Krin Gabbard argues that “white culture has assigned black culture a central role in its own self- definition while simultaneously marginalizing or erasing black people.”[1] Hence, Gabbard proposes that popular culture constitutes “endlessly circulating moves, riffs, bits of sound and image” that function and entertain the masses at the expense of black culture – a form of exploitation.[2] As an amalgamation of ensemble dance numbers, musical sequences reminiscent of the classical period and jazz music, the postmodern style of Damien Chazelle’s Academy Award winning La La Land (2016) presents an interesting case study for black erasure and cultural appropriation within the genre. In exploring the issues of politics and nostalgia within La La Land, this essay will employ key texts by Carol Clover, Miriam Hansen, Linda Mizejewski and Timothy Scheurer to articulate how the musical genre’s combining of “story and spectacle for purposes of entertainment can also function as a mode of cultural representation with ideological and historical implications.”[3] Scholarly articles focusing on the musical film’s significance as a mainstay of classical Hollywood will be combined with literature by Gabbard, Cornel West and Christina Sharpe that focuses on African American history. Thus, a theoretical framework incorporating genre theory and historical contexts of blackness will be consolidated by a close analysis of Chazelle’s film to posit the Hollywood musical form as inherently constructed by a legacy of appropriating and erasing African-American culture; closely tied with colourism that seeks to ostracise Latin Americans and other ethnic minorities.

Chazelle’s narrative focuses on two white protagonists angling for their big break in Los Angeles; Mia (Emma Stone) is a barista and amateur actress, whilst Sebastian (Ryan Gosling) is an emerging pianist hoping to open his own jazz club. The pair frequently encounter one another by chance, first in a traffic jam and then at the restaurant where Sebastian works, before finally meeting at a party in the Hollywood hills; embarking on a whirlwind romance, frequented by date nights at Sebastian’s favourite jazz showcase, The Lighthouse Café. As the pair begin to achieve their dreams, it becomes evident that romantic love and success are mutually exclusive. Mia relocates to Paris to star in her first major production, whilst Sebastian becomes a touring musician and opens a jazz club named Seb’s. The film has been criticised for its “clichéd and narrow view of jazz, especially as espoused by Ryan Gosling’s character,”[4] echoing Gabbard’s articulation of the jazz world as “the one place where whites could gain access to black culture without putting dark make-up on their faces.”[5] For example, during a scene at the forementioned Lighthouse Café, Sebastian plays piano onstage with an all-black band whilst Mia dances in the audience. The camera hurriedly pans between the pair, utilising wide shots that reveal the remainder of the crowd as almost entirely black. However, the black actors embodying the club’s musicians and clientele never receive a close-up, only disembodied shots of their hands and the instruments they play (Appendix A). The scene is hence constructed as an act of tokenism seeking to loosely acknowledge the legacy of jazz music as intrinsically linked with African-American history, whilst ostracising black actors from the mise-en-scène as they are ostracised from American society. This presents La La Land as cohesive with Chazelle’s filmography, constituting recurring depictions of characters obsessed or infatuated by jazz music. For example, Whiplash centres on young jazz drummer and conservatory student Andrew Neiman (Miles Teller), under the abusive instruction of conductor Terence Fletcher. The psychological nature of Whiplash, along with La La Land’s employment of theatrical fantasy in the film’s epilogue – soundtracked by Sebastian performing piano music at his new club – echo Gabbard’s description of “the enchanting effect of black music (...) on movie characters, more often than not when the characters on screen are white.”[6] However, Chazelle’s debut directorial feature Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench (2009) is a romantic musical film centred on back jazz musician Guy (Jason Palmer) as he attempts to navigate his career and his affections for Madeleine (Desiree Garcia); the concept was evidently reused for La La Land. Chazelle also directed the first two episodes of Netflix show The Eddy, which follows American Elliot Udo (André Holland), a former pianist and the owner of a Paris jazz club. The depiction of a black protagonist grappling with poverty and grief is far from the Oscar-winning romanticised vision of Los Angeles, and the miniseries has been criticised for being an overindulgent musical drama attempting to interpret jazz music through a crime-related plot. Compared to the commercial success of Chazelle’s La La Land, which received numerous accolades including seven Golden Globe nominations and six Academy Awards, here lies a suggestion that black stories are more palatable to mainstream audiences when they are white-washed. Whilst Gosling is not guilty of committing blackface to embody a fantasy of blackness, as leading man Fred Astaire did in Swing Time (1936) (Appendix B), his performance as Sebastian demonstrates the practice of “minstrelsy in whiteface.”[7] Hence, the success of La La Land is attributed to Chazelle’s framing of jazz music through a white protagonist, demonstrating the film as musical fantasy that employs “metaphoric and symbolic expression through the means of music and dance” to provide white actors with the opportunity to engage in reveries of blackness without engaging with black history.[8]

