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Dancing, Dreaming and Transforming:
La La Land (2016) as the Contemporary Postmodern
Hollywood Musical Film
Amy Nonnekes
Student Number: 11326816
Master Thesis
MA Media Studies: Television and Cross-Media Culture
University of Amsterdam
Date of Completion: 23 June 2020
Wordcount: 22.361
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Abstract
The Hollywood musical film genre, which originated in the late 1920’s, is since its birth
characterised by specific generic conventions and will forever be a genre associated with its
own history and Hollywood’s history. However, only a few new musical films have been
released within the last decade, which ensures that some of generic conventions may still
survive, but are given a new meaning. The contemporary Hollywood musical film La La Land
(2016) is a perfect example of a postmodern meta-musical film by touching upon and
reviving the past while at the same time trying to be revolutionary by transforming the
classical features of the Hollywood musical film genre. However, the meaning of
contemporary musical films, especially in relation to postmodernism remains a highly
undertheorized concept. The thesis statement that is central to this research is therefore: The
musical film La La Land (2016) is a self-reflexive postmodern subversion of the traditional
Hollywood musical film genre, especially in the way it articulates the ‘dual-focus narrative’, a
‘critical utopia’ and the ‘Hollywood Dream’. With the help of a multidimensional analysis of
the film La La Land (2016) this thesis shows that the film for the most part disregards the
conventional ‘dual-focus narrative strategy’ to underscore the postmodern take on a
traditional happy ending. Furthermore, the film articulates a ‘critical utopia’ by foregrounding
the inherent reality-utopia dichotomy and also by means of portraying a contemporary take
on the ‘Hollywood Dream’, which emphasizes the postmodern ideology of being sceptical
about the possibility of realising utopian dreams. Moreover, the representation of the notions
self-reflexivity and metareference also highly contributes to the postmodern character of the
film, by deliberately and extensively commenting on the current state of its own genre.
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Table of Contents
Abstract ................................................................................................................. .......... 2
Table of Contents ............................................................................................................ 3
Introduction .................................................................................................................... 4
Chapter 1: The Hollywood Musical Film Genre vs. The Postmodernism Film ........ 8
1.1 The Hollywood Musical Film Genre ..................................................................... 8
1.2 The Postmodern Film ......................................................................................... 14
1.3 Generic conventions and Postmodernism in La La Land (2016) ........................ 19
Chapter 2: The Dual-focus Narrative .......................................................................... 25
2.1 The Dual-focus Narrative .................................................................................... 25
2.2 The Dual-focus Narrative in La La Land (2016) .................................................. 29
Chapter 3: Utopianism and The American Dream ..................................................... 36
3.1 Utopianism and The American Dream ................................................................ 36
3.2 Utopianism and The American Dream in La La Land (2016) .............................. 42
Chapter 4: Self-reflexivity and Metareference ............................................................ 49
4.1 Self-reflexivity and Metareference ....................................................................... 49
4.2 Self-reflexivity and Metareference in La La Land (2016) ..................................... 52
Conclusion ..................................................................................................................... 57
Bibliography ..................................................................................................................... 60
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Introduction
“How are you going to be a revolutionary if you’re such a traditionalist? You’re holding onto
the past, but jazz is about the future.” (La La Land)
La La Land (2016), Damien Chazelle’s musical film that won an outstanding number of
awards, amongst other things, for its unique cinematography, original music and impressive
acting performances. This film can be regarded as a modern-day version of the traditional
Hollywood musical film, by clearly reflecting on and being aware of the history that preceded
it. The narrative of La La Land (2016) takes us to the lives of Mia (Emma Stone) and
Sebastian (Ryan Gosling), two aspiring artists dreaming of becoming a famous actress and a
famous jazz pianist in modern-day Los Angeles. The quote above already demonstrates the
conflict and the tense relationship between the past and the future inherent to any
performance of art, whereby director Damien Chazelle emphasises the significance of this
quote for the film itself:
“I have in my head a version of the debate that John Legend and Ryan Gosling have
in the movie about jazz. If you apply that to movies, there’s the same idea — do you
try to preserve what you love about the past of an art form at the risk of marginalizing
it?” (Damien Chazelle)
The Hollywood musical film genre was traditionally focused on dreamers, such as Dorothy’s
dream of returning to Kansas in The Wizard of Oz (1939), Annie’s dream of having a family
in Annie (1982) and Maria and Tony’s dream of being together in West Side Story (1961).
Thereby, the premise of Hollywood being the place where your dreams come true is a
timeless idea, something that La La Land (2016) is portraying by resurrecting and playing
with the old art genre of the Hollywood musical film. Anthony Carew argues that by being a
contemporary musical film with a modern-day take on the genre, La La Land (2016) is
involved in a dialogue with the past and at the same time comments on the current state of
the genre itself (Carew 10).The film itself is therefore also very self-aware of its explicit use of
the phenomena of nostalgia, intertextuality and pastiche, by referring to the famous musical
pair Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers and to the popular ‘Golden Age’ musical films such as
Singin’ in the Rain (1952) and The Band Wagon (1953). However, La La Land (2016) uses
the phenomenon of nostalgia in a different way, namely this film can be seen as a highly self-
reflexive musical or a so called ‘meta-musical’, by being a film about people in the film
industry and a musical about artists in the music business. Director Damian Chazelle is also
very self-aware of his explicit and specific use of nostalgic elements in the film by: “trying to
call back certain things from the past that I felt had been lost and didn’t need to be lost. But
also, really, the main goal was to try and update those things” (Damien Chazelle). The fact
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that nostalgia is an essential feature of the film is evident, however there is something more
going on than touching upon the past, namely the interrogation of ‘nostalgia for nostalgia’.
Sabine Sielke states that the film:
“[...] merely takes a bow to its models and hints at the many “oddities” of classic
musical films and their cheerful mode of denial. Rather than disseminating nostalgia,
Chazelle’s film dissects it by foregrounding its materiality.” (Sielke 9)
Therefore, La La Land (2016) can be seen as a love letter to the ‘Golden Age’ musical films,
while being a postmodern version of the traditional Hollywood musical film genre by means
of portraying and subverting the notions of ‘self-reflexivity’, ‘utopianism’ and the ‘dual-focus
narrative strategy’. The form and construction of these traditional Hollywood musical films
can be clearly recognized in La La Land (2016), but the individual elements serve a different
purpose within this postmodern musical film. One of these crucial elements can be identified
as the so called ‘dual-focus narrative’, which is a frequently applied narrative form within
musical films. For La La Land (2016) the question arises whether the film subverts the
Hollywood musical film formula and the ‘dual-focus narrative approach’ by portraying a
couple fulfilling their dreams, but not ending up as a couple. As stated above, the Hollywood
musical films traditionally focused their narratives around dreams and dreamers, whereby
‘utopianism’ was a commonly used concept throughout the narrative, but especially within
the songs. ‘Utopianism’ makes the (film)world seem more beautiful than the harsh reality, by
dreaming of, describing or attempting to create a better society. In regard to the construction
of the Hollywood musical film genre within La La Land (2016), it is important to analyse to
what extent and in which ways utopianism is incorporated. What kind of utopian worlds can
be recognized and are they similar to earlier forms? And is this utopian ethos mainly
conveyed through the world of the narrative or only through the performance of the songs? A
phenomenon related to utopianism and the Hollywood musical film genre is the ‘American
Dream’, according to which dreams, ambitions and aspirations are achieved through risk-
taking, sacrifice and hard work rather than by luck or chance. The questions that arise in
relation to La La Land (2016) are, how is the ‘American Dream’ portrayed and what is its
relation to the notion of ‘utopianism’? The above mentioned phenomena will all have a
central role in this thesis. They will be extensively elaborated upon in the theoretical
framework, and will serve as essential elements for analysing the film La La Land (2016).
Taking all these notions into account, the following thesis statement can be
articulated: The musical film La La Land (2016) is a self-reflexive postmodern
subversion of the traditional Hollywood musical film genre, especially in the way it
articulates the ‘dual-focus narrative’, a ‘critical utopia’ and the ‘Hollywood Dream’. I will
focus on these four key aspects, namely the ‘postmodern film’, the ‘dual-focus narrative’,
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‘utopianism and the American Dream’ and ‘self-reflexivity and metareference’, which will
each be thoroughly explored in four different chapters. Each chapter starts with a theoretical
framework paragraph introducing and delineating the most important theories and theorists
who contributed to scholarship on the topic. After each theoretical framework paragraph
follows an analysis paragraph which consists of analysing and presenting the most important
aspects and findings within the film La La Land (2016). The first chapter will function as an
introductory paragraph to the traditional Hollywood musical film genre, while also focusing on
the more recent notion of the ‘postmodern film’. More precisely, using the theories of Rick
Altman, Richard Barrios, Steven Cohan and Thomas Schatz as a starting point, I will look at
the ways in which the Hollywood musical film genre has evolved and what its most telling
characteristics are. However, to substantiate the thesis statement, this chapter must also
dive into what ‘postmodernism’ means in general and specifically what its relation is in regard
to (musical) films. This will be done with the help of the books and texts from M. Keith
Booker, Catherine Constable and Marianne DeKoven. In the second chapter the notion of
the ‘dual-focus narrative’ will be addressed with Rick Altman as the central theorist. The third
chapter will be dedicated to the phenomenon of ‘utopianism’ in musical films and the
‘American Dream’ as a specific form hereof, by citing the works of Lyman Tower Sargent,
Richard Dyer and J. Emmett Winn. In the last chapter the focus will lie on the aspects of ‘self-
reflexivity and metareference’ these films perform. The theorists that will be cited to give
these aspects meaning are Jane Feuer, Werner Wolf and Hanna Maria Huber.
Important to note is that the Hollywood musical film genre, and especially the ‘Golden
Age’ musical films, is a popular research object that received a great deal of attention within
the field of film studies. However, much of this research is solely focused on the rich history
of the genre, on the Broadway musicals and on the significant relationship between the films
and their music. This can for example be recognized in the books of Rick Altman (1987),
Richard Barrios (1995) and Steven Cohan (2002). An exception can be found when looking
at a number of more recent theorists, such as Sedat Yildirim and Sabine Sielke, who at times
have interesting and insightful things to remark when talking about contemporary musical
films in relation to postmodernism and nostalgia, but in general this is a rare occurrence. It
could even be stated that the genre has become somewhat extinct since the end of the
‘Golden Age’ of musical films, because of the few new musical films that are being released.
So, it has become even more meaningful to explore relevant questions as: What has
changed within contemporary musical films with respect to the classical Hollywood musical
films? What is the meaning of these new musical films within our current society and culture?
Can notions of nostalgia, intertextuality, pastiche, self-reflexivity, utopianism and
postmodernism be identified within contemporary musical films? With this thesis I hope to
contribute to the existing knowledge regarding Hollywood musical films, expand and explore
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other phenomena by analysing them in regard to La La Land (2016) and present new
insights regarding the meaning of and ways to look at contemporary musical films. It has to
be noted that the results of the executed analysis can by no means be applied to all the
contemporary Hollywood musical films released. However, what it can do is propose a new
and insightful way to look at these films instead of using the traditional and conventional
ways to analyse and interpret Hollywood musical films.
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Chapter 1: The Hollywood Musical Film Genre vs.
The Postmodern Film
1.1 The Hollywood Musical Film Genre
“The musical is a genre forever associated with Hollywood history, musicals the definitive
form of mainstream movie entertainment in cinema’s early days of sound.” (Carew 10)
The Hollywood musical film genre has a broad and multidimensional understanding and can
be characterised by many individual characteristics. Therefore, it is important to start with
elaborating on the rise of the traditional Hollywood musical film genre, its ‘Golden Age’ and
its aesthetic as well as narrative conventions. This first paragraph also introduces the most
important terms for the theoretical parts of this thesis, which will subsequently individually be
elaborated on in detail in the paragraphs below.
