about women who sing and whose careers are pushed forward by men who then are boastful of what they created or go drowned themselves in the ocean. C'est la vie. I must confess that I did not read the What's Love Got to Do with It section because I felt that it wasn't really musical enough for me...I'm so snobbish. But yeah...interesting stuff. I don't know how much I'll use in mystery thesis but good stuff to know and good movies to go and rent.

Pins.