Anti-Blackness of this manner is closely related to colourism, the term used to describe “unequal treatment of and discrimination against individuals based on their skin tone,” perpetuating “white supremacy and racism by privileging and upholding Eurocentric beauty standards.”[9] The film’s colourism is evident from the opening scene and subsequent musical number, ‘Another Day of Sun’, constituting a six-minute reverie that transforms a stereotypical Los Angeles traffic jam into a colourful spectacle of song and dance, immediately introducing the film as “a highly stylised representation of life where reality is not revealed through the actions we normally associate with everyday living.”[10] The musical number opens with a tracking shot of the seemingly never-ending queue of cars, with a different song or radio station heard emulating from each one. The eclectic mix of sound reflects Los Angeles as a multicultural city - a ‘melting pot’ in which ethnic minorities “melt together”, abandoning their individual cultures and eventually becoming fully assimilated into the predominant society.”[11] In order to create such a fantastical scene, an entire freeway was shut down over a weekend and, as the characters sporadically burst into song and dance to the music in perfect unison, the music establishes the film’s spirit as one of utopianism; the wistful lyrics anchoring this depiction of the American dream.[12] Chazelle envisions a utopia where people of all ethnicities co-exist alongside each other in perfect harmony, sporadically bursting into song to share their thoughts and feelings about collective experiences; a common culture. For example, the song’s female lead, Reshma Gajjar, is of Indian-American ancestry whilst the male lead, Damian Gomez, is Latino. Gajjar is dressed in a bright yellow sundress, whilst Gomez wears a white shirt with black trousers and a red tie – these costumes are almost identical to the outfits donned by Mia and Sebastian during the ‘A Lovely Night’ sequence, following the pair’s third chance encounter with one another. Hence, from the film’s outset, Chazelle’s employs the ‘star-crossed lovers’ trope to suggest Mia and Sebastian were destined to meet, and also to part, in pursuit of their dreams. However, the diverse cast featured in the opening scene sets a false precedent for the film’s central narrative. Chazelle’s casting of Gajjar and Gomez in these minor roles, foreshadowing the fate of his white protagonists and doing little more than serving the plot, demonstrates a construction of middle class American “whiteness” at the expense of ethnic minorities; an expectation of American subcultures to “build the movie set of white perfection.”[13] Although the depiction of a diverse ensemble in the film’s opening number accurately reflects Los Angeles as a multicultural ‘melting pot’, the casting demonstrates a tendency within the Hollywood musical form to cast racial minority groups as mere plot devices. The film ultimately posits the American dream as a myth, as is the life Mia and Sebastian dream of together.