Martin Rubin gives a possible working definition of a traditional musical film, namely:
“a musical is a film containing a significant proportion of musical numbers that are impossible
— i.e., persistently contradictory in relation to the realistic discourse of the narrative” (Rubin
57). The birth of the traditional Hollywood musical film genre can be traced back to the late
1920’s, when the American film industry dictated the world. However, this particular genre
was a latecomer in comparison other film genres, for example the horror and animation
genre respectively emerged around the 1890’s and 1910’s. According to Richard Barrios, this
dynamic film industry faced a major irretrievable change that would turn its world upside
down, namely the advent of the sound cinema (Barrios 4). In fact, Thomas Schatz argues
that The Jazz Singer (1927) marked the debut of the so called ‘talkie’, a motion picture with
synchronized sound, and can be designated as the first Hollywood musical film (Schatz 187).
Noteworthy, Sheida Sheikhha and Behrooz Mahmoodi-Bakhtiari write that the first spoken
words in The Jazz Singer (1927) were: “You ain’t heard nothing yet!” (Sheikhha and
Mahmoodi-Bakhtiari 28). This film also signalled the start of the so called ‘Golden Age’ of
Hollywood musical films, which can be defined as an era spanning from the late 1920’s until
the early 1960’s (Sheikhha and Mahmoodi-Bakhtiari 29). However, Barrios believes that the
classical Hollywood musical film genre has not survived beyond its ‘Golden Age’, while other
earlier film genres have mutated and survived throughout the years (Barrios 3). By
specifically choosing the words of ‘not surviving’ in his writings around 1995, he points to the
fact that:
“While it still exists on stage and remains popular in retrospective presentation, the
musical has little to do with film in any current or ongoing sense. We are, apparently,
9
beyond the end of the rainbow, no matter how much we choose to bask in its glow.”
(Barrios 4)
A possible reason for this could be Hollywood’s obsession with its own history and the fact
that the genre will always be associated with its early days of mainstream sound movies
(Carew 10). The Hollywood musical film genre and every new musical film made are always
tied to and based on the former glory of the genre in its earlier times. Therefore, if
contemporary musicals films keep reviving these old traditional musical films endlessly the
genre is eventually dying out, because there is no attempt at modernizing the genre in order
for it to survive for the upcoming decades. So, in this way the Hollywood musical film genre
can be regarded as a paradox, just as La La Land (2016), by touching upon and reviving the
past while at the same time trying to be revolutionary by modernizing and transforming the
classical features of the genre.
Prominent theorists that started writing about the Hollywood musical film genre and its most
important implications thirty to forty years after the ‘Golden Age’ period are for instance Rick
Altman, Jane Feuer and Steven Cohan. They were at that specific moment able to clearly
reflect on this ‘Golden Age’ period in time and could start fleshing out the structural basis of
these Hollywood musical films. Most importantly, Rick Altman identified in his book ‘The
American Film Musical’ (1987) the five major realms of the Hollywood musical film genre,
which were subsequently highlighted and enforced by Sedat Yildirim and could be
recognized as being: “setting, shot selection, music, dance and personal style of the major
characters” (Yildirim 6). That these five realms are important for constructing these musical
films is being emphasised by Altman through the creation of a specific generic
understanding. The first major realm can be described as being the ‘setting’, which often
signals the cultural and national background of the protagonists in musical films. Traditionally
the settings were specifically important for representing opposites, such as the rich and the
poor, by ways of comparative analysis (Altman 39). The second major realm introduced by
Altman is the ‘shot selection’, which he subsequently divides in three sub-divisions, namely
‘duet’, ‘solo’ and ‘unmarked’. Altman acknowledges the fact that the ‘solo’ and ‘duet’ shots
are crucial for the traditional Hollywood musical films, among other things for establishing the
central ‘male-female duality’. On the other hand, musical films also deliberately make use of
‘unmarked’ shots to emphasise the unwillingness of the male or female character to
participate in the coupling (Altman 35). He subsequently introduces ‘music’ as the third major
realm of the Hollywood musical film genre and particularly focuses on the concept of ‘audio
dissolve’. This technique points to the ability of music and sounds, in combination with the
narrative, to foreground upcoming plot events. Besides, music also empowers the above
mentioned notion of ‘male-female duality’ by being a complementary element during ‘solo’
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and ‘duet’ shots (Altman 63). Furthermore, ‘dance’ can be regarded as the fourth major realm
of Hollywood musical films. He once more underscores the value of this realm for the
construction and depiction of the ‘male-female duality’. ‘Dance’ is especially meaningful in
being an accompaniment for the musical numbers as well as for the burgeoning relationship
between the male and female character (Alman 37). The last major realm can be identified
as ‘personal style’, which Altman puts as the personal traits of characters which are
determinative for the narrative as well as characteristic for the period the narrative is set in.
By personal traits he means the portrayal of one’s cultural and national background along
with their (desired) career and (practised) talents (Altman 44). Lastly, Yildirim also points out
the importance of all the major realms for the construction and establishment of the ‘male-
female duality’ (Yildirim 7). This duality obviously touches upon another important element
within Hollywood musical films, namely the narrative approach called the ‘dual-focus
narrative’ which will receive further attention in chapter 2.
In regard to the structural basis of Hollywood musical films, it is also important to
discuss the two stylistic logics of these films and make a clear distinction between them. In
his book ‘Hollywood Musicals’ (2019) Steven Cohan addresses these two dominating logics
as an ‘integrated’ and an ‘aggregated’ form and aesthetics. A musical film with ‘integrated’
form and aesthetics can also be called an ‘integrated musical’ and:
“[...] gives the impression that numbers move the narrative along, whether because
they deepen a sense of characters’ motives and feelings or because they effect
transitions from one action to the next, from one scene to the next.” (Cohan 19)
Thereby, the ‘integrated musical’ makes the transition from the general narrative to the
musical numbers stylistically fluid, so that it seems like the characters could almost burst out
into a song at any time they want. This stylistically fluid motion from the general narrative into
musical numbers can be achieved through the use of three different strategies, for example
by the use of musical underscoring playing in the background of a scene. In a like manner,
stylistic fluidity can also be achieved by increasing the volume of the dialogue or
orchestration, changing a character’s bodily gestures or changing the intonation of the
performer to forecast a musical number (Cohan 19). The ‘aggregated musical’ is, on the
other hand, described by Cohan as a musical which stylistically brackets musical numbers
from the general narrative:
“In contrast with the integrated musical, an aggregated musical seems to add one
number after another primarily as a distraction from the narrative because numbers
momentarily pause the action.” (Cohan 19)
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Furthermore, the ‘aggregated musical’ is best typified by so called show numbers, which
often take place in fictional, imaginative or utopian places together with highly stylised
costumes. These fictional scenes can also be recognized as being filmed and edited
differently than the usual scenes within the narrative. However, these musical numbers can
also easily be left out without changing or disrupting the overall narrative (Cohan 20). Lastly,
it is important to remark that Hollywood musical films can also obviously be a hybrid form of
the two.
As stated above, musical films often depict fictional spaces, fantasy scenes or utopian
places. This phenomenon actually originated in the earliest days of the Hollywood musical
film genre. In fact, Barrios points to this phenomenon as a peculiarly American concept: “For
many years musicals had—the past tense need apply—a remarkable propensity for fulfilling
wishes and making fantasies seem reasonable” (Barrios 3). According to Florian
Zitzelsberger, in Hollywood musical films’ earliest days an important function of these films
was to strengthen the American community, because America was at that particular time
going through a period called the ‘Great Depression’ (Zitzelsberger 101). Until today, this
connotation of musical films emphasising collaboration and togetherness within an American
framework still exists:
“The musical’s focus on the entertainment industry thus at the same time designates
a particular focus on the Americanness of this industry, apparent in the ways in which
the musical foregrounds the craftsmanship of Americans—a reassurance of the belief
in American community and talent.” (Zitzelsberger 101)
The arguments made within the above statement could be connected to the national ethos of
the United States called the ‘American Dream’. This notion will, in relation to the Hollywood
musical film genre, be discussed extensively in chapter 3. Besides, the notion of the
‘American Dream’ is actually part of a larger concept and can be recognized as a particular
form of portraying ‘utopianism’. In his text ‘Entertainment and Utopia’ (1977) Richard Dyer
states that: “far from being escapist, the musical is responsive to history through its form,
which articulates in non-representational terms what utopia feels like” (Dyer 2). Broadly
speaking, it can be stated that all film genres are to a certain degree involved in trying to
portray utopian worlds and trying to project visions of utopian communities. Speaking
specifically of the Hollywood musical film genre there is a thriving reality-utopia dichotomy,
realistic conflicts versus idealistic resolutions, at work within narratives. These films
traditionally desire a so called ‘utopian resolution’, but: “this resolution is anticipated
whenever the performers break into song and dance” (Schatz 188). In a likewise manner, the
terms ‘utopianism’ and ‘utopian resolution’ regarding musical films will be fleshed out in more
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detail in the chapter 3, which is also dedicated to the notion of the ‘American Dream’.
Another telling and remarkable element within the Hollywood musical film genre is the
‘self-reflexivity’ these films often carry out, either extremely consciously or somewhat
unconsciously. Thereby, Zitzelsberger points to the fact that the musical film itself possesses
a high potential of ‘self-reflexivity’ due to its specific narrative structure:
“Reading the segmentation into narrative and number, the musical’s dual registers, as
mise en abyme, proves instrumental when looking at both a mirroring of the film within
itself (self-reference) and the mirroring of the industry and culture producing the film
(hetero-reference).” (Zitzelsberger 110)
With ‘mise en abyme’ he touches upon the technique of placing a story within a story. A
phenomenon of reduplication, like standing between two mirrors with the outcome of an
infinite reproduction of the image. Musical films often produce this phenomenon of ‘mis en
abyme’, by for example mirroring the entertainment industry and the processes involved.
Additionally, Dyer argued that due to this self-reflection and self-mirroring musical films were
predominantly assumed to be ‘pure entertainment’ for the audience as well as for the
producers, for whom the creation of entertainment was a central objective (Dyer 4).
Moreover, Jane Feuer suggests that while ‘self-reflexivity’ within musical films has previously
been recognized as a way of conserving its form, it actually: “uses reflexivity to perpetuate
rather than to deconstruct the codes of the genre” (Feuer 454). As a matter of fact, there are
more crucial factors to be addressed in relation to self-reflexivity and self-referencing within
traditional musical films. This concept will therefore be discussed in more detail in chapter 4.
Lastly, it is relevant to address Rick Altman’s ‘generic model’ in regard to the structure
of films within the Hollywood musical film genre. Following the theories of Altman in his text
‘A Semantic/Syntactic Approach to Film Genre’ (1984), two levels could be recognized,
namely the ‘semantic approach’ and the ‘syntactic approach’, whereby: “The “semantic
approach [ ... ] stresses the genre’s building blocks, while the syntactic view privileges the
structures into which they are arranged” (Altman 10). More precisely, he characterises the
‘semantic approach’ in his book ‘The American Film Musical’ (1987) as follows:
“The format is narrative, length is extended (feature length), characters are romantic
couple in society. Acting is a combination of rhythmic movement and realism. And
sound is mixture of diegetic music and dialog.” (Altman 110)
On the other hand, the ‘syntactic approach’ is mainly described as the narrative strategy
being ‘dual-focus’, whereby the ‘male-female duality’, parallelism and alternation are central
to the realization of the overall narrative. Thereby, Altman extends his syntactic schema by
mentioning that:
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“Music/plot includes music and dance as expression of personal and communal joy,
as signifiers of romantic triumph over all limitations. Narrative/number includes
continuity established between realism and rhythm, dialog and diegetic music, on
model of mystic marriage. And image/sound includes classical narrative hierarchy
(image over sound) reserved at climactic moments (audio dissolve).” (Altman 110)
However, it is worth noting that there is a great possibility of performing a dual approach,
both for other genre films and specifically for musical films. This dual nature of any generic
corpus points to the fact that there are often different levels of genericity at play within
(musical) films, whereby the ‘semantic’ and ‘syntactic’ elements of the genre are working
together. Thereby, so called ‘inter-generic’ connections generate new generic possibilities,
which are otherwise overthrown by single-minded approaches (Altman 12).
In the paragraphs that cover the rest of the theoretical framework the individual
characteristics of the underlying structure of the Hollywood musical film genre, respectively
‘dual-focus narrative strategy’, ‘utopianism and the American Dream’ and ‘self-reflexivity and
metareference’, will be elaborated on in more detail.
