Cole Porter « Feminist Music Geek

Posts Tagged ‘Cole Porter

Aug

Why I’ll totally watch Burlesque on DVD

Categories: Feminist Music Geeks Go to the Movies
Tags: Angelina Anderson, Beyoncé, Billie Holiday, Bitch Magazine, Bob Fosse, Brandy, Burlesque, Carmen: A Hip Hopera, Center Stage, Cher, Chicago, Christina Aguilera, Cinderella, Cole Porter, Come Back to the Five and Dime Jimmy Dean Jimmy Dean, Diana Ross, Etta James, Fergie, Glitter, Green Fairy, Gypsy, Honey, I Didn't Mean to Turn You On, I Fry Mine In Butter, Idlewild, Irin Camron, James Franco, Jennifer Lopez, Jessica Alba, Kiss Me Kate, Kylie Minogue, Mariah Carey, Mermaids, Missy Elliott, Moonstruck, Moulin Rouge, MTV, Neve Campbell, Nine, OutKast, Prince, Purple Rain, Queen Latifah, Rize, Rob Marshall, Robert Altman, Save the Last Dance, Selena, Showgirls, Snarky's Cinemachine, Spike Lee, Stanley Tucci, Step Up, The Company, The Witches of Eastwick, Under the Cherry Moon, Whitney Houston, You Got Served

Oh, yes; image courtesy of nydailynews.com

The other day, I came back from my lunch break and noticed Angelina Anderson (I Fry Mine in Butter founder and author of Bitch‘s Snarky’s Cinemachine series; @SnarkysMachine in the Twittersphere) posted the trailer to Burlesque, a new star vehicle for Christina Aguilera and Cher. With its flat acting, rote cinematography, and hackneyed storyline about a dew-eyed girl makin’ it in the entertainment biz, it looks — as Anderson said on Facebook — like Chicago, Glitter, Showgirls, and Moulin Rouge collided. I’ll totally see this on some listless Sunday. If it’s really good, I’ll buy it at discount and watch it with drunk friends late at night, having the movie occupy a position held by Glitter and Center Stage. Why?

1. I’m a sucker for dance movies.Put simply, I love watching dancers interact with cameras and editors. That means I own Center Stage and You Got Served. That means I saw Rize and Save the Last Dance, among others, in the theaters. That means I’ll defend Robert Altman’s The Company beyond the merits of my partner’s uncle’s work as its production designer or Neve Campbell and James Franco’s underplayed chemistry. That means I took an entire graduate course on dance in media culture and wrote my final paper on the employment of dance in Spike Lee’s first three films. That means I support the validity of Irin Camron’s claims toward Dirty Dancing‘s feminist potential. That means I’ll see Step Up‘s 3D installment. That means I saw all the movies Anderson compared Burlesque to, Bob Fosse’s entire filmography, and even sat through Honey, which Missy Elliott’s cameo saved from Jessica Alba’s dependably bland titular performance.

2. I’m a sucker for backstage musicals, and have been at least since I participated in a high school production of Cole Porter’s Kiss Me Kate, but probably as far back as when I saw a community theater production of Gypsy with my grandmother as a child. I derive pleasure from stories of people putting on a show. I like witnessing how a character’s personal life informs their performance. And as a genre, I’m interested in why so many offerings focus on young women’s rise to fame.

3. I’m intrigued by female pop stars’ involvement in film musicals, particularly as it offers roles to women of color. Yes, Kylie Minogue played the Green Fairy in Moulin Rouge and Fergie was cast in Rob Marshall’s Nine. It’s especially interesting to see these women play influential female performers in music biopics as a means of linking personas and legacies. Diana Ross did this with Billie Holiday and Beyoncé connected herself to Diana Ross and Etta James. Jennifer Lopez’s career took off after a star turn in Selena. But many get involved with musicals and dance films. Beyoncé also starred in MTV’s Carmen: A Hip Hopera. Marshall also employed Queen Latifah in Chicago, who was later cast in Hairspray. Mentor Whitney Houston and protegee Brandy paired up for Cinderella. I could catalogue indefinitely, as pop stars’ involvement with a film musical has long served as shorthand for pop credibility and crossover success.