Further to this, ‘Another Day of Sun’ also demonstrates a physical impossibility reminiscent of Busby Berkeley’s filmography. The elaborate choreography of the ensemble dance sequence is paired with CinemaScope, Panavision 35mm film, sweeping crane shots and long takes – a visual style reminiscent of Berkeleyesque cinema. In 1933 alone, Busby Berkeley staged the dances for three Warner Brothers musicals: 42nd Street, Gold Diggers of 1933, and Footlight Parade. The films were cohesive in their depiction of backstage stories, centring on characters concerned with the production of a Broadway show. Martin Rubin argues that Berkeley’s work is rendered distinct through his kaleidoscopic birds-eye view shots, underwater camerawork, and location-shifting cuts.[14] In interpreting Berkeley’s polysemic style, Miriam Hansen employs a socio-political perspective, likening the chorus line prevalent in his dance numbers with the assembly line, invented by Henry Ford in 1913. Modern mass culture in the early 20th century was defined by Fordist-Taylorist methods of production, including “standardisation, rationalisation, calculability, efficiency, and speed”[15] that transformed capitalism, setting a precedent for an “industrial middle class, and an economy that was driven by consumer demand.”[16] In relation to Berkeley’s work, Hansen argues that “the modernising impulse is deflected into the mere physicality of body culture” and “the abstraction of the individual body corresponds (…) to the Taylorist principle of breaking down human labour into calculable unit”; suggesting that the kaleidoscopic imagery and choreography envisioned 20th century living.[17] Yet, Berkeley’s musical numbers exclusively featured white showgirls, despite the fact that the history of capital, and the development of Americanism as we know it today, is “inextricable from the history of Atlantic chattel slavery”.[18] This notion is analysed by Linda Mizejewski in her essay, Beautiful White Bodies, which discusses the effects of the Production Code on racial visibility in 1930s cinema; the censorship apparatus prohibited the depiction of interracial relationships onscreen, whilst establishing a “cinematic taboo” surrounding “black performance for a white audience.”[19] In line with Mizejewski’s argument, Mia and Sebastian’s “beautiful white bodies” in La La Land are rendered powerful, desirable and valuable; prized commodities to be exploited as part Hollywood’s entertainment system for the identically white audience’s pleasure.[20] This desirability is only possible, however, due to the depiction of racial difference within the film’s opening scene and musical number. As Berkeley does in his chorus girl numbers, such as ‘By a Waterfall’ from Footlight Parade (Appendix C), Chazelle constructs an idealised vision of whiteness by referencing that which is not white; “an ‘outside’, a site of lesser value.”[21] In this case, the ‘outside’ constitutes ethnic minorities including Latin Americans and Indian Americans.

Interestingly, Berkeley directed (albeit uncredited) the musical number ‘Shine’ from Vincente Minelli’s all-black musical Cabin in the Sky. In comparison to his work throughout the 1930s, ‘Shine’ is an overwhelmingly toned-down incarnation of Berkeley’s usually exuberant style. The song centres on an individual performance by film’s villain Domino Johnson (John W. Sublett) singing at a bar. Cabin in the Sky serves as a theatrical fantasy, notably in its engagement with biblical themes. Kenneth Spencer plays The General - the Lord’s Angel - who provides gambling addict Little Joe Jackson (Eddie Anderson) with the opportunity for redemption on his death bed, whilst Lucifer Junior (the son of Satan), played by Rex Ingram, is adamant Little Joe belongs in hell. The surrealist nature of the film’s narrative hence provides ample opportunity for Berkeleyesque production value and imagery. However, ‘Shine’ is a simplistic number which contributes to the film’s spirit or theme, enriching the plot without enhancing it, thus conforming to John Mueller’s understanding of the different permutations within the integrated musical; raising a suggestion that black performers are not deemed worthy of spectacle and big-budget production.[22] This aligns with the minstrel number ‘Waiting for Robert E. Lee’ featured in Babes on Broadway (1941), directed and choreographed by Berkeley, which features the film’s leads Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland donning grotesque blackface (Appendix B). A convention of musical movies throughout this era, use of blackface onscreen was indicative of white supremacy, “allowing society to routinely and historically imagine African Americans as not fully human. It serves to rationalise violence and Jim Crow segregation.”[23] As Berkeley rendered twentieth-century modernisation palatable for audiences throughout the golden age of the musical film, Chazelle envisions a utopian society in which his protagonists fall in love and achieve their dreams, whilst people of all races and ethnicities co-exist harmoniously – a stark contrast to the current socio-political climate within the United States. However, by crafting a visual style reminiscent of Busby Berkeley’s work throughout the classical Hollywood period, Damien Chazelle endorses the racist notions embedded within his work, including minstrelsy, thus providing a full circle moment for the musical form that diminishes the African American experience, as well as erasing the existence of ethnic minorities and their rich cultural history for the purpose of depicting “white perfection” for mass audience consumption.[24]

