Musicals at the Margins
Genre, Boundaries, Canons
Published on 17. November 2022
Book
Paperback/Softback
264 pages
978-1-5013-7852-2 (ISBN)
Description
But is it a musical? This question is regularly asked of films, television shows and other media objects that sit uncomfortably in the category despite evident musical connections. Musicals at the Margins argues that instead of seeking to resolve such questions, we should leave them unanswered and unsettled, proposing that there is value in examining the unstable edges of genre. This collection explores the marginal musical in a diverse range of historical and global contexts. It encompasses a range of different forms of marginality including boundary texts (films/media that are sort of/not quite musicals), musical sequences (marginalized sequences in musicals; musical sequences in non-musicals), music films, musicals of the margins (musicals produced from social, cultural, geographical, and geopolitical margins), and musicals across media (television and new media). Ultimately these essays argue that marginal genre texts tell us a great deal about the musical specifically and genre more broadly.
Reviews / Votes
Richly referenced and meticulously edited, Musicals at the Margins is an essential book in cinema scholarship and will surely lead to wider conversations and more specific studies in the future. * Lou Reviews Blog * Harnessing a mixture of critical insight and knowledge as dazzling as the musical itself, Julie Lobalzo Wright and Martha Shearer have brought together a diverse group of writers to define and redefine musical films beyond the familiar canon. This superbly revealing collection offers entirely new perspectives on the boundaries of a genre that has often left scholars bewitched, bothered and bewildered. * Dominic McHugh, Professor in Musicology, University of Sheffield, UK * Musicals at the Margins covers a wide range of musical texts existing on the borders of the genre, expanding and complicating how musical texts make meaning as musicals. The anthology's remarkable selection of scholars examines generic outliers-like rockumentaries, dance-focused films, televised lip-synching contests, Bollywood "song picturization," and short-form pop music film-demonstrating how methodologies developed by canonical musical scholars like Rick Altman and Jane Feuer continue to inform contemporary scholarship. As the boundaries between genres, media platforms, and audiences become increasingly difficult to parse, Shearer and Wright's collection is a much-needed addition to the existing literature on the musical, and the field of genre theory as a whole. * Amanda Ann Klein, Associate Professor of Film Studies, East Carolina University, USA *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
New York
United States
Publishing group
Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Target group
College/higher education
Illustrations
28 bw illus
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 152 mm
Thickness: 14 mm
Weight
390 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-5013-7852-2 (9781501378522)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
04/2021
1st Edition
Bloomsbury Academic USA
€35.49
Available for download
E-Book
04/2021
1st Edition
Bloomsbury Academic USA
€35.49
Available for download
Persons
Martha Shearer is Assistant Professor and Ad Astra Fellow in Film Studies at University College Dublin, Ireland. She is the author of New York City and the Hollywood Musical: Dancing in the Streets (2016). Her work on the musical has also been published in Screen, The Soundtrack, and The Oxford Handbook of Musical Theatre Screen Adaptations (2019).
Julie Lobalzo Wrightis an Assistant Professor in Film and Television Studies at the University of Warwick, UK. She is the author of Crossover Stardom: Male Popular Music Stars in American Cinema (2018), co-editor with Lucy Bolton of Lasting Screen Stars: Images that Fade and Personas that Endure (2016), and has published research on stardom and musical/music films in various edited collections and in the journals Celebrity Studies and Film/Philosophy.
Julie Lobalzo Wrightis an Assistant Professor in Film and Television Studies at the University of Warwick, UK. She is the author of Crossover Stardom: Male Popular Music Stars in American Cinema (2018), co-editor with Lucy Bolton of Lasting Screen Stars: Images that Fade and Personas that Endure (2016), and has published research on stardom and musical/music films in various edited collections and in the journals Celebrity Studies and Film/Philosophy.