4. I’m fascinated by the perennial employment of cinematic vanity projects to expand pop stars’ brands. It’s usually quite a gamble. For every Purple Rain, Under the Cherry Moon is sure to follow. It failed spectacularly in Mariah Carey’s case, with Glitter entering the market when the singer’s waning cultural relevance dovetailed with a well-publicized psychological breakdown and only recently being remembered as a fun but inconsequential movie about a girl becoming an 80s pop icon based on a killer recording of “I Didn’t Mean To Turn You On.” In point of fact, I actually find the derided attempts far more interesting as a viewer and in terms of what they may say about the stars at their center.

Burlesque meets each of these four points. I’m nervous about Aguilera’s underripe performance, exaggerated whiteness, bad wig, and the possibility that the movie underlines her limited dance ability over her formidable singing. I’m also curious how the movie might recall OutKast’s Idlewild. Both movies employ a deliberating retro musical sensibility, though I think Aguilera is far more invested in conjuring a postmodern pin-up image than Andre 3000 and Big Boi were in associating themselves with the Prohibition. I’m excited to see Cher, who I liked in Moonstruck, The Witches of Eastwick and Mermaids growing up and will probably enjoy in Come Back to the Five And Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean when I finally get around to seeing it. Plus any movie with Stanley Tucci gets a free pass from me. It won’t be great, but it’ll probably be fun.

Jun

Scene It: Elisabeth Welch and The Tempest

By Alyx Vesey Leave a Comment

Torch singer Elisabeth Welch captured a wide fan base in the UK and stole the show in Derek Jarman's "The Tempest"; image courtesy of npg.org.uk

Following a screening of Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark at my friend Karin’s house, I plopped down on my couch, strummed on my Mako, and watched Derek Jarman’s The Tempest. I’d been meaning to watch it for some time, as an acquaintance Tweeted about the scene that captured my interest and will comprise the focus of this post.

Before getting into my thoughts on Elisabeth Welch’s scene-stealing performance, I should preface by saying that I have a tentative grasp on Shakespeare. Like many of my generation, I was certainly aware of various contemporary adaptations following the commercial success of Amy Heckerling’s Clueless, which moved Jane Austen’s Emma down Rodeo Drive. Unlike many of my peers in media studies, I was not an English major at any point during my college career. I was a jourstory student (a portmanteau in circulation when I was an undergrad that refers to folks who double major in journalism and history). I never had to take any classes on Shakespeare, which I believe is a requirement for English students at UT. As an outsider, I think this is ridiculous, as contemporary literature has been responsible for numerous innovations as well.

But I have no problem with the Bard himself (or Christopher Marlowe, depending on what story we’re telling). In high school, I read Romeo and Juliet, horrifying my English major-Shakespeare enthusiast mother by highlighting passages in her hard-bound, gold-leafed complete works anthology. I read the regressive The Taming of the Shrew, own 10 Things I Hate About You, and played showgirl Lois Lane, who portrays Bianca, in a high school production of Cole Porter’s backstage musical Kiss Me Kate. We read Hamlet aloud junior year in English class. I later saw a woman play Hamlet in an Austin-based production early on in college, but decided against seeing Ethan Hawke’s slacker take on the doomed prince of Denmark.

I did my senior term paper on Titus Andronicus to the chagrin of my teacher, who deemed the play inappropriate and of lesser quality. I read the part of Celia As You Like It for theater class. I played Adriana in a high school production of The Comedy of Errors, which our director regrettably set as a tacky mash-up of 60s kitsch (Laugh-In meets Beach Blanket Bingo!). I liked Emma Thompson and hated Keanu Reeves in Much Ado About Nothing. I vaguely recall Merchant of Venice and Twelfth Night, as well as Shakespeare in Love (which time also forgot). I read Othello during college for, you guessed it, an English class. And I didn’t find the Henry V portions of My Own Private Idaho completely distracting.

I also have a tentative grasp on Jarman, having only seen Jubilee. I’m totally willing to get to know his filmography better, as I like how he juxtaposed classical imagery with punk elements. For me, his movies evince the work of a mutual friend at a party who’s charming, smart, arch yet cheeky, and has awesome taste. I’m determined to become besties.