            The second musical number arrives succinctly after the first, as Mia arrives home from another failed audition and her flatmates (all emerging actors) convince her to attend a party in the Hollywood Hills. Thus begins another ensemble song and dance number, ‘Someone in the Crowd’, during which the four women singing about the desire to be different; to stand out from the crowd and experience a chance encounter that could elevate their careers. As Mia leaves the audition, a wide tracking shot depicts her walking down a corridor lined by hopeful actresses waiting to audition, and who look identical to her (Appendix D). This scene presents Mia in competition with her female peers, a moment echoed towards the end of the film, as Sebastian convinces Mia to audition for a television pilot; the moment that manifests her big break into the industry. Initially refusing to attend, she justifies her reasons as follows:

“Because I’ve been to a million auditions and the same thing happens every time where I get interrupted because someone wants to get a sandwich or I’m crying and they start laughing or there’s people sitting in the waiting and they’re like me but prettier and better at this because maybe I’m not good enough.”[25]

The abundance of similar-looking women that fuel Mia’s insecurities and reluctancy to audition speaks to the lack of diverse onscreen representation within Hollywood, as well as the prevalence of productions featuring a predominantly white cast. ‘Someone in the Crowd’ thus presents a rare, but vital moment, of female solidarity within Chazelle’s film, as Mia and her flatmates move around their apartment preparing for the party. The three housemates are played by Sonoya Mizuno, a Japanese-British actress, as well as Jessica Rothe and Callie Hernandez. The scene depicts a getting-ready montage, a “riff on the musical tradition that sees a young woman singing as she gets reading for the evening”, constituting an instance of Chazelle appropriating the Latin American experience disguised as female empowerment.[26] For example, Emma Stone and her co-stars each don heels and a brightly-coloured dress, stomping and twirling down the dimly-lit street, swaying their skirts in time with the music, reminiscent of the iconic number ‘America’ from the original West Side Story (1961) (Appendix E). The number is sung by Anita, played by Rita Moreno, a Puerto Rican who supports the United States and all it has to offer, desiring to fully immerse herself within the American culture. Ironically, Moreno’s skin colour was darkened with make-up throughout the film’s production, one instance of the film’s prevailing use of brownface, despite the fact that Moreno is Puerto Rican herself. When she questioned the makeup artist about the practice, she was “accused of being racist.”[27] The prominent depiction of actors in brownface throughout West Side Story demonstrates the prevalent colourism within the industry that considers certain African-American and Latin American actors to be not dark-skinned enough, perpetuated by blackface as “a staple of the theatrical tradition.”[28] Whilst Chazelle’s use of intertextuality serves to recognise the legacy of West Side Story within popular culture, the allusion also endorses the racist practices employed in its production, which render the film’s portrayal of racial prejudice and immigration inauthentic; contributing to the ‘othering’ of ethnic minorities within America.

Furthermore, the synchronised choreography also indicates the appropriation of “cultural traditions of expressivity,” as Arthur Jafa argues that black Americans possess an “acute sensitivity to rhythms” and “vectors, or spatial arrays.”[29] This demonstrates a tight interconnectedness between the African-American experience and dance, a relationship allowing black people to exist without judgement or dictation, as rhythmic movement provides a space “where there is no sort of external authority (…) no commodification.”[30] The choreography (and intertextuality within ‘Someone in the Crowd’) hence cultivates an argument that suggests Mia desires to be racially different in order to stand out. This is an example of the historical phenomenon bell hooks criticises, a white girl “flaunting her fascination and envy of blackness.”[31] She argues that a sign of white privilege involves embodying the “‘essence’ of soul and blackness” whilst ignoring “white supremacist domination and the hurt it inflicts via oppression, exploitation, and everyday wounds and pains.”[32] The white women featured in La La Land are hence granted the privilege of engaging with black popular culture and the immigrant experience without engaging with the afterlives of slavery, defined by Saidiya Hartman as “skewed life chances, limited access to health and education, premature death, incarceration, and impoverishment.”[33] Evidently, authors such as Hartman, Sharpe and Gabbard aim to highlight the prevalence of the Transatlantic slave trade within contemporary America, whilst mainstream Hollywood cinema continues to appropriate and white-wash and commodify elements of Black popular culture for the purpose of aesthetic pleasure, entertainment and mass consumption.

