Incongruous Entertainment: Camp, Cultural Value, and the MGM Musical
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.58 (609 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 0822335956 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 384 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2014-12-31 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
By establishing camp as central to the genre, Incongruous Entertainment provides a new way of looking at the musical.. In this lively, nuanced, and provocative reassessment of the mgm musical, Steven Cohan argues that this seeming incongruity—between the camp value and popular appreciation of these musicals—is not as contradictory as it seems. He reflects on the role of the female stars—including Judy Garland, Debbie Reynolds, Esther Williams, and Lena Horne—and he explores the complex relationship between Gene Kelley’s dancing and his masculine persona. He demonstrates that the films’ extravagance and queerness were deliberate elements and keys to their popular success.In addition to examining the spectatorship of the mgm musical, Cohan investigates the genre’s production and marketing, paying particular attention to the studio’s employment of a largely gay workforce of artists and craftspeople. Cohan looks at how, in the decades since the 1950s, the marketing and reception of the mgm musical have negotiated the more publicly recognized camp value attached to the films. With their lavish costumes and sets, ebullient song and dance numbers, and iconic movie stars, the musicals that mgm produced in the 1940s seem today to epitomize camp. He considers the stat
ACADEMIC ASPIC = INDIGESTIBLE PROSE Does anybody still eat aspic? No? Then don't sample this book. It's dense with the kind of pretentious academic jargon that makes books of this kind unreadable, pretentious, and depressing. One example: academics and others have been hinting for years at the sexual ambiguity of Gene Kelly's screen persona, but instead of just coming out (pun intended) and saying it, they have to beat around the bush (pun not intended). Cohan does the same dance at such excrutiating length you'll want to scream, even if you're . Yawn. D. Beeman How a single work can manage to suck every ounce of joy from should have been a fascinating and juicy topic is beyond comprehension. What a wasted opportunity.
"Steven Cohan's Incongruous Entertainment brings together two fascinating subjects--camp and the musical--that are often casually linked but have never been explored as carefully and usefully as they are here."--Pamela Robertson Wojcik, author of Guilty Pleasures: Feminist Camp from Mae West to Madonna "Steven Cohan's scholarship is impeccable and his writing elegant and witty. He pulls together all the previous approaches to camp and uses them to explore the mgm musical and its stars from every angle I could think of--and a few I would never have thought of."--Alexander Doty, author of Flaming Classics: Queering the Film Canon "Cohan meticulously supports his argument with detailed examples while eloquently and often humorously bringing the musicals and their stars to life. Both fans and