Synopses & Reviews
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. Yet they were originally made to appeal to broad, mainstream audiences. In this lively, nuanced, and provocative reassessment of the mgm musical, Steven Cohan argues that this seeming incongruityandmdash;between the camp value and popular appreciation of these musicalsandmdash;is not as contradictory as it seems. He demonstrates that the filmsandrsquo; 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 genreandrsquo;s production and marketing, paying particular attention to the studioandrsquo;s employment of a largely gay workforce of artists and craftspeople. He reflects on the role of the female starsandmdash;including Judy Garland, Debbie Reynolds, Esther Williams, and Lena Horneandmdash;and he explores the complex relationship between Gene Kelleyandrsquo;s dancing and his masculine persona. 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. He considers the status of Singinandrsquo; in the Rain as perhaps the first film to be widely embraced as camp; the repackaging of the musicals as nostalgia and camp in the Thatandrsquo;s Entertainment! series as well as on home video and cable; and the debates about Garlandandrsquo;s legendary gay appeal among her fans on the Internet. By establishing camp as central to the genre, Incongruous Entertainment provides a new way of looking at the musical.
Review
andldquo;Steven Cohanandrsquo;s Incongruous Entertainment brings together two fascinating subjectsandmdash;camp and the musicalandmdash;that are often casually linked but have never been explored as carefully and usefully as they are here.andrdquo;andmdash;Pamela Robertson Wojcik, author of Guilty Pleasures: Feminist Camp from Mae West to Madonna
Review
andldquo;Steven Cohanandrsquo;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 ofandmdash;and a few I would never have thought of.andrdquo;andmdash;Alexander Doty, author of Flaming Classics: Queering the Film Canon
Review
andldquo;Cohan meticulously supports his argument with detailed examples while eloquently and often humorously bringing the musicals and their stars to life. Both fans and novices are invited to rethink the political import of the MGM musicals from the studio era through the present. . . . Because of Cohan's revisionist scholarship, this book is also an essential read for anyone who studies camp and musicals.andrdquo;
Synopsis
A look at the camp cult appeal of MGM musicals of the 1940s and 50s to gay men today, along with an historical analysis of the films’ production histories.
About the Author
Steven Cohan is Professor of English at Syracuse University. He is the author of Masked Men: Masculinity and the Movies in the Fifties; the editor of Hollywood Musicals: The Film Reader; and a coeditor of The Road Movie Book and Screening the Male: Exploring Masculinities in Hollywood Cinema.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction 1
1. Improbable Stuff: Camp and the MGM House Style 41
2. The Lady is a Camp: Glamour, Star Turns, and the Boys in the Chorus 88
3. Dancing with Balls: Sissies, Sailors, and the Camp Masculinity of Gene Kelly 149
4. What a Glorious Classic: Singinandrsquo; in the Rain and Mass-Camp Recycling 200
5. Hollywoodandrsquo;s Most Precious Jewels: The MGM Musicalandrsquo;s Return As a Camp Commodity 246
6. Judy on the Net: Garland, Camp, and Contemporary Fandom 287
Conclusion 337
Notes 343
Works Cited 353
Index 361