However, the intertextual reference to West Side Story concealed within the choreography and costumes of ‘Someone in the Crowd’ is a single example of the film’s postmodern tendencies. Damien Chazelle employs intertextuality and pastiche most prominently within the film’s overtly postmodern epilogue, which envisions Mia and Sebastian’s life together through a romanticised rewriting of their turbulent relationship. The 7-minute sequence defies time and space in a manner that echoes Berkeley’s style, fit with sweeping camera movements and surreal transitions. The most notable intertextual references include those visually alluding to Singin’ in the Rain (1952), MGM’s iconic movie musical produced “at the height of the musical’s popularity and cultural centrality.”[34] The epilogue envisions an alternate reality in which Mia and Sebastian stayed together, depicting Mia performing her one-woman show to a packed-out theatre. Following a standing ovation, Mia and Sebastian leave the theatre as invisible editing transitions the pair into a fantasy of “Golden-Age Hollywood, the ‘dream factory’ that produced beauty and catharsis practically out of thin air.”[35] The pair enter a soundstage constructed to appear as an artificial, miniature Los Angeles, revisiting the film’s iconic locations, complete with painted landscapes, cardboard shrubs and a set piece resembling the highway depicted in ‘Another Day of Sun’ (Appendix F). The scene draws attention to film as artifice, with costumed dancers, cardboard streetlights, and saturated colour palette of red, yellow, and purple visibly reminiscent of Singin’ in the Rain, particularly the 13-minute dreamworld number ‘Broadway Melody’.[36] In her essay, Dancin’ in the Rain, Clover critiques the 1952 film as a self-proclaimed, self-reflexive commentary on issues of authorship and blackness within the Hollywood musical, arguing that the “morality tale of stolen talent is driven by a nervousness about just opposite, about stolen talent unrestored.”[37] For example, almost every song featured in the film originated elsewhere, accommodating the music of Nacio Herb Brown and Arthur Freed, whilst the shift-to-sound dilemma at the centre of the film’s plot is reminiscent of You’re My Everything (1949).[38] Furthermore, set in 1927 during the onset of the talkie, the film must reference The Jazz Singer (1927) as Hollywood’s first. In the opening scene of Singin’ in the Rain, Cosmo Brown (Donald O’Connor) briefly sings a rendition of ‘My Mammy’ from the 1927 movie musical, directly imitating Al Jolson’s voice whilst disregarding Jolson’s display of blackface used to perform the musical number (Appendix B).

These borrowed attributes of sound and image set a precedent for the contemporary musical form as intrinsically postmodern, often at the expense of Black Americans and Black popular culture, instead reducing “them to references so fleeting as to be almost invisible and inaudible.”[39] Much like Singin’ in the Rain, Chazelle’s film functions as a musical fantasy, borrowing attributes from Hollywood musical history; rendering the film entertaining through its inherent nostalgic and depiction of utopian desire. However, as Cornel West posits, racism and race are woven in American history and can never be eradicated without understanding that “race matters” in everything we consider “American.”[40] Thus, this romanticisation of 20th century Hollywood serves as a form of historical negation that attempts to diminish the role of African-American persons in the history of the United States whilst exploiting and commodifying their culture, setting a dangerous precedent for black exploitation and erasure in the filmic space.

