Genre Task – Classic Musicals
Slide One - Classical Musicals
My choice of genre is classical musicals. This will take us from the very beginning of the genre all the way up to the 1970’s. The exact definition of a musical is ‘a play or film in which singing, and dancing play an essential part’. But singing isn’t what makes a musical. The characters have to outwardly express their emotions through song to make it a musical. They tend to have an ending in which the protagonist prevails. The musical genre also breaks the rules of realism, as the musical accompaniment comes from nowhere and is usually outside of the world the musical is taking place in.
Slide Two - History
They began very early in Ancient Greece in the form of operas which were made up of light music and a tragic or comedic plot, but the start of the musical era in the western world came about in the late 19thand early 20thcentury. The very first British musical writers were Gilbert and Sullivan, in which they combined acting, music and humour to create what is now known as the musical. Some of their most famous works are HMS Pinafore in 1878 and Pirates of Penzance in 1879.
Broadway was first opened as New York’s centre for musicals in 1866 with its first show being The Black Crook, which ran for 474 performances. There has always been a West End of London, but it only became famously known as the West End or ‘Theatreland’, when theatres started opening there in the latter half of the 1800’s.
The first movie musical was ‘The Jazz Singer’ in 1927, which started the sound era of motion pictures, but the most famous at the start was ‘Broadway Melody’ in 1929. We know that it will always be one of the greats, as it was the first movie musical to win the Academy Award for Best Picture.
Slide Three - Theorists
Musicals follow a set of generic conventions to make sure that they stay a musical, and not a movie with music in it. Rick Altman said that movie musicals are made up of five parts ; setting, shot selection, music, dance and the personal style of major characters. He said that a setting should be chosen to give the audience an opinion on the character. This can be linked back to Levi-Strauss’ theory of binary opposition, in which we still see good vs evil or wealthy vs poor. So, if the character was in a fancy hotel or at the opera, it is an automatic assumption that they are wealthy, and if they are outside the city limits or in a rougher area of where the show is set, we think that they are one of the lower characters.
Altman also said that genres offer a set of pleasures to an audience and these pleasures can be visceral, emotional or intellectual. An intellectual response is going to be hard to get from a musical as they are just watched for fun with the music and characters. It is a lot easier to get an emotional response because the storylines have great moments of joy and smaller moments of sadness, triggering an emotional response in us all. A visceral response is possible through films like West Side Story. When two characters like Tony and Maria have such an emotional connection and their storyline has so many problems, a visceral response is inevitable for an audience member that is going through a similar thing.
Daniel Chandlers theory on genre being a relationship between the creator and the consumer relates heavily to musicals, based on the fact that for a musical to appeal to someone, you need to look at your target audience. A young child is not going to be interested in a movie musical like The Jazz Singer because it does not include anything that they can relate to, but they may well like something like Singing In The Rain because it is more upbeat and fun with all of the singing and dancing.
This then relates to John Fiske’s idea that genre is an attempt to add structure to an array of texts. It is an idea that benefits both the creators and consumers, but then makes the audience decide whether they like the text or not without even giving it a chance. I can relate to this because I know fine well if a film is labelled a horror I won’t go near it.
Slide Four - Conventions - Emotion In Song
One of the most obvious conventions of a classic musical is that they express a character’s emotion through song. If you watch any classic musical, the lead character will always have a solo where the audience finds out what they are thinking or feeling. One example of this is ‘Singing In The Rain’ from the musical of the same title. Gene Kelly combines both the lyrics and tune of the song to show us that he has no reason to be worried about the weather when he has got so much love in his heart. Another example is ‘As Long As He Needs Me’ from Oliver. Nancy has such a powerful voice, which conveys the powerful feelings she has towards Sikes, ignoring the fact that he mistreats her.
No matter the gender, classical musicals always have the characters singing about love. Which shows a contrast between classical and up to date musicals, because the shows created after 1980 talk a lot more about social and political issues, rather than concentrating on the theme of love. These include shows like Billy Elliott, Blood Brothers and Les Mis.
