Singing and Dancing American Dream: The Simulacra Machine of the Hollywood Musical Films from the 1950s to 2002

• Main Authors: Chia-Yu Chang, 張嘉育
• Other Authors: I-Chu Chang
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2005
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/40391833012475597742

碩士 === 國立交通大學 === 語言與文化研究所 === 93 === This thesis mainly discusses the genre aesthetics of Hollywood musical films as well as these musical movies’ various reflections on the contemporary social, political or economic situations. To investigate those aspects, six Hollywood musical films are chosen from the 1950s to 2002 as the research subjects. Aside from the historical reviews of musical film genre from the 50s until now, each film is also closely examined with its aesthetic artifices and narrative content. Based upon Jane Feuer’s study on Hollywood musical films and Alan Brinkley’s research on American history, this thesis serves not only as an expansion of the previous analytic works in Hollywood musical film genre, but also as my personal contribution to this field, especially my own thoughts of the recent New-Revival musicals from year 2000 till now. In Chapter One, I investigate the three general characteristics of Hollywood musical films during the Classical period. With performance analysis of Gene Kelly’s two musical films, On the Town and Singin’ in the Rain, I demonstrate how the three common genre characteristics are presented within the two films. Furthermore, I also examine the characters and plots of the two movies and analyze their relations to the social-political context at that time. In Chapter Two, first I review the developments of Hollywood industry, musical genre, and American social and political context from the 60s to 70s. Then three musical films from the “New Hollywood” era, Rocky Horror Picture Show, Saturday Night Fever, and Fame, are selected for discussions about their respective genre aesthetics and representations of diversity of contemporary social/cultural issues. In Chapter Three, likewise, I give a brief review of the socio-political situations as well as the development of Hollywood industry and musical genre in the 80s and years after Millennium. Next, I make a comparative study of two female-leading musical films, Flashdance and Chicago, from the aspects of genre aesthetics and MTV-cooperation. In Chapter Four, the whole research leads to the conclusion that in regard to the relationship between the musical world and the reality, the “partial exposure” of the social reality in a musical film also indicates the “veiling” of some other truth at the same time. Meanwhile, it’s exactly this half-real, half-imaginary quality of the Utopian musical world that creates the eternal charm of the musical films for every generation.