To conclude, the conventions of the Hollywood musical genre are inherently grounded in cultural appropriation and erasure that seeks to render the African-American experience, and black expressivity, palatable for mainstream (white) audiences. This anti-blackness is heavily evident in Damien Chazelle’s La La Land (2016), which employs pastiche and intertextuality to craft a postmodern movie musical that pays homage to classical form, whilst endorsing its racist practices. This is evidenced in the film’s musical numbers, notably ‘Another Day of Sun’ and ‘Someone in the Crowd’, as well as the centring of a white protagonist infatuated with jazz music and its history. Thus, Chazelle’s film serves as a case study exemplifying how the pleasure and nostalgia derived from the musical form ultimately diminishes black history, as argued by Gabbard and Sharpe. A close analysis of the film also invokes colourism and tokenism as conventional attributes within Chazelle’s work, evident in the intertextual references to West Side Story and the depiction of Latin American actors as plot devices. Thus, La La Land ultimately demonstrates the musical genre as a prevailing factor in the ongoing systemic marginalisation of (and discrimination against) ethnic minorities living within the United States.

[1] Krin Gabbard, Black Magic: White Hollywood and African American Culture (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2004); 6.

[2] Carol J. Clover, “Dancin’ in the Rain,” Critical Enquiry 32, no. 3 (Spring 1993): 723.

[3] Steven Cohan, “Introduction” in Hollywood Musicals, The Film Reader, ed. Steven Cohan (London; New York: Routledge, 2002); 17.

[4] David Marchese, “La La Land Director Damien Chazelle Breaks Down Jazz’s Popularity Problem” Vulture, December 19, 2016. https://www.vulture.com/2016/12/la-la-land-damien-chazelle-jazz-nostalgia.html.

[5] Gabbard, Black Magic, 20.

[6] Gabbard, Black Magic, 6.

[7] Gabbard, Black Magic, 19.

[8] Timothy Scheurer, “The Aesthetics of Form and Convention in the Movie Musical,” Journal of Popular Film 3, no. 4 (1974): 308.

[9] Janvieve Williams Comrie, Antoinette M. Landor, Kwyn Townsend Riley and Jason D. Williamson, “Anti-Blackness/Colorism” in Moving Toward Antibigotry (Boston: BU Centre for Antiracist Research, 2022), 74.

[10] Scheurer, Movie Musical, 308.

[11] “Melting Pot”, European Centre for Populism Studies, accessed May 1, 2023. https://www.populismstudies.org/Vocabulary/melting-pot/.

[12] Raisa Bruner, “Here’s How They Made La La Land’s Extravagant Opening Musical Number”, Time, December 9, 2016. https://time.com/4594589/la-la-land-opening-scene-musical-another-day-of-sun/.

[13] Héctor Tobar, “Opinion: Latino workers are erased from a picture-perfect white world they create,” Los Angeles Times, April 30, 2023. https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2023-04-30/latino-laborers-landscaping-maids-white-suburbs-race.

[14] Martin Rubin, “Busby Berkeley and the Backstage Musical” in Showstoppers: Busby Berkeley and the Tradition of Spectacle (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993); 58.

[15] Miriam Hansen, “Curious Americanism” in Cinema and Experience, ed. Siegfried Kracauer, Walter Benjamin and Theodor W. Adorno (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2017); 40.

[16] Sarah Cwiek, “The Middle Class Took Off 100 Years Ago… Thanks To Henry Ford?”, NPR, January 27, 2014. https://www.npr.org/2014/01/27/267145552/the-middle-class-took-off-100-years-ago-thanks-to-henry-ford.

[17] Miriam Hansen, “Curious Americanism”, 49-52.

[18] Christina Sharpe, In the Wake: On Blackness and Being (London: Duke University Press, 2016), 5.

[19] Linda Mizejewski, “Beautiful White Bodies” in Hollywood Musicals: The Film Reader, ed. Steven Cohan (London; New York: Routledge, 2002); 185.

[20] Mizejewski, “Beautiful White Bodies”, 186.

[21] Mizejewski, “Beautiful White Bodies”, 186-7.

[22] John Mueller, “Fred Astaire and the Integrated Musical,” Cinema Journal 24, no. 1 (Autumn 1984): 28-29.

