Synopses & Reviews
Mamma Mia! The Movie (2008) was one of the top international box-office hits of its year and the fastest selling DVD in British history. Responses were passionate but polarized: while legions of fans participated in celebratory sing-along screenings, critics dismissed it as a 'Super Pooper'. The critical split often ran along the fault line of gender, with male critics initially unimpressed by the uninhibited, tongue in cheek frivolity of this rare film written, produced and directed by women.
This welcome first book on a twenty-first century cultural phenomenon explores these diverse responses to Mamma Mia!, along with key issues such as the film's representation of female friendship, of maternal and paternal identities and its focus on the older female protagonist, as well as its status as 'jukebox' musical, queer text and product of female authorship. Empire magazine's critic Ian Nathan concluded his bemused account of the film's unprecedented success by stating: 'Mamma Mia is not like other films'. This book aims to explore exactly how and why that is the case.
Synopsis
Mamma Mia! The Movie (2008) was one of the top international box-office hits of its year and the fastest selling DVD in British history. Responses were passionate but polarized: while legions of fans participated in celebratory sing-along screenings, critics dismissed it as a 'Super Pooper'. The critical split often ran along the fault line of gender, with male critics initially unimpressed by the uninhibited, tongue in cheek frivolity of this rare film written, produced and directed by women.
This welcome first book on a twenty-first century cultural phenomenon explores these diverse responses to Mamma Mia!, along with key issues such as the film's representation of female friendship, of maternal and paternal identities and its focus on the older female protagonist, as well as its status as 'jukebox' musical, queer text and product of female authorship. Empire magazine's critic Ian Nathan concluded his bemused account of the film's unprecedented success by stating: 'Mamma Mia is not like other films'. This book aims to explore exactly how and why that is the case.
About the Author
Melanie Williams is Lecturer in Film Studies at the University of East Anglia. She is co-editor of British Women's Cinema (2009).
Louise FitzGerald is Lecturer in Screen Studies at the University of Brighton.
Table of Contents
Notes on contributors * Acknowledgements * Facing our Waterloo: evaluating Mamma Mia! The Movie * Everyone listens when I start to sing: gender and ventriloquism in the songs of Mamma Mia! * Mamma Mia!'s female authorship * See that girl, watch that scene: notes on the persona and presence of Meryl Streep in Mamma Mia! * Knowing me, knowing you: reading Mamma Mia! as feminine object * The power of sisterhood: Mamma Mia! as female friendship film * Embracing the embarrassment: Mamma Mia! and the pleasures of socially unrestrained performance * The same old song?: exploring conceptions of the 'feelgood' film in the talk of Mamma Mia!'s older viewers * My my, how did I resist you? * Not too old for sex: Mamma Mia! and the 'older bird' chick flick * Dancing queens indeed: when gay subtext is gayer than gay text * The hero of my dreams: framing fatherhood in Mamma Mia! * What does your mother know?: Mamma Mia!'s mediation of lone motherhood * Afterword: When all is said and done * Bibliography * Index