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1.2 The Postmodern Film
“The struggle of film ‘against itself’ makes for an interesting postmodern issue,
particularly as movies begin to assert themselves as a vital part of the contemporary
deconstructive enterprise.” (Burke 71)
The phenomenon that touches upon almost all the elements that will be discussed in the
chapters below is ‘postmodernism’. Defining the term ‘postmodernism’ is notoriously difficult,
because the phenomenon could be regarded as multidimensional and vague at the same
time. Therefore, for the purpose of this thesis, the starting point of this paragraph will be
‘postmodernism in film’. So, rather than thoroughly scrutinizing all the implications of the
notion of ‘postmodernism’ for different disciplines, the basic definition and characteristics of
the term will be addressed. However, it is still useful to start off with citing the most general
and widely used definition of the term ‘postmodernism’:
“A late 20th century style and concept in the arts, architecture, and criticism that
represents a departure from modernism and has at its heart a general distrust of
grand theories and ideologies as well as a problematical relationship with any notion
of art. Typical features include a deliberate mixing of different artistic styles and
media, the self-conscious use of earlier styles and conventions, and often the
incorporation of images relating to the consumerism and mass communication of late
20th century post-industrial society.” (Oxford English Dictionary)
With this general definition in mind, it is important to note that the general distrust of grand
theories and ideologies is particularly important for the characterization of ‘postmodern in
film’. In general, the ‘postmodernist film’ tries to subvert the prevailing conventions of the
standard narrative structure in order to test the suspension of disbelief of the audience. With
this in mind, Sedat Yildirim states that the mainstream conventions of narrative structure are
mainly conceived as all the plot structures leading to a conventional happy ending. On the
other hand, the main objective of ‘postmodernist films’ is to surprise the audience with an
exceptional or sometimes even an upsetting ending to the plot by deferring from traditional
narrative structures (Yildirim 36). However, Yildirim articulates the fact that the theories on
‘postmodernist film’ are only part of: “a small division of the cinematic works reflecting the
ideas and themes of postmodernism through film. It obviously does not have a very old
theoretical literary background” (Yildirim 36). But there are some agreed upon discernible
characteristics that could be recognized in ‘postmodern films’, namely the use of nostalgia,
pastiche, intertextuality, self-reflexivity, metareference and the mixing of high and low culture.
These characteristics are packed together by M. Keith Booker, in one of the most
prominent books about ‘postmodern Hollywood’, as the two key features of postmodern
15
aesthetics: ‘generic pastiche’ and ‘narrative, formal and thematic fragmentation’. According to
Dyer, the term ‘pastiche’ could be best described as an evident aesthetic imitation of different
art forms in order to form a new meaning (Dyer 1). Whereby ‘generic pastiche’, as stated by
Booker, could subsequently be seen as films imitating other works within the same genre it
operates in itself or as Booker states: “The most obvious aspect of this phenomenon is the
increasing tendency of films, in a variety of ways, to take other motion pictures as their
objects of representation” (Booker 91). As a matter of fact, it could be stated that the term
‘pastiche’ is actually part of the umbrella term ‘intertextuality’, by functioning as a particular
stylistic mode of ‘intertextuality’. Furthermore, according to Graham Allen the phenomenon of
‘intertextuality’ generally indicates: “Meaning becomes something which exists between a
text and all the other texts to which it refers and relates, moving out from the independent
text into a network of textual relations” (Allen 1). Another notion Booker connects to the
postmodern aesthetics of ‘pastiche’ is ‘postmodern nostalgia’, whereby he clearly argues that
this specific term is distinct from all other forms of ‘nostalgia’:
“[...] postmodern nostalgia is a primarily stylistic movement, a sort of imitation of
earlier forms of nostalgia that lacks the utopian longing for a better world that seems
to be the motivation of the nostalgia in such works as the classic Hollywood films.”
(Booker 51)
He suggests that ‘postmodern films’ are doubly mediated in a way that they possess
representations of remembered representations. Thereby, ‘postmodern nostalgia’ has no
direct link with a historical truth and cannot be regarded as a pure effort of trying to revive an
unrecoverable past. Besides, ‘postmodern nostalgia’ is far more adept at recycling earlier
cultural styles as nostalgic products, so it is more of a commercial phenomenon than other
types of nostalgia (Booker 52). Moreover, ‘postmodern nostalgia’ also has an unmistakable
connection with earlier music such as jazz. Booker also claims that music is crucial for
portraying nostalgic visions within the ‘postmodern film’ and thereby touches upon another
key feature of ‘postmodern films’:
“However, while the earlier movies located the sounds of an idealized past in works of
high culture, postmodern nostalgia films tend to draw upon the popular music of
earlier eras, suggesting another form of the breakdown of the boundaries between
high and low culture that has so often been cited as a key aspect of postmodernism.”
(Booker 54)
Lastly, for the purpose of the upcoming analysis it is useful to briefly discuss the relationship
between the notion of ‘utopianism’ and ‘postmodernism’. Marianne DeKoven argues that the
16
position of the phenomenon of ‘utopianism’ within ‘postmodern fiction literature’ is called into
question:
“Utopia in postmodernity is multiply defeated and discredited, yet it persists in the
form not only of desire for elimination of domination, inequality and oppression but
also of desire for transcendence itself.” (DeKoven 91)
DeKoven regards the ‘postmodern utopia’ as a place in which characters desire and try to
realise their visions of a utopia, despite disbelieving the real possibility of success. Therefore,
the narrative strategy that is mostly characteristic for these stories is the representation of a
powerful utopian desire with the scepticism of the possibility of actually fulfilling these desires
(DeKoven 78). However, Booker demonstrates that these arguments are also applicable to
the appropriation of ‘utopianism’ in ‘postmodern films’, by stating that:
“[...] the loss of faith in historical metanarratives during the postmodern era has been
accompanied by a weakening of the utopian imagination, and in particular by a loss of
faith in the possibility that utopian dreams might actually be realized.” (Booker 16)
Lastly, according to Catherine Constable, who frequently adheres to the theories of Booker in
her book about postmodernism in film, Booker also indirectly links the notion of ‘generic
pastiche’ to the fact that a lot of ‘postmodern films’ express high levels of (self-)reflexivity
(Constable 69). In a like manner, Booker argues that ‘postmodern films’ are mostly based on
pre-existing representations of reality, so that: “The tendency of postmodern films to be
based on the world of cinema rather than the ‘‘real’’ world [...], is very much a part of this
phenomenon” (Booker 154). As a final point, Constable summarizes her findings according
to a table which compares the characteristics of the classical Hollywood film with the
characteristics of the postmodern Hollywood film (see figure 1).
Figure 1. Catherine Constable’s comparison of classical Hollywood film characteristics and
postmodern Hollywood film characteristics.
17
As stated above, ‘narrative, formal and thematic fragmentation’ is also one of the two key
features of postmodern aesthetics (Booker 20). By this notion Booker refers to the ways in
which ‘postmodern films’ communicate the ‘fragmentation’ of its characters, the narrative and
the overall structure of film. He summarizes the phenomenon of ‘fragmentation’ and its
implications as follows:
“Modernist formal fragmentation is centripetal—one might even say utopian—in its
orientation, challenging audiences to reassemble the pieces into a coherent whole, while
postmodernist fragmentation is centrifugal, denying the very possibility of wholeness—or
utopia.” (Booker 5)
In general, he state that the frequent use of the notion of ‘fragmentation’ in ‘postmodern films’
has a legitimate reason, namely “[...] it is clear that the fragmentation of most postmodern
films merely reflects—or even celebrates—the fragmentation of contemporary life” (Booker
6). Moreover, this ‘fragmentation’ also stems from the inability of individual artists to be an
original source of art or to have their personal style, which Booker calls: “the increasing
psychic fragmentation of individual subjects” (Booker 19). This loss of personal style
subsequently leads to the extensive use of ‘pastiche’ as mentioned above. To get back to
‘fragmentation’ within ‘postmodern films’, the ‘fragmentation’ of characters can for example
be expressed through the literal use of ‘schizophrenic characters’ who often experience
discontinuous, plural and fragmented identities (Booker 4). Furthermore, Booker notes that
this ‘fragmentation’ can also be recognized within the overall structure of the film or within the
editing style:
“[...] the quick-cut style of many postmodern films serves a clear mimetic function as an
expression of the increasing fragmentation of experience in the postmodern age. In
addition, many postmodern films are so self-conscious about their formal fragmentation
that this fragmentation itself becomes a metafictional commentary on postmodern
conventions of film editing and narrative.” (Booker 6)
As an example he mentions a type of opening shot which shifts from character to character
and from scene to scene within one continuous shot. Thereby, this shot calls attention to its
own complex fragmentary nature by conveying a sense of frenetic activity without any cuts
(Booker 2). Lastly, ‘fragmentation’ can also be articulated through the (overall) narrative of
the film. Booker states that this can be done by adding certain features to the narrative that
will interfere with the audience’s involvement in the narrative. This also calls attention to the
decline of cohering to the traditional Hollywood narrative conventions in ‘postmodern films’.
For example films that are constructed of a series of different compelling scenes, but do not
allow these scenes to form a coherent whole (Booker 25). Additionally, films could place
18
scenes in reverse chronological order, instead of creating an illusion of continuity standard
editing tries to pursue. In this way ‘fragmentation’: “forces audiences to think consciously of
each scene as part of the history of the scenes that came before it” (Booker 36). To
conclude, taking all these notions together can create a typical ‘postmodern film’ that for
example:
“[...] frequently switches back and forth between color and black-and-white and
between conventional film and video. Weirdly tilted camera angles; strange, erratic
camera movements; extreme close-ups; colored tints; slow-motion; and fast-motion
all help to create disorienting effects, while the radically eclectic compilation
soundtrack also adds to the sense of chaos and fragmentation that informs the film.”
(Booker 41)
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1.3 Generic conventions and Postmodernism in La La Land (2016)
The following textual analysis of La La Land (2016) will prove, justify and substantiate the
thesis statement mentioned in the introduction: The musical film La La Land (2016) is a self-
reflexive postmodern subversion of the traditional Hollywood musical film genre, especially in
the way it articulates the ‘dual-focus narrative’, a ‘critical utopia’ and the ‘Hollywood Dream’.
Therefore, I will be examining the different narrative strategies, aesthetic conventions and
main themes of La La Land (2016) and subsequently compare them to the conventions of
the traditional Hollywood musical film genre delineated in the theoretical framework
paragraph of each chapter. The main focus will lie on trying to figure out in which ways the
film differs or is similar to the traditional features of the Hollywood musical film genre. More
importantly, the primary purpose of this analysis is finding out where this film stands in regard
to the traditional Hollywood musical film genre.
Important to note is that Michael Korensky argues that we are now living in a so
called ‘perpetual post-musical-era’ wherein contemporary musical films are mainly trying to
delve back into this seemingly moribund genre (Korensky 43). In the specific case of La La
Land (2016), it can be said that the film structures its narrative according to specific generic
principles, but also disregards some of them. To come back to the introduction of this thesis,
the most important question essentially is: “How are you going to be a revolutionary if you’re
such a traditionalist? You’re holding onto the past, but jazz is about the future”. When this
statement is transformed and connected to the film, it would be: “How are you going to make
a meaningful contemporary Hollywood musical film if you are obsessed with the traditional
conventions of the Hollywood musical film genre? You are holding onto the past, but making
a postmodern contemporary musical film is about the future”. Hence, can the musical film still
be regarded as primarily a traditional Hollywood musical film or is the contemporary
postmodern perspective changing the meaning of these traditional conventions? The main
argument that will follow from the analysis is that La La Land (2016) in some ways
resembles, but mostly differs from the traditional Hollywood musical film genre conventions.
By doing so, some of these generic conventions are surviving, but they are given a new
meaning in this contemporary postmodern film. Furthermore, there is a strong discrepancy
between the beginning and the ending of the film with regard to the meanings that are being
conveyed. In general, the ‘Hollywood dream’ of success is first presented as just a hollow
fantasy, then presented to be achievable through hard work and determination, and then
presented to come at a cost. Moreover, the two protagonists highly contribute to conveyance
of the film’s postmodern ideology, by showing the contrast and discrepancy between the
postmodern and traditional aspects of the film.