Slide Five - Conventions - Colourful Scenes
Nearly every classic musical you watch will have that one scene where the colours present just pop, and it is usually cover’s a large surface, be it the walls of a room, floor of the stage or fabric of a dress. It is the first thing you notice when the scene start’s and it lets you associate the colour with the emotions that are present in the scene. Red is a colour often used in musicals for dramatic effect. One example of this is the dance in West Side Story. The walls of the dance hall are bright red, which automatically makes our minds associate the colour with either passion or anger. As the scene continues, we realise that the convention works because they start to show the hatred, they have towards each other through the dance and using their surroundings, which is just an empty hall.
A second example of this is Marilyn Monroe’s ‘Diamonds Are A Girls Best Friend’ in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. We already knew that Monroe was a seductive actress and woman in general, but when she appeared in this scene in the long pink dress with the diamonds draped over her and the bright red walls and staircase, we were able to see just how much colour effects a creators thought-process when creating a scene.
Colours play a major role when creating any text. We know that sci-fi films include a lot of blue and orange, romances have the typical lighter colours of pinks and whites and actions just tend to be a blur of different colours all mixed into one. To make a musical interesting and effective, the creator needs to think about how what is on the screen is going to affect the viewers’ opinion of the product.
Slide Six - Conventions - Characters
In classic musicals, there are certain characters that repeat themselves throughout all of the films. This happens in every genre, following Feuer’s idea of repetition, but musicals are very noticeable, especially the classics. One example is the woman. In every classic, there is always ‘that woman’, who is always either in need of saving or is the object of the leading man's affection and is always a protagonist. A few examples of these women are Kathy in ‘Singing In The Rain’, Maria in ‘West Side Story’ and Laurie in ‘Oklahoma!’. There is the male hero of every musical, who makes it his mission to win over the woman. Examples of these characters are the opposites of the females listed : Don (Singing In The Rain), Tony (West Side Story) and Curly (Oklahoma!). There is then the villain, almost always presented as a desire for something unobtainable. And finally, the side characters that support / go against the protagonists. They are there purely to round out the narrative.
Slide Seven - Problems With Genre
Despite most musicals being upbeat and fun-loving, there are many that do not conform with what the genre stands for. This does not, however, mean that they aren’t musicals. Things that came out a bit later, like Les Mis, or movie musicals based off of other stories, like West Side Story, will have components that don’t fit, but are still considered musicals because they do everything else they are supposed to, and in the end, there is always some form of closure. With Les Mis, the ending shows everyone coming together in a time of tragedy because they don’t want all of the deaths that have happened to be for nothing. So they overcome their grief for the sake of the greater good. Throughout the musical, however like I said, there are many deaths. With the exception of the song ‘Master of The House’, all the songs create an emotional response within the viewer, which is the intended purpose the creator had. West Side Story is based off of Romeo and Juliet, so we already know that there is going to be a sad ending. But it does not mean that there aren’t musical elements throughout the film.
Films in general are supposed to have a line between reality and a sense of escapism which allows the audience to choose if they are going to enjoy it, and musicals are no exception to that. So when musicals start to blur the line, it creates a problem for whether it should be considered a part of the genre or not. With something like Singing In The Rain, we know it is a musical because it has a continuous joy throughout and keeps giving the audience pleasures. Again, if we look at Les Mis, it doesn’t allow escapism, and if it does, it is for a person that wants to be part of a poverty stricken France in the 1800’s. So even though it is a REALshow, there is no reality to it, because we are not an audience that is living in the era. It is still considered a musical though because of how it expresses emotion through song and how unrealistic it would be to start singing in the middle of a battle.
Slide Eight - Conclusion
The genre of a musical is set in stone ; a play or film in which singing, and dancing play an essential part. But after researching and making the presentation, I eventually realised that there is allowed to be sub-genres like every other genre has. Why would musicals be any different ? Musicals, be it on the stage or screen, draw out emotions from their audiences. They can make you happy, make you think, make you sad, make you laugh. It doesn’t matter how they make you feel, because their purpose is just to make you feel something.
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