The late, great Derek Jarman; image courtesy of vertigomagazine.co.uk

But Jarman is tricky, as I noted upon my screening of Jubilee. His work recalls a conversation I had with my friend Curran about Todd Haynes’s early work, and not for icky “hey, gay filmmakers!” reasons. Apparently, Haynes set out to queer his films in a number of ways. The most obvious of these was through foregrounding gay or queerable characters or putting ostensibly straight women in camp environments, configuring them as allies, or having them cede from the heterosexual marital unit. But Haynes’s key contribution to queer cinema was in challenging audience expectations, experimenting with both the formal and narrative elements of cinema to leave folks unsure of what they’ve seen. To that end, Haynes and fellow Queer New Wave director Gregg Araki are clearly indebted to Gus Van Sant and Jarman.

Todd Haynes; image courtesy of brown.edu

This brings us to The Tempest , a 95-minute adaptation of the classic play. I’ve never seen or read it, and frankly the movie didn’t help me gather much information. It’s about a magician named Prospero, who was to be Duke of Milan, and his daughter Miranda who are stuck on an island after his brother Alonso set them adrift for several years and became the King of Naples. The pacing and commitment to location — in this case, Stoneleigh Abbey — suggests a stagnant insularity from a life in exile. Prospero, the protagonist, is served by a spirit named Ariel, who helps to set right all of the familial discord.

Many old wounds seem healed, as the group set out to return to Naples, and Miranda marries her cousin Ferdinand. But the ending is evasive. In the final scene, Prospero takes it upon the audience to applaud for them in order to determine if they can leave. This makes it one of Shakespeare’s more ambiguous plays, which may have attracted Jarman to the material. At the wedding reception, a goddess appears. Here, she’s played by torch singer Elisabeth Welch in her final screen performance. Somewhat obscure in the states where she was born, England adopted her and she replied in kind by becoming a citizen. Like many chanteuses, she had a significant gay male following. Here she serenades the young couple with a peculiar song.

Yes, Harold Arlen and Ted Koehler’s 1933 standard “Stormy Weather” is strange in its anachronism. It’s also cryptic in its message, thus subverting the role weddings traditionally provide in Shakespearean comedies as a means of tidy resolution. This scene also reminded me of a wedding reception I attended where the band played inappropriate songs like The Gin Blossoms’ “Hey Jealousy” and “Found Out About You.” Delivered in a clear, bright tone, Welch conjures up relevant imagery of turbulence while reflecting on lost love. Notably, she’s doing this in front a young, straight couple. Jarman plumbs wedding receptions’ camp potential and indicates the singer’s fan base by surrounding Welch with a chorus line of sailors, masculine figures long integrated into gay culture and iconography. For this perplexed viewer, it’s the stuff that dreams are made on.

Nov

The Tank Girl you (might) want

By Alyx Vesey 1 Comment

Poster for Tank Girl; image courtesy of 24hourstomidnight.files.wordpress.com

So I was originally gonna roll up all cavalier-like and blurt out my opinions on Tank Girl, which I watched for the first time a few nights ago. I had some pre-conceived notions about the movie and what I’d think of it, as the film adaption of the beloved Jamie Hewlett comic is widely regarded as a commercial and critical flop.

Now I’m not entirely sure how to approach the subject matter, because a) I’m not sure how to read this movie, as it is disjointed and oftentimes inscrutable, b) I didn’t realize going into my viewing that several friends were fans of both the movie and the comic, and c) . . . I haven’t gotten around to reading the comic. I’m more than willing to read it, especially since I’m a fan of Hewlett’s work with Damon Albarn on Gorillaz and am interested in their ongoing professional relationship. I simply haven’t had the chance yet, as I just finished Truman Capote’s super-dense In Cold Blood and started Margaret Atwood’s promising The Blind Assassin. If anyone has a copy they’d like to push into my hands, my palms are flat and open.

