Intersecting Film, Music, and Queerness

by Jack Curtis Dubowsky

Overview

Intersecting Film, Music, and Queerness uses musicology and queer theory to uncover meaning and message in canonical American cinema. This study considers how queer readings are reinforced or nuanced through analysis of musical score. Taking a broad approach to queerness that questions heteronormative and homonormative patriarchal structures, binary relationships, gender assumptions and anxieties, this book challenges existing interpretations of what is progressive and what is retrogressive in cinema. Examined films include Bride of Frankenstein, Louisiana Story, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Blazing Saddles, Edward Scissorhands, Brokeback Mountain, Boys Don't Cry, Transamerica, Thelma&Louise, Go Fish and The Living End, with special attention given to films that subvert or complicate genre. Music is analyzed with concern for composition, intertextual references, absolute musical structures, song lyrics, recording, arrangement, and performance issues. This multidisciplinary work, featuring groundbreaking research, analysis, and theory, offers new close readings and a model for future scholarship.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781137454218
Publisher:	Palgrave Macmillan
Publication date:	04/08/2016
Series:	Palgrave Studies in Audio-Visual Culture
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	266
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Jack Curtis Dubowsky is a composer, author, music editor, educator, and filmmaker. Major musical works include Harvey Milk: A Cantata and an oratory with orchestra, Eisenhower Farewell Address. Dubowsky is a fellow of the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements
Introduction
PART I: Mad About The Boy: Male Homosexuality and Music in Film
1. Louisiana Story, Homoeroticism, and Americana
2. Musical Cachet in The Living End and the New Queer Cinema
3. Brokeback Mountain Music
PART II: Fighting the Patriarchy: Dykes, Misogyny, and Gender Fear
4. A Tale of Two Walters: Genre and Gender Outsiders
5. Mainstreaming and Rebelling
PART III: Queering of Genre
6. Queer Monster Good: Frankenstein and Edward Scissorhands
7. Blazing Saddles: Music and Meaning in 'The French Mistake'
8. Conclusion
Index

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“A pleasure to read throughout! Dubowsky’s scholarship is meticulous, his critical sense alert and intelligent, and his range of knowledge is marvelous. Plus, he writes with a clear mind and a clean prose. This book will count for scholars of music, LGBTQ studies, American history, and film.” (Mitchell Morris, Professor of Musicology, UCLA, USA)

“Jack Curtis Dubowsky’s Intersecting Film Music and Queerness provides a fresh and exciting analysis of cinema and sound, offering fascinating insight into the relationship between soundtracks and the sexuality and gender of the musicians who made them. The book weaves film studies, musicology, and queer theory into a compelling interpretive mesh for academic audiences, while serving up enough biographical tidbits and interesting anecdotes to please even the most hardcore fans and enthusiasts.” (Susan Stryker, Director, Institute for LGBT Studies, University of Arizona, USA)

Editorial Reviews

I recommend Dubowsky’s text as a useful starting place for someone who wishes to investigate queer film studies or film music, or who is establishing a bibliography towards these fields. The book would find frequent use in an institutional library.” (C.J. Komp, Society for American Music, american-music.org, 2018)

From the Publisher