[23] Alexis Clark, “How the History of Blackface Is Rooted in Racism,” HISTORY, last modified March 29, 2023. https://www.history.com/news/blackface-history-racism-origins.

[24] Tobar, “Opinion: Latino workers are erased”.

[25] Damien Chazelle, La La Land (USA: Lionsgate, 2016).

[26] Michael Koresky, “Working It,” Film Comment 53, no. 3 (May-June 2017): 43.

[27] Ashley Lee, “Commentary: Spielberg tried to save ‘West Side Story.’ But its history makes it unsalvageable,” Los Angeles Times, December 12, 2021. https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/movies/story/2021-12-12/west-side-story-puerto-rico-cultural-authenticity.

[28] Mizejewski, “Beautiful White Bodies,” 183.

[29] Arthur Jafa and Tina Campt, “Love is the Message, the Plan is Death.” e-flux journal 81 (April 2017): 3-5.

[30] Jafa, “Love is the Message”, 6.

[31] bell hooks, “Madonna: Plantation Mistress or Soul Sister?” in Black Looks: Race and Representation (Boston: South End Press, 1992), 157.

[32] hooks, “Madonna”, 158.

[33] Saidiya Hartman, Lose Your Mother: A Journey Along the Atlantic slave route (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2007), 6.

[34] Koresky, “Working It”, 43.

[35] Koresky, “Working It”, 43.

[36] Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly, Singin’ in the Rain (USA, Loew’s Inc, 1952).

[37] Clover, “Dancin’ in the Rain,” 725.

[38] Clover, “Dancin’ in the Rain,” 724.

[39] Clover, “Dancin’ in the Rain,” 730.

[40] Cornel West, Race Matters (New York: Vintage Books, 1993).

Appendix A

Stills taken from La La Land (2016), directed by Damien Chazelle, evidencing the use of close-up shots which seek to exclude black actors from the mise-en-scène. Source: Lionsgate.

Appendix B

Stills demonstrating use of blackface and minstrelsy in early Hollywood musicals, including Al Jolson performing ‘Mammy’ in The Jazz Singer (1927) (top), Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney in Babes on Broadway (1941) (middle) and Fred Astaire performing ‘Bojangles of Harlem’ in Swing Time (1936 (bottom). Source: YouTube.

Appendix C

A still taken from pre-Code musical Footlight Parade (1933), directed by Lloyd Bacon and Busby Berkeley (musical numbers). The shot depicts the film’s iconic ‘Human Waterfall’ as seen within the musical number ‘By a Waterfall’. Source: Warner Bros. Pictures

Appendix D

A still taken from La La Land (2016), directed by Damien Chazelle, evidencing the use of a wide, tracking shot to depict the prevalence of white actors within Hollywood. Source: Lionsgate.

Appendix E

A side-by-side comparison of the choreography featured within the musical number ‘Someone in the Crowd’ from La La Land (2016) (left), directed by Damien Chazelle, compared to the ‘American’ sequence in West Side Story (1961) (right). Source: Lionsgate; United Artists.

Appendix F

A still taken from La La Land (2016), directed by Damien Chazelle, depicting the extravagant production design employed within the film’s epilogue (top), as well as a side-by-side comparison of the fantasised Los Angeles setting seen in the epilogue of La La Land (2016) (left), directed by Damien Chazelle, compared to the ‘Broadway Melody’ sequence in Singin’ in the Rain (1952) (right). Source: Lionsgate; Loew’s Inc.

Bibliography

Bruner, Raisa. “Here’s How They Made La La Land’s Extravagant Opening Musical Number.” Time, December 9, 2016. https://time.com/4594589/la-la-land-opening-scene-musical-another-day-of-sun/.

Clark, Alexis. “How the History of Blackface Is Rooted in Racism.” HISTORY. Last modified March 29, 2023. https://www.history.com/news/blackface-history-racism-origins.

Clover, Carol J. “Dancin’ in the Rain.” Critical Enquiry 32, no. 3 (Spring 1993): 722-747.