I'll gladly read this; image courtesy of hero-trailers.blogspot.com

But I still wanted to see the movie and write about it because:

1. Lori Petty stars as Rebecca Buck and I wish her career had taken off instead of stalling around the time of this movie’s 1995 release. While she’s recently run into some legal troubles and I still haven’t seen Point Break or Prey for Rock’N'Roll, I’ve long had a soft spot for this tough, mouthy, gender-queer tomboy ever since her turn as Kit Keller in A League of Their Own. It’s too bad that she was replaced by Sandra Bullock in Demolition Man and that Gwen Stefani sounds just like her, with both women having more visible, financially successful careers.

2. Speaking of Stefani, did she rip off Tank Girl’s style to cultivate her own look, because oh my damn do they look alike.

But maybe I’m being unfair in pitting Petty/Tank Girl against Stefani against one another and instead should remember the cultural context from which they were formed. I’m reminded of my thesis adviser Mary Kearney, whose dissertation focused on contemporary discourses around girlhood and youth culture. Joy Van Fuqua draws on Kearney’s work in her essay ”‘What Are Those Little Girls Made Of?’ The Powerpuff Girls and Consumer Culture.” In her discussion of the show’s popularity, Van Fuqua borrows from Kearney to suggest that, like many other girl characters during the 1990s, Bubbles, Buttercup, and Blossom had to embody both genders in order to succeed in athletics and other male-dominated activities.

Buttercup, Blossom, and Bubbles are gonna fuck yr shit up; image courtesy of msdn.com

3. Speaking of promising actresses, Naomi Watts plays her sidekick and was a total nobody in the states when the movie was originally released. She’s also rockin’ a brunette bob haircut, which I appreciate.

4. Speaking of wacky ladies, Ann Magnuson makes an appearance as a madame who runs a state-of-the-art brothel where folks like Iggy Pop run around in drag and the talent break out into Busby Berkeley-esque routines to Cole Porter’s “Let’s Do It.”

5. Speaking of musicians, the soundtrack is an alternative rock behemoth. Hard to imagine many of the artists represented here got radio play in 1995. Alternative was commercially successful, allowing rock music to splinter off in various, musically diverse directions. Hootie was a major player, but Pulp could get a hit single. Beck was at this point a one-hit wonder, but was working on an era-defining record that would come out the following year. The bubble hadn’t burst yet. Man, 1995 was a strange and amazing time. Bush, Björk, Veruca Salt, L7, Belly, Portishead, Hole. They were all on commercial radio playlists and they’re also on this soundtrack.

6. Speaking of Hole, note that Courtney Love was the movie’s music consultant. Now, I’m not entirely sure what her title means here. Titles like “music consultant” and “music supervisor” tend to be flexible. The latter term is usually held by people who work closely with the director, the editor, and multiple representatives from various record labels, as well as help tend to legal matters like acquiring publishing rights, and clearing songs to be used in the movie and often the accompanying soundtrack.

Courtney Love, 1995's burgeoning hyphenate; image courtesy of rollingstone.com (Ouderkirk/WireImage.com)

My hunch is that Love’s duties were picking what songs she liked and would work with the movie, but had little involvement in the production. After all, she was a busy lady who was trying to heal from the death of her husband, raise her daughter, become a respected actress, and headline Lollapalooza with her band Hole. I don’t think she had time to field phone calls with label execs, although I’d like to imagine what those conversations might be like.

7. Oh, and since the first six points all involved women, let’s add the cherry on top. Tank Girl was directed by a woman named Rachel Talalay.

But as far as reading this movie . . . hummina. I don’t know what I saw. I know it takes place in what is now a not-too-distant, dystopian future and involves our fearless heroine leading a rag-tag group of girls and mutant kangaroo boys against a corrupt faction that control the earth’s water supply. Still with me? Here’s the trailer.

So, things I enjoyed or found interesting about the movie.

1. Naomi Watts kicks ass as Jet Girl. At first shy and fretful, she learns to embrace her intellect and technological savvy and develops the confidence to take charge of the crew and help beat the cast of baddies.

Jet Girl holding it down; image courtesy of kideternal.com

2. Tank Girl has strong relationships with Jet Girl and Rebecca, Tank Girl’s boyfriend’s young daughter. Homosocial bonding and female mentorship, holla!

