Changing Partners: Male Comradery and the Decline of Homosocial Dance in American Film

After the decline of the American movie musical genre in the late 1960s to early 1970s, there have been several attempts at reviving the genre and paying homage to movie musicals from the 1930s to 1950s. One such example, the 2016 film La La Land, received critical acclaim from audiences and critics alike. Although La La Land features numerous references to the 1952 movie musical Singin’ in the Rain and references to the song and dance film spectacles choreographed by Busby Berkeley in the 1930s, La La Land fails to portray spectacles involving multiple men singing and dancing together. Before the decline of the movie musical genre, spectacles showcasing two or more men singing and dancing together was commonplace in Hollywood. My research explores two widely successful twentieth-century movie musicals, Gold Diggers of 1933 and Singin’ in the Rain, and compares the portrayal of masculinity in them to La La Land by applying Rick Altman’s theory of the movie musical narrative structure to them. The first chapter analyzes the final spectacle of Gold Diggers of 1933, the number “Remember My Forgotten Man,” and objectification of the male body in the number. The spectacle utilizes male World War I veterans to form shapes that comprise the background of the spectacle, objectifying their body to be used as a decoration in the number. Significantly, the spectacle concludes in the separation between men and women unlike the typical ending of 1930s movie musicals which concludes in marriage. This spectacle is compared with the spectacles in Singin’ in the Rain, discussed in the second chapter. This chapter explores spectacles such as “Fit as a Fiddle (And Ready for Love)” and “Moses,” two spectacles that feature Gene Kelly and Donald O’Connor singing and dancing together in a display of male comradery. Despite the film narratively occurring during the same time as Gold Diggers of 1933, the male comradery in Singin’ in the Rain is more similar to the male comradery of films portraying World War II veterans such as The Best Years of Our Lives. Like The Best Years of Our Lives, Singin’ in the Rain is a film about the readjustment to a post war American society, where male comradery is celebrated as a means of reintegrating into society and heterosexual marriage is a representation of full readjustment into society. Both Gold Diggers of 1933 and Singin’ in the Rain are referenced again in the third chapter, discussing the 2016 film La La Land. Although there are numerous spectacles between Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone in La La Land, there are no spectacles where Gosling sings or dances with other men. These spectacles are compared to the spectacles in the 2012 film Magic Mike, which in contrast references Singin’ in the Rain in a manner that emphasizes men singing and dancing together on stage. La La Land praises male individuality over comradery and portrays an image of masculinity that reserves emotions for only heterosexual relationships, reproducing the modern epidemic of male loneliness in America.