20
It is important to start this analysis with the beginning of the film, because this part essentially
dictates how the rest of the film will play out. The film begins with a six-minute musical
number called ‘Another Day of Sun’, a song performed by hundreds of people during a traffic
jam on one of the busiest highway ramps of Los Angeles. This first song actually indirectly
foreshadows the ending of the film, when it turns out that the classical Hollywood musical film
ending, especially the ‘and they lived happily ever after’ premise, does not apply to the
overall ideals and meanings of the film. This foreshadowing is directly shaped by the inherent
(male-female) duality of the film, which will be discussed and analysed in more detail in
chapter 2.
One of the most telling sentences of this song are: “A Technicolor world made out of
music and machine. It called me to be on that screen. And live inside each scene” (Another
Day of Sun, La La Land). This part reveals one of the film’s most important objectives,
namely immersing its two protagonists into living partly in classical Hollywood musical film
scenes. Moreover, the song convinces its audience directly that they are in fact dealing with
an actual musical film, though a thoroughly constructed one as recognized by the
Technicolor remark, by using the performance of a musical number as an existing framework
to evoke a desired reception. Furthermore, the song is about people’s aspirations and
dreams to succeed in Hollywood as an artist, actor or by practicing another creative
profession. But this musical number shows that they have not yet realized these dreams,
because it emphasises the fact that in reality it is hard to make it. In this way, the very
opening scene already indicates that La La Land (2016) is a musical film that could deviate
from the traditional Hollywood musical films. Especially because this seemingly utopian
summery setting with bright colours and overly enthusiastic people actually has an inherent
pessimistic undertone, which tells the audience that this film will be about dealing with the
harsh reality (see figure 2). Thereby, this first six-minutes musical performance also shows
the inherent paradox of the Hollywood dream factory that is Los Angeles, which will be
discussed more intensively in chapter 3 and 4.
Figure 2. Bright colours and overly enthusiastic people highlighting the utopian ideal of making it in the
Hollywood dream factory that is Los Angeles.
21
So, it can already be determined that this musical film can be mostly typified as an
‘integrated musical’. More precisely, the song starts off with a seemingly stylistic fluid motion
from the real world into performing a musical number. This is exemplified by slowly focusing
on the musical underscoring that is originating from one specific car and simultaneously
focusing on the woman in the car humming along. Subsequently, her changing bodily
gestures are noticeable, whereby she steps out of the car and bursts into a song and dance.
Slowly more drivers join her, so that the entire traffic jam changes into an improvised stage
for performing a musical number. Furthermore, it is striking that this entire six-minute
sequence is edited without any visible cutting, so that the scene appears to be shot in just
one single take, which in turn also emphasises the fluidity of an ‘integrated musical’.
However, the condition for a film to be regarded as a musical film, as Rubin noted, is that it
also makes noticeable transitions from songs into the realistic world. This becomes
immediately clear when the film makes a sudden shift into a next scene, in which Mia and
Sebastian are introduced as the protagonists of the film. The significance of this character
introduction will be further elaborated upon in the next chapter, which delves deeper into the
notion of the ‘dual-focus narrative strategy’.
The postmodern nature of La La Land (2016) is artiulcated through a lot of different features
within the film, both as narrative and as aethetic components. Inherent to La La Land (2016)
is the struggle of the film against itself, as Burke mentioned, by taking itself as an object of
deconstruction. The film self-conciously borrows a part of the tradtional Hollywood musical
film genre conventions, namely the ‘dual-focus narrative strategy’, ‘utopianism’ and ‘self-
reflexivity’, and subsequently postitions them in a contemporary framework to turn the
narrative into a postmodern tale. These are also the three main phenomena that will be
analysed in the upcoming chapters in regard to their traditional and postmodern character in
La La Land (2016). Furthermore, illustrating the ever-present tension between the tradtional
generic conventions and the postmodern phenomena strongly contributes to the postmodern
transformation the film undergoes.
For the purpose of this chapter it is important to introduce some of the postmodern
aspects of La La Land (2016) which are not directly connected to the three main generic
conventions that will be discussed in the upcoming chapters. More precisely, La La Land
(2016) deliberately tries to incorporate two types of postmodern aesthetics, namely ‘generic
pastiche’ and ‘narrative, formal and thematic fragmentation’, to detach itself partly from the
traditional generic conventions and to give the film a postmodern twist.
22
Figure 3. Intertextual references to the traditional Hollywood musical films Singin’ in the Rain (1952),
Shall We Dance (1937) and Funny Face (1957).
It can be noticed that the film undeniably conveys the notion of ‘generic pastiche’ through
the numerous imitations of other films within the Hollywood musical film genre, for example
intertextual references to films such as Singin’ in the Rain (1952), Shall We Dance (1937)
and Funny Face (1957) (see figure 3). The extent to which the film tries to recreate the looks,
feels and even small recognizable gestures of these classical films, such as the dynamics
between Mia and Sebastian during their tap dance sequence on the bench, is striking.
Moreover, the fact that the film contains so many references to other films within the same
genre causes a challenge to recognize the scenes that do not contain a reference. Besides,
the phenomenon of ‘generic pastiche’ also includes the stylistic notion of ‘postmodern
nostalgia’, as stated by Booker, which actually refers to the practice of constituting nostalgia
for nostalgia. This concept can also be identified in La La Land (2016), because it
deliberately constructs an imagery of traditional Hollywood musical films as well as of Los
Angeles as the Hollywood dream factory. But the imagery that is being created can be seen
as one that has certainly not existed in this specific way. More importantly, the film mainly
tries to reflect the culture that surrounded the traditional Hollywood musical films and their
‘Golden Age’, and therefore has no real historical truth in a way that it floats freely through
different era’s. A striking example of a cultural phenomenon signalling the depiction of
nostalgia for nostalgia within La La Land (2016) is the jazz music. The portrayal of jazz in the
film is characterised by a traditional approach, in a way that Sebastian wants to preserve jazz
in its original form, while the film never shows a glimpse of jazz’s real history. So, basically
the film solely recycles the culture of jazz that is constructed within other cultural products
such as the traditional Hollywood musical films, without ever giving any historical details and
truths.
23
Figure 4. The Rebel Without a Cause (1955) scene is recreated within the film’s narrative.
Additionally, an aesthetic example of this phenomenon is the double mediation of the Los
Angeles Griffith Observatory within the film. The first time the observatory is shown is when
Mia and Sebastian watch a scene showing this observatory from the film Rebel Without a
Cause (1955) in the movie theatre. Consequently they decide to visit the real observatory
themselves, which causes them to indirectly recreate the exact same scene they just
watched in the movie theatre (see figure 4). In this way, La La Land (2016) takes the
nostalgia of showing the scene from Rebel Without a Cause (1955) a step further by
consecutively integrating the real location of the Griffith Observatory into the narrative. So,
based on the examples of ‘generic pastiche’ it can be stated that La La Land (2016) is
primarily involved in the process of portraying the ‘remembered’, instead of straightforward
nostalgia reflecting the ‘unremembered’, to ultimately encourage the feeling of nostalgia for
nostalgia the audience experiences.
Lastly, the postmodern aesthetic of ‘narrative, formal and thematic fragmentation’ also
finds its expression within La La Land (2016). Thematically the film is fragmented in a way
that it reflects the fragmentary nature and imperfectness of real life, whereby the film partly
deviates from the idea that there is a real possibility of fulling utopian desires in real life. In
this way the film shows the complexities of real life, instead of reflecting the prevailing
ideology of an almost careless life with the prospect of a positive future most Hollywood films
possess. La La Land (2016) also emphasises its fragmentary nature by foregrounding the
reality-utopia dichotomy that last throughout the whole movie, which will be the main focus of
chapter 3. Furthermore, narratively speaking the film at times disregards chronology,
especially in the first part of the film which contains the crucial parallel sequence, which will
be thoroughly discussed in the next chapter. Moreover, the unconventional ending of the film
completely distances itself from the notion of chronology, by being depicted as an
imagination that could not have happened in either the past or in the future. Formally, La
Land (2016) is also keen to draw our attention to frequent use of very bright colours as
background colours, of which the deeper meaning will be discussed in chapter 3. To come
back to the first part of this paragraph, the opening musical number ‘Another Day of Sun’ is a
great example of a long shot which quickly shifts from character to character without any
visible cuts, which makes the movement in this scene very fluid.
24
Figure 5. The camera moves rapidly to shift between Mia dancing and Sebastian playing jazz.
Moreover, another striking example of formal fragmentation is the scene in which Mia is
dancing to the jazz music Sebastian is playing at the Lighthouse Café. In this frenetic scene
the camera is shifting rapidly between Mia dancing and Sebastian playing piano, almost to
the point that it makes the audience feel dizzy (see figure 5). Lastly, the film also frequently
makes use of weird tilted camera angles and slow-motion effects to give scenes a
disorienting effect.
So far the two key features of postmodernism in film, ‘generic pastiche’ and ‘narrative,
formal and thematic fragmentation’, have been discussed in regard to La La Land (2016). As
mentioned above, the following chapters will each discuss the postmodern aspects of the
traditional conventions, ‘dual-focus narrative strategy’, ‘utopianism’ and ‘self-reflexivity’, used
in La La Land (2016) in order to the prove the thesis statement.
25
Chapter 2: The Dual-focus Narrative
2.1 The Dual-focus Narrative
“This dual-focus structure requires the viewer to be sensitive not so much to chronology and
progression—for the outcome of the male/female match is entirely conventional and thus
quite predictable—but to simultaneity and comparison.” (Altman 42)
In the above paragraph, the importance of the ‘dual-focus narrative’ in regard to the
construction of the Hollywood musical film genre has already been briefly discussed.
Therefore, the purpose of this paragraph is to delve deeper into the meanings and
implications of the use of this narrative strategy in musical films. This concept of the ‘dual-
focus narrative’ can actually be regarded as one of the foundational aspects for the
construction of musical films. It is useful to start off by stating the main focus of the ‘dual-
focus narrative’ according to Rick Altman, namely that: “the couple is the plot” (Altman 35).
This statement already emphasises the gravity of the notion of ‘male-female duality’, already
mentioned in the above paragraph, which is also a crucial element for the implementation of
the ‘dual-focus narrative’ as stated by Cohan:
“Altman claims that all musicals have the same underlying structure: a dual focus
privileging the couple downplays the plot’s linear progression by heightening
paralleled elements (comparable numbers, scenes, settings, values, etc.).”
(Cohan 17)
Historically speaking, the Hollywood musical film focuses its narrative around parallel stars of
opposite sex, adhering to the principle of duality, instead of centring on one central character
by means of the ‘single-focus narrative’ (Altman 19). Applying this type of narrative strategy
to musical films also affects the traditional development of the plot: “Whereas the traditional
approach to narrative assumes that structure grows out of plot, the dual-focus structure of
the American film musical derives from character” (Altman 45). Analysing the narrative of
musical films according to the traditional and conventional film analysis is still possible,
however: “Each segment must be understood not in terms of the segments to which it is
causally related but by comparison to the segment which it parallels” (Altman 44). So, it can
be stated that the plot is differently construed than classical Hollywood film plots, which
follow the principle of A→B→C. Whilst the plot of musical films relies far more on parallelism,
in such a way that the plot follows a principle of A/B, C/C’ (Altman 44). Thus, when applying
classical narrative analysis to musical films the focus should ideally be on the conceptual
relationship between segments and not on the secondary chronological relationship between
them. For the reason that this cause-effect relationship is merely important for highlighting
26
the duality aspects of the segments (Altman 42). Noteworthy is that this ‘dual-focus narrative
strategy’ can, according to Charles Altman, be recognized as an ancient and medieval
narrative form. In fact, parallel storytelling in the form of duality has actually for a long time
been one of the defining characteristics of medieval literature:
“Because the dual- and single-focus forms are not just literary genres but
fundamental narrative configurations, they represent two basic modes of history-
writing as well, two basic conceptions of time.” (Altman 16)
With this in mind, it is meaningful to address the most telling characteristics of the ‘dual-focus
narrative’ as a specific storytelling strategy. As mentioned above, the narrative in most
musical films does not follow the linear ‘psychological motivation’ model applied to traditional
narrative strategies. Moreover, the plot is not necessarily motivated by actions in previous
scenes, even if this impression is indirectly being created, and the overall structure of the plot
is radically different from traditional ones (Altman 42). Generally, the narrative of the musical
film is fixated on the portrayal of two different perspectives which causes a parallel of two
storylines, whereby Pamella Lach draws attention to the resolution of this duality: “the genre
as a whole revolved around the forging of common ground between oppositional forces”
(Lach 20). Therefore, a lot of ‘dual-focus narrative’ musical films start off in ‘medias res’,
which underscores the incompatibility and opposition of the main characters, even before
background information and personal traits are revealed. Whereby this crucial information is:
“withheld until the dual-focus parameters are set” (Altman 66). Consequently, Lach argues
that the use of songs and dances is of great importance, in the first place for bringing the
destined couple together, but also for symbolising that differences are surmountable. More
often than not, the main characters are designated to have different cultural tastes, for
example one protagonist is a dancer and the other protagonist a singer (Lach 20). Lach
emphasises the fact that these cultural differences are a crucial element for fulfilling the
purpose of the narrative:
“Not until these cultural differences can be overcome, through the forging of a middle
ground or middlebrow culture, could the couple express their love for each other, thus
signalling the film’s final and happy dénouement. This happy compromise, in turn,
signified a utopian promise of a better world.” (Lach 20)
Similarly, the two protagonists also often tend to be engaged in the same or comparable
activity, consecutively shown in parallel edited segments. Additionally, Altman points to
another way in which the parallelism of the ‘dual-focus narrative’ can be voiced within
musical films. Namely, through the portrayal of two opposite but equivalent groups instead of
purely focusing on two individual characters. These two equivalent groups have to be
27
distinguishable in terms of sex, language, race or another differentiation device (Altman 58).