Cohan, Steven. “Introduction” in Hollywood Musicals, The Film Reader, ed. Steven Cohan. London; New York: Routledge, 2002.

Comrie, Janvieve Williams, Antoinette M. Landor, Kwyn Townsend Riley and Jason D. Williamson, “Anti-Blackness/Colorism” in Moving Toward Antibigotry. Boston: BU Centre for Antiracist Research, 2022.

Cwiek, Sarah. “The Middle Class Took Off 100 Years Ago… Thanks To Henry Ford?” NPR. Last modified January 27, 2014. https://www.npr.org/2014/01/27/267145552/the-middle-class-took-off-100-years-ago-thanks-to-henry-ford.

European Centre for Populism Studies. “Melting Pot.” Accessed May 1, 2023. https://www.populismstudies.org/Vocabulary/melting-pot/.

Gabbard, Krin. Black Magic: White Hollywood and African American Culture. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2004.

Hansen, Miriam. “Curious Americanism.” In Cinema and Experience, edited by Siegfried Kracauer, Walter Benjamin and Theodor W. Adorno. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2017.

Hartman, Saidiya. Lose Your Mother: A Journey Along the Atlantic slave route. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2007.

hooks, bell. “Madonna: Plantation Mistress or Soul Sister?” In Black Looks: Race and Representation. Boston: South End Press, 1992.

Jafa, Arthur and Tina Campt. “Love is the Message, the Plan is Death.” e-flux journal 81 (April 2017): 1-10.

Koresky, Michael. “Working It.” Film Comment 53, no. 3 (May-June 2017).

Lee, Ashley. “Commentary: Spielberg tried to save ‘West Side Story.’ But its history makes it unsalvageable.” Los Angeles Times, December 12, 2021. https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/movies/story/2021-12-12/west-side-story-puerto-rico-cultural-authenticity.

Marchese, David. “La La Land Director Damien Chazelle Breaks Down Jazz’s Popularity Problem.” Vulture, December 19, 2016. https://www.vulture.com/2016/12/la-la-land-damien-chazelle-jazz-nostalgia.html.

Mizejewski, Linda. “Beautiful White Bodies.” In Hollywood Musicals: The Film Reader, edited by Steven Cohan. London; New York: Routledge, 2002.

Mueller, John. “Fred Astaire and the Integrated Musical.” Cinema Journal 24, no. 1 (Autumn 1984): 28-40.

Rubin, Martin. “Busby Berkeley and the Backstage Musical.” In Showstoppers: Busby Berkeley and the Tradition of Spectacle. New York: Columbia University Press, 1993.

Scheurer, Timothy. “The Aesthetics of Form and Convention in the Movie Musical.” Journal of Popular Film 3, no. 4 (1974): 307-324.

Sharpe, Christina. In the Wake: On Blackness and Being. London: Duke University Press, 2016.

Tobar, Héctor. “Opinion: Latino workers are erased from a picture-perfect white world they create.” Los Angeles Times, April 30, 2023. https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2023-04-30/latino-laborers-landscaping-maids-white-suburbs-race.

West, Cornel. Race Matters. New York: Vintage Books, 1993.

Filmography

Bacon, Lloyd. 42nd Street. USA: Warner Bros., 1933.

Bacon, Lloyd. Footlight Parade. USA: Warner Bros. Pictures, 1933.

Chazelle, Damien. La La Land. USA: Lionsgate, 2016.

Crosland, Alan. The Jazz Singer. USA: Warner Bros. Pictures, 1927.

Donen, Stanley and Gene Kelly. Singin’ in the Rain. USA: Loew’s Inc., 1952.

Lang, Walter. You’re My Everything. USA: 20th Century Fox, 1949.

LeRoy, Mervyn. Gold Diggers of 1933. USA: Warner Bros, 1933.

Minnelli, Vincente. Cabin in the Sky. USA: Loew’s Inc., 1943.

Robbins, Jerome and Robert Wise. West Side Story. USA: United Artists, 1961.

Stevens, George. Swing Time. USA: RKO Radio Pictures, 1936.