Customer Reviews

Incongruous Entertainment: Camp, Cultural Value, and the MGM Musical

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

When I bought this book, I was surprised at the reviews. I know Steve Cohan and have read other books by him and I find his writing to be both insightful and slyly entertaining. Now that I have read the book, I have to add my own two cents. _Incongruous Entertainment_ is a scholarly work, written by a film scholar and published by a university press, so it is long and full of information. I'm not sure why some think this is a bad thing. After all, arguments require substantiation and Cohan makes several, including his significant (hence its length) introductory claim that camp is not simply in the eye of the beholder and that it can be found in the texts themselves. This book focuses on MGM musicals as exemplars of camp objects and the author identifies, explains, and analyses the many factors that play into their creation as such and what that might mean for musicals' place in American culture.

For those who aren't familiar with all of the musicals, Cohan describes with precision the particulars relevant to his analysis and is able to include a limited number of images from the films to anchor the descriptions in concrete visuals. By the end of his description of _Ziegfeld Follies_'s "Here's to the Girls," I felt as if I had seen the number though I have never seen any of the film. As an academic, I might not notice the "jargon" mentioned by an earlier reviewer but I am not an expert on the musical and still I found the book to be accessible. That doesn't change the fact that it is long and full of information, which isn't what everyone expects.

My only gripe is that I would have liked more of the pictures from the films, both in size and number. This is more a copyrights and publishing problem than anything else and is not a reflection of the individual book, though it does affect it.

How a single work can manage to suck every ounce of joy from should have been a fascinating and juicy topic is beyond comprehension. What a wasted opportunity.

As a whole, the book delves into the idea of "camp" in context of the MGM classic musicals. The Introduction gives the reader a very lengthy definition of "camp" and it's relation to homosexuality, queerness, and gayness (which he describes as all different ideas).

If you can actually sit down interrupted, the book hits on some unique ideas, including the "butch-ness" of Esther Williams, the sissy, yet heteroerotic Gene Kelly, the cultural value of Judy Garland information on the internet, and an entire chapter devoted to Singin' in the Rain, by far my favorite chapter.

This chapter felt the least wordy, least academic. It delves into the period of silent movie to talkie transition historically. It also discusses SITR's reflection and fusion of the most often cited early MGM musicals, "Broadway Melody" and "Hollywood Revue," as well as why the movie stands the test of time.

I'm not a film student, just a film buff, and I'm glad I read the book. May be a little unaccessible-- the author could have easily truncated and simplified his book for a more general, non-academic audience, but you can get through it. Wish the paperback wasn't so expensive.

Does anybody still eat aspic? No? Then don't sample this book. It's dense with the kind of pretentious academic jargon that makes books of this kind unreadable, pretentious, and depressing. One example: academics and others have been hinting for years at the sexual ambiguity of Gene Kelly's screen persona, but instead of just coming out (pun intended) and saying it, they have to beat around the bush (pun not intended). Cohan does the same dance at such excrutiating length you'll want to scream, even if you're not a queen. Please note that all the praise from the official reviews is from other academics. What an industry! What a farce.