In order to carry out the duality of these two groups within the narrative, a so called
‘contested space’ must be established whereby the groups desire to claim that particular
‘space’ (Altman 91).
Taking all these argument into account, Lach also acknowledges some problems
when focusing solely and too heavily on an analysis of the ‘dual-focus narrative strategy’
within musical films, causing a limitation of other important factors involved. Firstly, she
draws attention to the fact that within such a narrative the notion of a male-female romantic
couple is the leading factor, whereby: “The danger of such an approach is that it forces us to
view gender in considerably narrow terms: male/active, female/passive” (Lach 21). This
applies specifically and especially to the segments wherein the couple is romantically
involved, in this way the audience is tempted to perceive these segments as particularly
gendered by for example objectifying the female body. On the other hand, musical films are
also repeatedly characterised by the crossing of gender boundaries, for instance by letting
male characters dance and sing in the same ways as the female characters do. So, Lach
argues that focusing on and analysing the blurring gender lines will lead to the reformulation
of these fixed gender boundaries within musical films (Lach 21). Secondly, she points to
another problem, namely that: “the dual-focus narrative is historically and theoretically
limiting because it sacrifices its analysis of song-and-dance to the narrative” (Lach 22).
Solely analysing the ‘dual-focus narrative’ in musical films means taking songs and dances,
especially within an ‘integrated musical’, for granted. The songs and dances must be
regarded as important self-contained factors for advancing the plot and not just as a vehicle
for progressing the plot. That does not mean that the overall narrative has to be considered
inferior or less significant, but: “Overcoming the integrated, dual-focus approach enables an
exploration of the gaps that opened up when films transitioned between dialogue and song”
(Lach 22).
Overall, Rick Altman provides in his book ‘A Theory of Narrative’ (2008) a clear
understanding of how the most important characteristics of the ‘dual-focus narrative’ work
together when used in musical films. These elements all complement each other and help to
illuminate the phenomenon of (male-female) duality. A telling metaphor for the ‘dual-focus
narrative’ strategy is therefore also:
“[...] dual-focus narrative is a chess game, a balanced confrontation where the two
sides move alternately according to a simple set of rules, each piece having a limited
function meaningful only in terms of the larger fate of its side. The battle takes place
in time, yet strategy must be conceived in space, the opponent’s position remaining
fully as important as the attacker’s plans.” (Altman 57)
28
To conclude, Altman offers another remarkable reason for the use of a ‘dual-focus narrative’
within musical films, namely the fact that it has some compelling similarities in regard to the
notion of (American) society itself. Whereby the musical can be seen as a ‘cultural problem-
solving device’, by: “reconciling terms previously seen as mutually exclusive, the musical
succeeds in reducing an unsatisfactory paradox to a more workable configuration, a
concordance of opposites” (Altman 50). A society is generally characterised by multiple
fundamental paradoxes like work vs. entertainment, progress vs. stability and order vs.
liberty. Therefore, the musical film can be seen as an important instrument for reflecting the
fundamental paradoxes of (American) society and showing that these paradoxes should not
necessarily have to be mutually exclusive (Altman 50).
29
2.2 The Dual-focus Narrative in La La Land (2016)
The ‘dual-focus narrative strategy’ and the phenomenon of duality play an interesting but
complex role within La La Land (2016). Similar to the six-minute opening musical number
directly revealing the musical identity of the film, the representation of a ‘dual-focus narrative
strategy’ communicates the adherence to the traditional generic conventions. However, it is
striking that this ‘dual-focus narrative’ approach is not surviving throughout the whole course
of film. This is therefore also an important factor for indicating that the film does not
completely cohere to the traditional Hollywood musical film conventions and rather takes a
more postmodern turn. More precisely, the unconventional and rare ending of the film marks
a dramatic rupture from the traditional narrative conventions used in traditional Hollywood
musical films and can be marked as a postmodern phenomenon. It has to be noted that
straying away from traditional conventions in general does not automatically signal a
complete postmodern transformation. However, La La Land (2016) uses the transformation
of traditional conventions to test the suspension of disbelief of the audience by surprising
them with an unconventional and shocking ending, which is a key characteristic of films with
a postmodern character.
To start off this part of the analysis, it is important to note that there are essentially
only two characters that play an important role within the film, namely the two protagonists
Mia and Sebastian. There are only a few secondary characters that advance the plot in the
desired direction, but the story of Mia and Sebastian remains central at all times. So, this
emphatically confirms Altman’s statement of: “the couple is the plot” (Altman 35), as this is
also certainly the case in La La Land (2016). The ‘dual-focus’ character of the film
immediately become clear when the two protagonists Mia and Sebastian are introduced, as
already briefly mentioned in paragraph 1.3. More precisely, the beginning of the film start off
as a typical Hollywood musical film, by introducing Mia and Sebastian as the two
protagonists of the film in two parallel scenes and thereby disregarding the chronology of
events. The linear progression of the plot is not of high importance, but the parallel sequence
is mostly important for introducing the protagonists, their current lives and their ultimate
dreams, before their paths literally cross. Both of their introduction sequences take
approximately ten minutes and start off right after the first musical number ends. Mia and
Sebastian are both stuck in traffic, while Mia is practicing lines for her audition and Sebastian
is restlessly searching for the right jazz radio station to listen to. Mia’s distractedness causes
Sebastian to aggressively honk and Mia to raise her middle finger at him (see figure 6).
30
Figure 6. This scene marks the start of Mia’s and Sebastian’s parallel sequence.
These small consecutive actions strongly underscore the incompatibility and opposition of
the two main characters. In this way, the beginning of the film seems to acknowledge its
similarities to the traditional Hollywood musical film genre, even though the narrative did not
start off in ‘medias res’.
In fact, figure 6 marks the start of Mia and Sebastian’s part of the parallel sequence.
Whereby these sequences have the exact the same beginnings, but are presented from
opposite points of view. Firstly, Mia’s sequence is shown, wherein the focus lies on the fact
that she aspires to be a successful actress. However, her journey to success seems hard
and it seems like she is almost at her breaking point, which leads the audience to believe
that she will give up on her dream. For example, everything seems to be working against her
when she has to audition with a coffee stain on her shirt while the casting directors seem to
be focused on anything else than Mia. This scene shows the failure of her audition and at the
same time shows a lot of people looking just like her wanting to pursue the exact same
dream. Which in turn mirrors the stereotypical representation of Hollywood that is almost
always depicted within (musical) films. To keep her from giving up on her dream and still
keeping a sparkle of hope, Mia tries to immerse herself into the Hollywood film industry
surroundings by working as a barista on the Warner Bros. lot. This ‘still belief in the
unexpected’ mentality is also acknowledged within the next musical number called ‘Someone
in the Crowd’, which takes place at a fancy cliché Hollywood party. Mia is dragged there by
her friends who insist that maybe there could be: “Someone in the crowd could be the one
you need to know. The one to finally lift you off the ground” (Someone in the Crowd, La La
Land). Near the end of the song Mia runs into the bathroom, where the whole room goes
dark and a spotlight appears. The meaning of the particular use of the spotlight will be
discussed in the paragraph 3.2, because in La La Land (2016) it is a reoccurring aesthetic
practice for showing another reality.
31
Figure 7. The slow-motion scene emphasises the hollowness of utopian cliché Hollywood.
After the bathroom scene a slow-motion movement is depicted, which proposes that Mia
does not feel part of the Hollywood elite as she slowly and almost invisibly moves through
the crowd of (famous) people dancing in slow-motion (see figure 7). This small scene
emphasises the sadness and loneliness underneath the revelry and the utopian Hollywood
dream factory full of clichés.
Important is to now turn to the parallel sequence from Sebastian’s point of view,
wherein the film shifts back to the moment where he is stuck in traffic on a highway in Los
Angeles. Thereafter, the scene shows he is drinking coffee across the street of the club he
hopes to own one day. He is upset that they turned it into a samba-tapas bar instead of
keeping it an authentic jazz club. From this moment on Sebastian could be perceived as a so
called traditionalist, because of his obsession with preserving jazz in its original form. When
he arrives at his home he is surprised to see his sister who asks him why he has still not
unpacked all the boxes in his house, indirectly asking what he is doing with his life now that
he is unable to pay his bills. To which he replies: “When I unpack them in my own club”. By
this statement his dream is revealed, namely the dream of having his own jazz club where
jazz music is being performed in its original form. His sister subsequently says the following:
“It’s like a girl broke up with you and you’re stalking her. You’re not still going by there, are
you?”. Hereby, she refers to the jazz club he specifically goes to when drinking a coffee. His
traditionalistic character and him obviously disliking changes can be deduced from the fact
that he has not yet unpacked his boxes and is still obsessed with the traditional jazz club that
changed its concept. Furthermore, his stubbornness and persistence also become clear
when he says: “I want to be on the ropes, I am letting life hit me until it gets tired, then I am
going to hit back. It’s a classic rope-a-dope. I’m phoenix rising from the ashes”. He still
believes in the possibility of creating a utopia for himself and letting his dream comes true,
even if he has to endure some tough challenges.
After these parallel introductory sequences, Mia and Sebastian’s separate plots start
to come together literally and figuratively. Before the film cuts to Sebastian’s part of the
parallel sequence, Mia is shown walking past a wall painting of an audience and she hears
Sebastian play his own jazz song on the piano, which intrigues her. The meaning of this wall
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painting will be discussed later when talking about reflexivity in paragraph 4.2. She decides
to walk into the restaurant where Sebastian works as a pianist playing background music.
This scene shows her watching him closely as the spotlight is set on her again. Then there is
a drastic cut to the parallel sequence of Sebastian, wherein it is revealed that he indeed
works in a restaurant, but is only allowed to play the assigned setlist while he actually wants
to play his own jazz songs. He decides to go for it and starts playing his own jazz song,
which could later be recognized as being ‘Mia and Sebastian’s song’, and the spotlight is
there again to immerse the audience into his dream. This scene abruptly stops and it seems
like nothing happened, but then it shows that Sebastian is being fired because of his actions.
Mia, who was watching his entire performance, wants to complement him, but Sebastian
bumps into her and storms off in anger. So, as mentioned above, after this twenty-minute
parallel sequence the use of the ‘dual-focus narrative’ to structure this musical film is almost
entirely disregarded.
Figure 8. Old Hollywood fonts used for the transitions into new seasons and phases of their
relationship.
Instead La La Land (2016) uses the different seasons to structure the start and continuing of
Mia and Sebastian’s relationship, whereby these seasons are shown in an old Hollywood
font as title cards to mark a transition into a new season (see figure 8). In other words, winter
marks the beginning of the film, both Mia and Sebastian are not happy and have not been
able to realize their dreams. At the start of spring they still have different tastes, different
professions and different dreams that have to be overcome in order to build their relationship.