Content
List of Figures
Acknowledgements
1. Introduction: Genre Panic at the Margins
Julie Lobalzo Wright and Martha Shearer
Generic boundaries
2. Danceploitation, Musical Disruption, and Synergy in Saturday Night Fever, Flashdance, and Breakin'
Jenny Oyallon-Koloski
3. Pitching Utopia: Popular Music, Community, and Neoliberalism in the Choir Film
Eleonora Sammartino
4. E-Q-U-I-T-Y: Generic Boundaries, Gender, and Real Estate in the Magic Mike Films
Martha Shearer
5. Saint-Louis Blues: From Oral Storytelling to Aural Filmmaking
Estrella Sendra Fernandez
Musicals of the margins
6. The Marseille Film Operetta
Marie Cadalanu and Phil Powrie
7. Heteroglossia in the Musical Number: Song, Music Performance, and Marginalised Identity in Tony Gatlif's Swing (2002)
Tamsin Graves
8. Sexsationalist Feminism in The Devil's Carnival Project (2012, 2015)
Joana Rita Ramalho
Musical sequences
9. The On- and Off-Screen Politics of Sophia Loren's Musical Performances in Houseboat (1958) and It Started in Naples (1960)
Sarah Culhane
10. 'Just a Little Warm-Up for the Job': Harold Nicholas, the Specialty Act, and the Hollywood Song-and-Dance Man
Kate Saccone
11. A Language of its Own: Mani Ratnam's Experiments with the Song Scene
Aakshi Magazine
Music
12. Pianos, Affect and Memory
Paul Mazey and Sarah Street
13. Everybody Wants to Be a Cat: Jazz Culture and Disney Animation in the 1960s
Landon Palmer
14. Short-Form Pop Music Films in 1960s Britain
Richard Farmer
15. "Good Evening Pasadena!": Fantastical Performance Spaces in the Rock Documentary
Richard Wallace
Musicals across media
16. Live Musical Spectaculars: Eventizing Network Television in the Post-Network Age
Anthony Enns
17. Camp and the Celebration of the Popular Song in RuPaul's Drag Race "Lip Sync for Your Life"
Julie Lobalzo Wright
List of Contributors
Index
Acknowledgements
1. Introduction: Genre Panic at the Margins
Julie Lobalzo Wright and Martha Shearer
Generic boundaries
2. Danceploitation, Musical Disruption, and Synergy in Saturday Night Fever, Flashdance, and Breakin'
Jenny Oyallon-Koloski
3. Pitching Utopia: Popular Music, Community, and Neoliberalism in the Choir Film
Eleonora Sammartino
4. E-Q-U-I-T-Y: Generic Boundaries, Gender, and Real Estate in the Magic Mike Films
Martha Shearer
5. Saint-Louis Blues: From Oral Storytelling to Aural Filmmaking
Estrella Sendra Fernandez
Musicals of the margins
6. The Marseille Film Operetta
Marie Cadalanu and Phil Powrie
7. Heteroglossia in the Musical Number: Song, Music Performance, and Marginalised Identity in Tony Gatlif's Swing (2002)
Tamsin Graves
8. Sexsationalist Feminism in The Devil's Carnival Project (2012, 2015)
Joana Rita Ramalho
Musical sequences
9. The On- and Off-Screen Politics of Sophia Loren's Musical Performances in Houseboat (1958) and It Started in Naples (1960)
Sarah Culhane
10. 'Just a Little Warm-Up for the Job': Harold Nicholas, the Specialty Act, and the Hollywood Song-and-Dance Man
Kate Saccone
11. A Language of its Own: Mani Ratnam's Experiments with the Song Scene
Aakshi Magazine
Music
12. Pianos, Affect and Memory
Paul Mazey and Sarah Street
13. Everybody Wants to Be a Cat: Jazz Culture and Disney Animation in the 1960s
Landon Palmer
14. Short-Form Pop Music Films in 1960s Britain
Richard Farmer
15. "Good Evening Pasadena!": Fantastical Performance Spaces in the Rock Documentary
Richard Wallace
Musicals across media
16. Live Musical Spectaculars: Eventizing Network Television in the Post-Network Age
Anthony Enns
17. Camp and the Celebration of the Popular Song in RuPaul's Drag Race "Lip Sync for Your Life"
Julie Lobalzo Wright
List of Contributors
Index