Jane Feuer's Self-Reflexive Musical and the Myth of Entertainment

In this video, I summarize and explain Jane Feuer's essay "The Self-Reflexive Musical and the Myth of Entertainment," which largely discusses three films: Singin' in the Rain (1952), The Band Wagon (1953), and the Barkleys of Broadway (1949). The video first discusses Feuer's concept of demystification and remythicization, and then discusses three myths of entertainment and how they work in the self-reflexive musical: the myth of spontaneity, the myth of the audience, and the myth of integration.

*Correction: I state early on in the video that by the 50s, the popularity of the musical had waned, and that the 1930s were the heyday of the Hollywood musical. I'm drawing this point largely from Jane Feuer's book, The Hollywood Musical, where she explicitly notes that the musical "fell out of favor" in the 1950s. But this shouldn't discount the enormous impact that the 1950s Freed Unit MGM musicals had on the resurgent popularity of the movie musical.

Видео Jane Feuer's Self-Reflexive Musical and the Myth of Entertainment канала Film & Media Studies