But they slowly overcome these differences at a party where they accidentally run into each
other, and this is when their love story starts. More precisely, it is the musical number ‘A
Lovely Night’ which causes Mia and Sebastian to set aside their differences. In the beginning
of the song they emphasise that: “And there's not a spark in sight. What a waste of a lovely
night” (A Lovely Night, La La Land). While at the end they are dancing synchronously like
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they have done this a million times before. Summer subsequently highlights the best time of
their relationship, in which they encourage each other in pursuing their dreams. However, in
this summer segment of the film there are already some signs foreshadowing their eventual
break-up. This break-up takes place in the fall, which also signifies the fall of their
relationship and in which an altercation causes them to disconnect for the first time. The
importance and cruciality of this fight for the overall narrative will be discussed in more detail
within paragraph 3.2. Thus, these different seasons indicate that Mia and Sebastian’s
relationship changes accordingly and also demonstrates that the structure and plot
essentially grow out of the characters. So, it turns out that the (male-female) duality, in
wanting to pursue their own individual dreams without competing with each other, can be
regarded as the main ideology that is created without the complete support of the ‘dual-focus
narrative strategy’.
The last section of this part of the analysis will be dedicated to the unconventional ending of
La La Land (2016), because this is the most telling and remarkable way in which the film
deviates from the traditional Hollywood musical film genre. More precisely, the film does this
by entirely disregarding the classical and predictable creation of an ending. One of the most
important characteristics of the ‘dual-focus narrative’ is the fact that the two initially opposed
protagonists end up together. This is not what happens at the end of La La Land (2016),
because Mia lands a big role in a film and Sebastian does not want to stand in the way of her
success, so eventually they decide to break up. Their duality in this film consists of multiple
and multidimensional layers as mentioned above, all essentially building up towards the
ending of the film. It can even be stated that the whole film would have had a different theme
and ideology if the ending was different or completely omitted.
The ending begins with another title card stating: ‘Winter, Five years later’. It starts
with Mia, who made her dream come true and is now a famous actress, getting coffee at the
same place she used to work as a barista. She gets home to her husband and daughter and
they decide to go out for a night, not knowing that they would end up at Sebastian’s own jazz
club. Consequently Sebastian is shown walking towards his club, indicating that he also
fulfilled his dream. During this scene he walks past the same poster Mia had in her bedroom
in the beginning of the film. This can be regarded as a metaphor for the fact that the next
scenes will loop time back on itself. As soon as Mia and her husband sit down in Sebastian’s
jazz club, Sebastian gives a little speech and notices Mia sitting in front of him. He then starts
playing their song, which has been used frequently in the film to symbolise their love story.
Subsequently, an immersing final eight-minute fantasy sequence is depicted in which a
traditional Hollywood musical film version of how the film would have played out, if it would
have incorporated all the traditional conventions and stuck completely to the genre formula,
34
is shown. An alternate narrative is being told in which Mia and Sebastian have an
uncomplicated relationship and have a child together. Furthermore, Mia fulfilled her dream of
becoming a famous actress and Sebastian kept supporting her by putting his dream aside,
so that they eventually could ‘live happily ever after’. The utopian settings depicted within this
scene will be discussed in more detail within the next chapter. In the last scene of this
fantasy sequence Mia and Sebastian arrive at the same jazz club, but then the song ends
and it is revealed that this was only Mia’s fantasy of an alternative ending of the narrative.
Back in reality, Mia and her husband leave the club and Mia and Sebastian look at each
other for one last time hinting that they are proud of each other despite the sadness they are
feeling, they fulfilled their dreams but lost each other in the process. It could be seen as a
pessimistic postmodern ending to an optimistic film, whereby the film reverses how in
traditional Hollywood musical films the romance plot and professional plot merge together.
Essentially, this analysis reveals that the two protagonists can be seen as embodying
a traditional and postmodern aspect of the film. Namely, Mia embodies the postmodern
aspect of the film, while Sebastian reflects the traditional aspect. As a matter of fact, Mia
reflects the thought of not completely believing in the possibility of fulfilling her utopian
imagination. However, in the end Mia is the one who fulfilled her dream completely by being
an actress and having a family life, but cannot help herself to imagine how their lives would
have turned out if they would have stuck to the traditional conventions. On the other hand,
Sebastian could be seen as mirroring traditionalism, because he is convinced that there is a
substantial possibility of fulfilling his utopian desires and holds on tight to this belief. He is a
fundamental traditionalist whose dream is to open his own jazz club and to preserve jazz’s
purity. It can be noted that these embodiments are essentially a form of performing reflexivity
and will therefore also be discussed within the paragraph 4.2. So, in the end the film could
mostly be recognized as being postmodern instead of being traditionalist, as the traditional
conventions are used as an opportunity to transform the narrative into a postmodern tale.
As has been noted in the above theoretical framework paragraph, the ‘dual-focus
narrative strategy’ could be regarded as one of the foundational aspects of constructing a
traditional Hollywood musical film. That said, this analysis shows that La La Land (2016)
does not completely meet this expectation. The ways in which the film plays with the duality
of its characters shows that it took the ‘dual-focus’ approach as a starting point to portray and
convey a credible musical film. Subsequently it deviates from this course, and thereby gives
a more postmodern twist to (male-female) duality and its conventional outcome. This is done
through the deliberate rejection a conventional happy ending, and instead shocking its
audience with an upsetting and untypical ending. Through this, the film places itself in
postmodern realm rather than submersing itself into the traditional Hollywood musical film
territory. The position of the utopian settings and the protagonist’s ‘Hollywood dreams’ in
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regard to the traditional Hollywood musical film genre and the phenomenon of
postmodernism, will be discussed in the next chapter.
36
Chapter 3: Utopianism and The American Dream
3.1 Utopianism and The American Dream
“While we often simply fantasize, at times we reason about our dreams, and sometimes we
even act on them. Still, at its base utopianism is social dreaming, and includes elements of
fantasy, most commonly early in the history of utopianism, but they never entirely disappear
probably because a degree of fantasy is necessary to human psychic health.” (Sargent 4)
As stated in the first chapter, ‘utopianism’ is a multidimensional concept which is highly
relevant for analysing the inherent generic structure of Hollywood musical films, because
‘utopianism’ is a particular ideology musical films wish to integrate and propagate. More
precisely, Fredric Jameson considered the phenomenon of ‘utopia’ to have an inherent
ideological reading:
“Works of mass culture cannot be ideological without at one and the same time being
implicitly or explicitly utopian as well: they cannot manipulate unless they offer some
genuine shred of content as a fantasy bribe to the public about to be so manipulated.”
(Jameson 142)
It is worth recalling the definition of musical films, already mentioned in the first chapter,
given by Rubin: “a musical is a film containing a significant proportion of musical numbers
that are impossible—i.e., persistently contradictory in relation to the realistic discourse of the
narrative” (Rubin 57). This statement clearly touches upon the ‘impossible’ and ‘unrealistic’
character of the phenomenon of ‘utopianism’. Gregory Claeys and Lyman Tower Sargent
argue in their book ‘The Utopia Reader’ (2017) that the word ‘utopia’ was originally created
by social philosopher Thomas More as a literary form and is derived from the Greek words
‘ou’ and ‘topos’, literally meaning ‘no place’. According to the authors the term ‘utopia’ thus
refers to a non-existent society which is located in a particular time and space. Furthermore,
the phenomenon of ‘utopianism’ is subsequently designated as an imaginative projection of a
dramatically different life (Claeys and Sargent 1). Similarly, Sargent describes the general
phenomenon of ‘utopianism’ in her article as follows:
“[...] social dreaming - the dreams and nightmares that concern the ways in which
groups of people arrange their lives and which usually envision a radically different
society than the one in which the dreamers live. But not all are radical, for some
people at any time dream of something basically familiar.” (Sargent 3)
However, Claeys and Sargent stress the fact the notion of ‘utopia’ must not be confused with
and reduced to solely being a literary tradition, a theological form, a feeling, a principle or a
37
state of mind. Most importantly, it must also not be regarded as a synonym for progress or
making a society better in general (Claeys and Sargent 2). From these different
understandings it becomes clear that a lot has been written about the phenomenon of
‘utopianism’ within (literary texts) throughout history, too much to extensively discuss in this
particular paragraph. However, Sargent gives a clear and useful overview of the different
forms of ‘utopianism’ that can be expressed within texts (see figure 9). For the analysis of La
La Land (2016) it is of most interest to elaborate more on the utopian form called ‘critical
utopianism’. The first theorist to coin the term ‘critical utopia’ was Tom Moylan in his book
‘Demand the impossible: Science Fiction and the Utopian Imagination’ (1986) by stating: “A
central concern in the critical utopia is the awareness of the limitations of the utopian
tradition, so that these texts reject utopia as a blueprint while preserving it as a dream”
(Moylan 10). He notes that texts including this phenomenon of ‘critical utopianism’ relied on
the conflict and tension between the original and utopian world, that is to say that the ‘critical
utopia’ itself is aware of its obvious limitations (Moylan 10). Thereby, Sargent argues that
contemporary scholars, thus around the 1990’s, are perceiving the implementation of the
phenomenon of ‘critical utopianism’ in texts as critically reflecting on its own genre (Sargent
8). So, it can be noted that the utopian genre since then has become more self-aware by
starting to reflect on its own forms.
Figure 9. Lyman Tower Sargent’s definitions of different utopian forms (1994).
38
It is important to emphasise the phenomenon of ‘utopianism’ within the field of entertainment
and specifically in regard to Hollywood musical films. To start off, according to Moylan the
second half of the twentieth century was characterised by a strong revival of the utopian
impulse (Moylan 15). So, the ‘Golden Age’ of Hollywood musical films was a particularly
good time for the incorporation of ‘utopianism’, because during this post-war period a strong
believe in society’s and technology’s ability to produce a better world was ruling. Thereby,
Peter Fitting writes in his text about ‘utopian films’ that this period was: “[..] not only
characterised by a certain utopian optimism, but by a distinctive style which summed up the
gleaming promise of the future for decades to come” (Fitting 2). However, according to Dyer
there is an important difference between (literary) texts conveying ‘utopianism’, as discussed
above, and films portraying the phenomenon of ‘utopianism’:
“Entertainment does not, however, present models of utopian worlds, as in the classic
utopias of Thomas More [...]. Rather the utopianism is contained in the feelings it
embodies. It presents, head-on as it were, what utopia would feel like rather than how it
would be organized. It thus works at the level of sensibility, by which I mean an affective
code that is characteristic of, and largely specific to, a given mode of cultural production.”
(Dyer 3)
Besides, Dyer notes that there are two taken-for-granted notions of entertainment in general,
namely their ‘escapist’ nature and the fact that they often encourage ‘wish fulfilment’.
However, these are exactly the notions pointing to the active involvement of various
entertainment forms in conveying the phenomenon of ‘utopianism’, whereby they try to offer
us images of a ‘better world’ or our inner desires (Dyer 3). They provide us with:
“Alternatives, hopes, wishes—these are the stuff of utopia, the sense that things could be
better, that something other than what is can be imagined and maybe realized” (Dyer 3). In
his book ‘Hollywood Genres’ (1981) Schatz notes that in essence all Hollywood films contain
utopian elements to a certain degree, by for example showing so called ‘utopian or idealistic
resolutions’ for realistic problems (Schatz 188). Furthermore, when focussing specifically on
the Hollywood musical film genre, it becomes evident that the narratives of these films also
often strongly portray the reality-utopia paradox:
“The musical's gradual narrative progression toward a successful show and the
principal performers' embrace project a utopian resolution, but this resolution is
anticipated whenever the performers break into song and dance.” (Schatz 188)
However, Dyer notes that the communication of ‘utopianism’ only becomes successful when
the presented utopian visions are derived from existing and real imaginative projections of
the audience. In that way the audience of a musical film can perceive the portrayal of
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‘utopianism’ as more accurate and realistic. By incorporating the notion of ‘utopianism’ in a
musical film the emphasis will be on the discrepancy between ‘what is’ and ‘what could be’.
To camouflage this obvious discrepancy, musicals: ‘[...] work through these contradictions at
all levels in such a way as to ‘manage’ them, to make them seem to disappear” (Dyer 9).
