Tags: , academia, jobs

I have streamlined the dissertation quite a bit. As I’ve been told would happen, the first chapter (the film chapter) became the entire dissertation. Because of this, the dissertation is much more focused, specific, and (hopefully) an easy, enjoyable read. 

In essence, the dissertation is now a survey of four films. Focusing on four seemingly unrelated films, I am dissecting the use of narratives of amateur musicians in the “post-punk” 1980s and 1990s, as well as analyzing the interesting situation of producing a film that is critical of the professional media machine (the music or film industries) within and outside of “Hollywood” and the influence of fictional amateurs on “actual” nascent musicians.

In all the included films, I believe the amateur musician is used as an allegory for those culturally and commercially marginalized in regards to popular music based on gender, sexuality, age, talent, hipness, authenticity, and commercial potential. It is my theory that by the 1980s while african-american/black musicians had a position of often problematically assumed authenticity (see Eric Idle’s brilliant THE RUTLES for a comedic example), women, queer, transgendered, and other “outside” musicians were (are) still relegated to a “lesser than” bin in regards to “real” rock and roll. They are the “less professional” amateurs. Though only two of the films forefront gender (THE FABULOUS STAINS and HEDWIG), the other films are not unrelated to gender in regards, at least, to production. ISHTAR uses amateurism as a commentary on the space of performance (as does HEDWIG), age, geography, and talent, possibly as a method for writer/director Elaine May (seasoned professional, former comedic partner of Mike Nichols, and once believed to be the “most powerful” female director in Hollywood) to discuss her own “up hill battle” in Hollywood. The female directed HALF-COCKED (the least well-known film included) uses the backdrop of amateurism in a manner to portray a near-authentic representation of “real” amateurism–in spite of or because of the less-than professional manner of production, portrayal, and distribution.

Though it is theoretically impossible to consume and study the mediation of amateur musicians (at least in a pre-Internet world), one CAN study the presumptions, assumptions, and “representations” of such musicians by studying fictional fabrications. Interestingly enough, though the films are transparently “not real,” they are largely made with the aid of “real” musicians, rely on the “reality” of amateur musicians, can be produced and distributed in a manner more akin to “real rock” rather than “reel film,” and have gone on to inspire “real” musicians (such is the case with members of the Riot Grrl group Bikini Kill’s reliance upon LADIES AND GENTLEMEN THE FABULOUS STAINS in their development of aesthetics and politics).

Two of the films were written by well established women who struggled unsuccessfully (or successfully in another regard) with the “boys club” of Hollywood and created from within the machine of Hollywood only to (possibly as a result of purposeful sabotaged or lack of concern) fail commercially. The other two films were created outside of the mainstream Hollywood machine and achieved relative success in alternative markets (though their “success” is likely commercially far below the other films’ failures.

Here is the current proposed chapter list:

Tags: , academia, Dissertation, film, music, research