3. OMG, the costumes. They could be a chapter in a dissertation on third-wave feminism’s fragmentive, performative, and self-reflexive relationship with fashion (note: if such a chapter exists, I want to read it). Tank Girl never wears the same outfit or hair color twice, and her wardrobe toys with historical periods, film genres, youth culture movements, often playing with age, gender, and race as well.

What are you wearing, Tank Girl?, image courtesy of theage.com.au

4. I can’t tell if Ann Magnuson’s Madame, who briefly kidnaps and attempts to employ Rebecca, is a sex-positive feminist, a critique against the then-timely rise of media’s interest in d0-me feminism, or just morally bankrupt.

And then there were things I hated.

1. While Tank Girl’s costuming is fascinating, that’s really the extent of her characterization. Much of this seems to be the fault of the writing. Petty is engaging enough, but Tank Girl is written as less a complex action heroine and more of a buzzword-and-slogan dispenser. Thus, she brings to mind characters like Itchy and Scratchy‘s Poochie, who was created to make fun of corporate-friendly extreme, in-your-face, subcultural cash cows. Perhaps her perceived lack of depth speaks to the awkward process of adapting a comic book into a movie, but her cinematic flatness betrays the torpedo bras.

Torpedo bras don't always provide dimension; image courtesy of mermaidligan.blogspot.com

2. Tank Girl also kicks a disappointing lack of ass here and has questionable methods. I can’t speak to her defense strategies in the comic, but the movie repeatedly has her lure disgusting men with her feminine wiles. Sometimes they get kicked in the balls, but she still shows them her bra or promises sexual favors beforehand.

3. Man, how did Malcolm MacDowell fool people into thinking he could act? He’s the villainous Kesslee here and is making himself quite the ham sandwich. Some may bring up Al Pacino and note that certain actors deliver progressively broader performances as they age, but I think MacDowell’s accent played a role in snowing audiences as well. I think his Britishness even convinced people he was better in If . . . and A Clockwork Orange than he actually was. Charismatic and handsome? Yes. Once a great actor? I don’t think so.

4. I feel like there’s something racially problematic about the mutant kangaroo soldiers who take up with Tank Girl’s crew. Thoughts?

In short, Tank Girl makes for a maddening but interesting spectatorial experience. Now to get a hold of the source material . . .

Sep

Joan Holloway’s “magnificent” parlor game

By Alyx Vesey 6 Comments

Note: Today’s post on Mad Men absolutely contains spoilers. In order to set up the particular scene that will take focus, I had to contextualize other key developments in a character’s life at this point in the series. If you’re not there yet, perhaps you’ll get to it. Keep this post in mind when you do.

Joan Holloway's parlor games; image courtesy of filmschoolrejects.com

Two musical moments for women in as many weeks? Oh, Mad Men. You are the gift that keeps on giving. Last week, I wrote about a scene involving Peggy Olson. Today, I will consider a key scene for office manager Joan Holloway (note: as she married Dr. Greg Harris, she’s now Joan Harris; however, I will refer to her as “Holloway”). And both involve music! Delightful.

Last Sunday, at her husband’s urging, Holloway broke out an accordian and sang “C’est Magnifique” from Cole Porter’s Can-Can to entertain guests for a dinner party they were holding at home. This scene is in sharp juxtaposition with Holloway’s current situation which, as with everything in Mad Men, is hardly magnificent.

That this scene happens at a dinner party is crucial. Older than Olson by a few years, Holloway is in her early 30s and potentially informed by what Noel Murray might call hostess feminism, where wives define themselves as masters of the art of entertaining — cooking, entertainment, hospitality, charming conversation – in order to impress the work associates of their professional, commanding husbands. If we recall from season two, Holloway is transfixed by Jacqueline Kennedy giving a televised tour of the White House. Her preoccupation with being the great and immaculately turned-out woman behind the great man may also speak to her status as the office sex symbol and why she seems the most shaken when Marilyn Monroe dies.

Hostess feminism seems the most applicable term for Holloway in last week’s episode, wherein she holds a dinner party for her husband’s boss. In our current iteration of feminism (or, ugh, post-feminism), some may argue that playing hostess has been reclaimed as progressive, being fluent in Emily Post as a formidable skill-set, and women throw homefront soirées because they want to, not because society has ordained that they be relegated to the domestic. I get this logic, but don’t think it’s that simple here.