For the sake of the explicating the generic construction of musical films, it is also
important to come back to the distinction made between the two stylistic logics of Hollywood
musical films, namely the ‘integrated musical’ and the ‘aggregated musical’. Particularly
because Fitting draws attention to the fact that the ‘integrated musical’ can be seen as more
of a ‘utopian film’, whereby the utopian musical numbers are changing and progressing the
plot (Fitting 9). Similarly, Schatz notes that the ‘integrated musical’ can also get the most out
of its potential ‘utopianism’, by means of directly connecting the dances and lyrics of the
musical numbers with a utopian motif to the real conflicts within the narrative. Musical films
containing a fair amount of ‘utopianism’, by stressing the tension between reality and illusion,
are worked out on two different levels of action. Namely, by characters bursting into musical
numbers to transcend their interpersonal problems while expressing their true feelings and
secondly by the narrative itself that solves interpersonal struggles by performing musical
numbers (Schatz 188). Schatz sums up the above arguments by stating that:
“[...] the musical genre's basic oppositions derive from a narrative distinction between
the dramatic story, in which static, one-dimensional characters act out familiar social
conflicts and are oblivious to the camera/audience, and the musical production
numbers, in which those same characters acknowledge their status as dynamic
entertainers and perform directly to the camera/audience.” (Schatz 189)
A popular phenomenon related to ‘utopianism’ is the ‘American Dream’, the narrative on
which America is build, the national American ethos and a set of beliefs which states that
dreams, ambitions and aspirations are achieved through risk-taking, sacrifice and hard work
rather than by luck or chance. It is justifiable and useful for the upcoming analysis to argue
that the ’American Dream’ could and will be addressed as a particular form of ‘utopianism’.
The traditional and most commonly used definition of the ‘American Dream’ can be attributed
to historian James Truslow Adams. In his book ‘Epic of America’ (1931) he described and
thereby popularized the phenomenon as follows: “that dream of a land in which life should be
better and richer and fuller for every man, with opportunity for each according to his ability or
achievement” (Adams 404). However, Nicholas Deskos argues in his text that this particular
characterisation changed during the post-war period in America. While referring to the
original notion of Adams, he states that Adams indirectly claims that social class is irrelevant
and that every American could achieve material comfort and personal happiness. But,
Deskos remarks that this premise was no longer holding up after the 1940’s:
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“[...] in post-war America the American Dream was redefined as a life of personal
happiness and material comfort as sought by individuals. [...] As a result, the
American Dream is no longer the measure of the quality of one’s individual character
but more the measure of the value of the material goods that one has accumulated.”
(Deskos 5)
Moreover, Deskos points to the fact that the concept of the ‘American Dream’ could still be
regarded as relevant nowadays, especially because it is part of (American) popular culture
and portrayed within for example television series and films (Deskos 3). Similarly, J. Emmett
Winn states that: “The American Dream is entrenched in American popular culture” (Winn 1).
In regard to American popular culture, K. Edington goes a long way in demonstrating why the
American film industry became associated with the notion of the ‘American Dream’ in the first
place. He states that the establishment of the Hollywood film industry occurred
simultaneously with the dream of westward expansion in America (Edington 63). The
Hollywood film industry subsequently became dominated by the idea of the pursuit of
dreams, which could be clearly recognized when looking at the films from the 1920’s (and
onward) and the actors starring in these films:
“The stars themselves were often ordinary Americans whose success was attributed
to their natural virtue and effort simply magnified by the magic of the camera: anyone
could be a star. The films, in turn, often celebrated the success of the ordinary
individual rewarded for his (usually) or her persistence, determination, and innate
goodness.” (Edington 64)
More importantly, Ken Hillis notes that: “The success of classical Hollywood narrative cinema
relies on audience identification with an on-screen character or characters” (Hillis 3). At this
specific time Americans were obsessed with the idea of the ‘American Dream’ and this
cherished belief was even becoming rooted in American society. Much of the films from the
1920’ (and onward) explicitly communicate this prevailing ideal, so that watching these films
in turn encouraged and strengthened the receptive audience’s believe in the ‘American
Dream’. Lastly, it is relevant to address the book ‘The American Dream and Contemporary
Hollywood Cinema’ (2007) by Winn, wherein he touches upon the fundamental aspects of
the incorporation of the notion of the ‘American Dream’ in contemporary Hollywood films.
More precisely, he differentiates between three possible themes concerning the
communication of the ‘American Dream’ in these films, namely, ‘moralizing mobility’,
‘moralizing failure’ and ‘moralizing the material’. The first one, which he also calls the ‘rags-
to-riches success story’ focuses its narrative around a moral working-class protagonist trying
to realize the ‘American Dream’. Additionally, these characters are able to accomplish
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success by determination, hard work and their inspiring motives (Winn 12). The second
theme, ‘moralizing failure’ is the rational opposite of the former and could be described as
working-class characters coping with failure without ever questioning the promise of the
‘American Dream’. Furthermore, the characters learn and grow from their failures by aiming
to high and start to appreciate their working-class values again (Winn 12). Winn introduces
the third and final theme as ‘moralizing the material’, which encompasses ‘emotionally and/or
physically distressed upper-class characters’ forming a relationship with lower-class
characters. This relationship can be regarded as reciprocal, in a way that:
“Circumstances bring them into a close cross-class relationship with a struggling
working-class or poor person, who redeems the upper-class character by showing
him or her the way back to living a full and happy life. However, all the members of
the cross-class relationship benefit, as it becomes a symbolic microcosm of the myth
of a classless America.” (Emmett Winn 13)
The above delineated themes thus show the inevitable tension between the ‘material’
(individualism) and the moral (brotherhood) when portraying the notion of the ‘American
Dream’ within contemporary Hollywood films. In a like manner Glenn D. Smith Jr argues in
his text that this tension can only be resolved through the illustration of the classical
Hollywood love story, whereby the heterosexual relationship and the happy ending of the film
are crucial:
“[...] only through the devotion and example of a romantic partner, one who fully
understands and has incorporated the material and moral ideologies of the American
Dream, does the protagonist eventually take responsibility for his actions and
experience continued happiness and success.” (Smith Jr 224)
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3.2 Utopianism and The American Dream in La La Land (2016)
In the most general sense, the film La La Land (2016) as a whole can be seen as immersing
itself into a surface level utopia, because it for example does not show any poverty, crime,
industrialism, homelessness, or racism. Moreover, both Mia and Sebastian can afford a
decent home in Los Angeles, even when their jobs are not well-paid. But this is obviously a
common phenomenon of Hollywood films in general, because films are supposed to immerse
its audience into another and often non-existent reality. Moreover, when diving deeper into
the meanings of the phenomenon of ‘utopianism’ in La La Land (2016), it could be noted that
‘utopianism’ serves different and complex functions for the narrative as well as for the
postmodern ideology the film conveys.
More precisely, it can be said that La La Land (2016) consciously builds a tension
between the utopian spirit of the film and the postmodern sense of the ordinary world, in
which the possibility of a realizing a utopian imagination is highly questioned. This can for
example been seen when looking at the transitions between the musical numbers into the
general narrative. Furthermore, the film can be identified as an ‘integrated musical’, as
already mentioned in paragraph 1.3, which also means that it has a greater possibility of
conveying the phenomenon of ‘utopianism’, as stated by Fitting and Schatz. This means that
the musical numbers and the plot have a direct and reciprocal relationship, by which the
lyrics of these numbers often contain explicit references to the plot. These musical numbers
performed by Mia and Sebastian are crucial for depicting utopian settings and spheres. But
most of all, these numbers are important for giving their dreams expression, form and
substance. For example, the musical number ‘City of Stars’ Sebastian performs after he and
Mia shared their passions, aspirations and goals at his favourite jazz club, after which he
sings: “City of stars. There's so much that I can't see. Who knows? Is this the start of
something wonderful and new? Or one more dream that I cannot make true?” (City of Stars,
La La Land). These sentences and the utopian looking settings cause him to becomes
temporarily locked in a dream state, but he remains insecure about the possibility of fulfilling
his dreams, namely the one of opening his own Jazz club as well as his new dream of
sharing a life with Mia (see figure 10).
Figure 10. The utopian settings emphasize Sebastian being locked in a dream state.
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These shots can be regarded as utopian because of the bright colours that are being used,
the almost perfect sunset and the older loved up couple dancing with each other.
Additionally, this musical number presents what a utopia for Sebastian would feel like and
thereby indirectly compares it to his real life, where he knows that Mia still has a boyfriend. In
fact, the whole film deliberately plays with this reality-utopia paradox, which could be
identified as an inherent feature of the film. For example, the song ‘City of Stars’ ends with a
straight cut to the next shot wherein an almost empty parking lot is shown, which marks a
sharp contrast with the utopian scene that precede it. This is followed by another scene in
which Mia has to audition in front of two casting directors who never look up from their
phones and send her away after she delivers only one line, which causes her walk out angry
and feeling humiliated. In this way, the portrait of a utopia is immediately disregarded in order
to show that the harsh reality is nothing like what is pictured within the songs. In fact, La La
Land (2016) uses this contrast as a returning phenomenon, whereby a disturbance or
interruption of a piece of reality creates an abrupt ending to the musical numbers. For
example at the end of the musical number ‘A Lovely Night’, already mentioned in paragraph
2.2, when Mia’s phone starts to ring and it turns out to be her boyfriend calling. This marks
an immediate shift into reality, causing Mia and Sebastian to end their utopian imaginations
and go home. Similarly, when the musical number ‘Someone in the Crowd’, already
mentioned in paragraph 1.2, ends the film immediately cuts to a shot with a sign stating ‘tow
away, not stopping’ when Mia finds out her car is gone.
Another telling element in relation to this reality-utopia dichotomy, is the use of a
spotlight during musical numbers as an aesthetic indicator for marking the transition into the
ultimate utopian imaginations of Mia and Sebastian. These spotlights on the characters show
to transition into a utopian space, whereby these are the moments when everything goes
back to one pure idea, the purest sense of dreaming and being oneself (see figure 11).
Figure 11. The use of spotlights brings out Mia and Sebastian’s inner utopian desires.
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This can for example be seen when Sebastian decides to play his own songs at his work and
it can be noticed that he feels like he is the centre of attention for a moment. In this scene he
can truly be himself and it is at this moment it is revealed that playing his own songs is his
ultimate utopian dream. Subsequently, when the spotlight dissolves he instantly gets
snapped out of his dream and returns to the harsh reality, where he immediately finds out he
is getting fired. So, when the spotlight eventually fades away, it is almost like a spell being
broken. Another scene which uses the spotlight is when Mia rushes into the bathroom during
the musical number ‘Someone in the Crowd’, already mentioned in paragraph 1.2. Here the
spotlight is being used to illustrate her inner feelings and her vulnerable side, but also to
emphasize what she is singing to herself, namely: “Somewhere there's a place where I find
who I'm gonna be. A somewhere that's just waiting to be found” (Someone in the Crowd, La
La Land). This once again emphasises Mia’s embodiment of the postmodern aspect of the
film, by hinting at the insecurity in regard to fulfilling her dream and not knowing what the
future holds. The last scene that is important to note in regard to the use of the spotlight is
Mia’s final audition that essentially will make her famous and successful. At this particular
audition she sings to song ‘The Fools Who Dream’ about her aunt making her dreams come
true in Paris. When Mia performs this song the film sucks the audience into her world by
drifting away from reality for a moment and this is the first moment that reveals why she is so
motivated and determined to fulfil her biggest dream. Furthermore, she acknowledges the
vulnerability and uncertainties that comes with chasing your dreams when she sings: “Here's
to the ones who dream. Foolish as they may seem. Here's to the hearts that ache. Here's to
the mess we make” (The Fools Who Dream, La La Land). So, the scenes using the spotlight
mark the purest and realest moments of the main characters, but they also convey their most
utopian and unrealistic dreams. Essentially this also reflects the postmodern thought of not
believing in the possibility of fulfilling a utopian desire, whereby the utopian spheres imagined
are not able to survive into reality.
Additionally, another indicator for the level of utopianism that is being conveyed
throughout the film is the colour pallet. Thereby, the use of colour also indicates where the
narrative will lead to in regard to Mia and Sebastian’s relationship and the dreams they have.