Of course, women opting out of the workforce to be wives and mothers is not inherently bad. Feminism is about choice (though, it must also be noted, opting out of the workforce is also about means). Mothers are key players in our society, in that they keep the species alive and, if they do a good job, contribute kind, well-adjusted, and productive people.

It just seems that being a wife and mother wouldn’t be fulfilling to a professional woman like Holloway. Even when conforming to traditional office gender politics, it’s always under the guise of professional decorum (witness how she handles the humiliating run-in with nemesis Jane, Don Draper’s twentysomething former assistant and the new Mrs. Roger Sterling, who Holloway counts as an ex). She clearly possesses more institutional knowledge of Sterling Cooper than almost anyone. We even got an all-too-brief sense for Joan’s knack for television advertising in a season two episode, a knack the boys unfortunately overlooked. They couldn’t get past the cheesecake to see the burgeoning mad woman.

So, Joan’s decision to throw all of her interests into the domestic – strongly implied by her “maturing” age and that may be running out of time – is a little disconcerting, as she herself seems to realize. It doesn’t seem like she wants this life so much as she’s internalized that this is what’s she’s supposed to want. It’s what’s expected — and if you ever need a dark mirror image of how unfulfilling these roles can be to the women who occupy but don’t connect with them, look no further than Mrs. Mommy’s Time Out herself, Betty Draper.

An additional layer to Joan’s domestic unrest is with whom she’s chosen to make her life. Her husband, a doctor at St. Luke’s, has proven himself to be far from the great man any woman can stand behind. Last season, we witnessed him raping his intended in Don Draper’s office — an act of violence he probably dismisses as kinky rough play. In this ugly moment, we see Joan’s eye glaze over the legs of a chair as she’s ground further and further into the floor. It doesn’t get much lower on the corporate rung for this office manager than this. In addition to his brutish behavior, he may have scarce professional resources, as indicated by a botched operation he kept from his wife mentioned in passing by one of his colleagues that may result in him getting passed over her residency. In short, this horrible guy she committed her life to might be more of an albatross than she anticipated.

Which brings us to her impromptu performance of “C’est Magnifique.” Though coming from a musical written by an American, after having read Kelley Conway’s piece on the chanteuse réaliste and Phil Powrie’s piece on the role the accordian has played in French cinema in cultivating a national identity, it’s hard for me not to look for links between Holloway’s and Fréhel’s sexualized, economically marginal position. The big difference, however, is in delivery. Where Fréhel celebrates being raunchy, Holloway’s performance is professional, efficient, and unflappable.

It’s also what might be called pointedly empty. Part of this can be attributed to Holloway’s disembodied vocal performance. While it sounds like the voice pushing through actress Christina Hendricks’s mouth is her own, she is also clearly dubbed, her vocal take recorded in some unseen studio some time ago. Thus, there’s a clear break between singer and actor, even if the speaking voice and singing voice seem to match up.

This disembodiedness has an edge to it. Holloway recognizes the cruel irony of the seemingly lovely-dovey lyrics. She may also see a bit of herself in La Môme Pistache, Can-Can‘s protagonist. Both women now just how tragic love can be when it turns out to be a lie. My hope is that the character who is working through these issues on AMC this season is proactive in trying to find a viable solution. I’d hate for her to become as hollow as her maiden name implies.

Feminist Music Geek fan page

February 2012
S	M	T	W	T	F	S
« Jan
	1	2	3	4
5	6	7	8	9	10	11
12	13	14	15	16	17	18
19	20	21	22	23	24	25
26	27	28	29

Podcasts

Tumblrs

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Feminist Music Geek

Posts Tagged ‘Cole Porter

Why I’ll totally watch Burlesque on DVD

Scene It: Elisabeth Welch and The Tempest

The Tank Girl you (might) want

Joan Holloway’s “magnificent” parlor game

Feminist Music Geek fan page

Recent Posts

Blogroll

Podcasts

Tumblrs

Web sites

Follow “Feminist Music Geek”