To indicate Mia’s disbelief in the possibility of fulling her utopian dream, she gradually stops
wearing colourful cloths. Whereas in the beginning she mostly wears blue, yellow and purple
dresses, in the end she wears grey and black clothes (see figure 12). These bright colours
worn in the beginning of the film are also a clear reference to the traditional Hollywood
musical films, because they are often times used to convey the optimism and gleaming
outlooks of utopian spheres.
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Figure 12. The clothes Mia wears reflect respectively her belief and disbelief of fulfilling her utopian
dream.
Similar to the clothes worn, the background colours of several scenes signal the inner
feelings of the characters and sometimes even foreshadow what will happen later narratively.
For example, the red light in Sebastian’s house when he and Mia talk about the fact that he
does not want to work for someone else. The red lighting shows that from here it will go
downhill with his relationship and his career when he decides to join someone else’s band to
earn some money to be able to care for Mia and himself. Another scene in which the
colouring of lights indicate their inner feelings, is when Mia and Sebastian perform the
number ‘City of Stars’ together in a green lighted room, which signals the underlying jealousy
and envy that is to come now that Sebastian’s band is becoming successful. Lastly, the
whole club is filled with a blue light when Mia and Sebastian look at each other for the last
time, symbolising the contentment, fulfilment and introspection they feel by both fulling their
dreams and being proud of each other (see figure 13).
Figure 13. Background colours indicating and foreshadowing Mia and Sebastian’s inner feelings.
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Considering the fact that the tension between the possibility and impossibility of realizing
utopian dreams is central to La La Land (2016), as stated above, it can be stated that the film
can essentially be seen as a ‘critical utopia’ by commenting on the limitations of its own
created utopia. This phenomenon is also relevant when analysing the representation of
‘American Dream’ within the film. In fact, the ‘American Dream’ and its objectives are
obviously still relevant in our current society. People are still taught and encouraged to work
hard if they want the possibility of achieving certain goals in life. However, what this film
shows brilliantly is that for these dreams to come true in our current society you have to give
up other things, because dreams always come with a cost. In this way, La La Land (2016) is
very different from the traditional Hollywood musical films, that are obsessed with creating a
narrative that will lead to a perfect ending. More precisely, La La Land (2016) foregrounds
the struggles and scepticism the protagonists experience while trying to fulfil their ‘American
Dreams’, hereby the focus does not lie on the creation of and the working toward a
conventional perfect Hollywood musical film ending. In the above paragraph the notion of the
‘American Dream’ is defined as being a commonly used phenomenon within musical films.
Within La La Land (2016) this is also the case, but for this analysis and this particular film it is
more convenient to start calling it the ‘Hollywood dream’. Namely, because the narrative is
focused on the protagonists wanting to become successful artists within the heart of
professional entertainment and glamour that is Los Angeles. As a matter of fact, it could be
stated that the phrase ‘becoming famous, if you work hard for it and meet the right people’ is
designated to be the ethos of Hollywood. However, in La La Land (2016) the ‘Hollywood
dream’ of success is first presented as just a hollow fantasy, then presented to be achievable
through hard work and determination, and then presented to come at a cost. Furthermore,
the notion of the ‘American Dream’ is transformed into a more postmodern thought of the
‘Hollywood Dream’, which tells the audience that ‘utopianism’ is a belief that must be
recognized to be almost always unattainable and unrealistic.
It is important to note that the portrayal of a ‘critical utopia’ in La La Land (2016) can
indeed be seen as postmodern and not purely as a specific form of an ‘anti-utopia’. A ‘critical
utopia’ does have ‘anti-utopian’ characteristics, but this does not mean that the portrayal of
an ‘anti-utopian world’ is automatically also a depiction of a ‘critical utopia’. The portrayal of a
‘anti-utopian world’ can therefore also not directly be seen as postmodern. Similarly,
postmodernism can in some ways indeed be seen as ‘anti-utopian’, but not all forms of ‘anti-
utopianism’ can be regarded as postmodern. So, the portrayal of a ‘critical utopia’ in La La
Land (2016) can be seen as postmodern because it reflects the scepticism that comes with
trying to fulfil utopian dreams, which is a fundamental characteristic of the use of ‘utopianism’
in postmodern films. It cannot be seen as ‘anti-utopian’ because it does not completely reject
the possibility of fulfilling utopian dreams and is also not denying the very existence of a
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utopian world.
That these utopian dreams are often hollow and meaningless in the cliché dream
factory that is Los Angeles is underscored by Sebastian when he talks to Mia about being
fascinated by the film industry when walking around at the Warner Bros. lot: “That’s LA. They
worship everything and they value nothing”. One of the most important scenes that shows
the struggles that come along with trying to realize the protagonists ‘Hollywood Dreams’, is
the fight that essentially causes Mia and Sebastian to break up. In this scene Sebastian
surprises Mia by being able to come home in between touring with his band. At his particular
moment, the house is completely lit green again, signalling the jealousy and envy that is
finally going to be expressed. They have dinner together when Sebastian asks Mia to go on
tour with him for a little while, indirectly putting his own career over Mia’s, who needs the time
to work on her first solo play. At this particular moment their relationship changes
immediately and they stop being supportive of each other’s dreams and careers.
Subsequently, Mia asks if being in this band is his plan for the long haul, now that she
believes he gave up his ultimate dream of opening his own club just to make money and
have a steady job. She asks him if he likes the music that he has to play, to what he
responds with: “I don’t know what it matters”. Essentially, he accuses her of wanting him to
have a steady job and he convinces himself of the fact that: “This is the dream, this is the
dream”. Finally, this fight ends with Sebastian telling Mia in anger: “Maybe you liked me more
when I was a failure because it made you feel better about yourself”. To come back to
paragraph 2.2, wherein the distinction was made between Sebastian symbolizing the film’s
generic traditionalism and Mia symbolizing the film’s postmodern character. It can be
recognized that Mia essentially already lives in a utopian looking world. In that she works at
the Warner Bros. lot and her home looks like a typical traditional Hollywood musical film set
with bright colours and film posters on the walls. While Sebastian’s world on the other hand
seems monotonous and lifeless, in that his house is colourless and full of unpacked boxes.
Thus, while Mia already lives in a utopian looking world, she does not really believe in the
possibility of her utopian world actually fulfilling her dream. While Sebastian does not live in a
utopian world yet, but strongly believes in the possibility hereof. He is convinced of the fact
that it will all work out in the end, even when his life takes him on a small detour.
The above statements, made during Mia and Sebastian’s fight wherein they voiced
their different opinions, also emphasise the tension between traditionalism and
postmodernism in La La Land (2016). Namely, Mia could be regarded as a hopeless
dreamer, but is in the wrong when she accuses him of giving up his dream, while she herself
does not belief in the real possibility of becoming a successful actress anymore. On the other
hand, Sebastian feels the pressure to prove to Mia that he can have a steady job and make
money to support her and himself, thereby he is even willing to give up his dream. In his way,
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giving up his dream temporarily causes him to encourage Mia to do one more audition. Mia
acknowledges she cannot take the rejection anymore: “Maybe I am not good enough. Maybe
I am one of those people who always wanted to do it, but it is like a pipe dream for me. You
said it yourself, you change your dreams and you grow up, maybe I am one of those people
and I am not supposed to”. Consequently, all the above statements in a way connect to the
fundamental theme of the film articulating the fact that postmodernism changes the
traditional generic conventions of the traditional Hollywood musical film genre.
So, to conclude this paragraph, it can be stated that only the utopian musical
numbers are similar to the kind of utopian worlds portrayed within the traditional Hollywood
musical films. In fact, utopianism in traditional Hollywood musical films mainly consists of a
portrayal of a positive utopia, in which the dreams of the protagonists always come true.
There is also no sharp distinction made between reality and utopian spheres, in this way the
whole narrative can be seen as telling a utopian story instead of only letting the musical
numbers portray a utopian world. However, what La La Land (2016) wants to achieve is
making sure that these utopian spheres illustrated in the musical numbers do not survive and
morph into reality. Thereby, the film could be recognized as conveying the idea of a ‘critical
utopia’. Which in turn signals to postmodern aspect of the narrative, wherein the utopian
imaginations expressed within the songs are not wholly believed to happen in reality. Lastly,
the ending of the film depicting a lot of utopian spheres, already discussed from a
narratological perspective, will be discussed in more depth within the next chapter because
of its clear connection to the notion of self-reflexivity.
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Chapter 4: Self-reflexivity and Metareference
4.1 Self-reflexivity and Metareference
“The world of the musical becomes a kind of ideal image of the medium itself.”
(Elsaesser 13)
The notion of ‘self-reflexivity’ is a phenomenon which is almost always present within
Hollywood musical films, sometimes very explicit or somewhat implicit, as already mentioned
in chapter 1. For now it is important to briefly focus on the essence of the term ‘self-
reflection’. Nanna Verhoeff points to the fact that the notion of ‘self-reflection’ can be
regarded as doubly ambiguous. The central issue addressed here is the relationship
between the words ‘self’ and ‘reflection’, which can essentially create four types of ‘self-
reflection’: “the mirroring of the work, as in mise-en-abyme [...] or of the viewer, as in literal
mirroring effects; reflection on the work, or reflection on the viewer, the act of viewing, and
the effect of it – its performativity “ (Verhoeff 52). Robert Stam argues that, originating from
psychology and philosophy, the term ‘self-reflexivity’ referred to the ability of the mind to take
and see itself as an object (Stam 151). Thereby, he also touches specifically on the
phenomenon of ‘filmic reflexivity’: “by which films foreground their own production, their
authorship, their textual procedures, their intertextual influences, or their reception” (Stam
51). As a matter of fact, ‘self-reflexivity’ is an important element within the generic structure of
the Hollywood musical film, because it essentially deconstructs the codes of the genre itself.
Koresky even states in his text that the musical film genre is inherently self-referential: “The
traditional musical can’t really make room for other forms; it’s both self-sustaining and self-
destructive. It is alone in the dark, dancing with itself” (Korensky 45). Thereby, Cohan
addresses the fact that the production and performance of (popular) entertainment within
musical films is often been set as the central theme of the film (Cohan 17).
The notions of ‘mise en abyme’, ‘self-reference’, ‘hetero-reference’ and ‘meta-
reference’, which are closely related to ‘self-reflexivity’, all play an important role in
constituting the (dual-focus) narrative of a Hollywood musical film. ‘Hetero-reference’ has to
be seen as the opposite of ‘self-reference’ and could, according to Zitzelsberger be
described as: “the mirroring of the industry and culture producing the film” (Zitzelsberger 99).
The notion of ‘mis en abyme’ has already been sufficiently covered in chapter 1, therefore
this concept will not be discussed in much greater detail within this paragraph. A specific and
special form of ‘self-reference’ and a way to express ‘self-reflexivity’ is called ‘metareference’,
which Werner Wolf delineates as:
“[...] a special, transmedial form of usually non-accidental self-reference produced by
signs of sign configurations which are (felt to be) located on a logically higher level, a
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‘meta-level’, within an artefact or performance; this self-reference, which can extend
from this artefact to the entire system of the media, forms or implies a statement
about an object-level, namely (aspects of) the medium/system referred to.” (Wolf 31)
From this above statement the exact meaning and central point of the term ‘metareference’ is
difficult to grasp. But Hanna Maria Huber clarifies this complex statement in a more
understandable manner, namely she describes it as media viewing themselves ‘from the
outside’ or from a so called ‘meta-level’ to subsequently refer to its own medium (Huber 6).
However, it is then crucial that the audience understands these references and picks up the
necessary referential cues. So, an interaction between the viewers and the film is essential:
“[...] metareference is not merely a ‘message’ encoded in a given medium but requires a
recipient who cognitively realizes it” (Wolf 25).
The remainder of this paragraph will be specifically dedicated to implications of self-
referential elements, whereby Jane Feuer’s text ‘The Self-reflexive Musical and the Myth of
Entertainment’ (1995) could be regarded as the most interesting text for discussing ‘self-
reflexivity’ within Hollywood musical films. She starts off by stating that musical films have:
“evolved toward increasingly greater degrees of self-reflectivity” (Feuer 442). Furthermore, all
entertainment is to a certain extend ‘mythified’, in a way that entertainment pretends to have
a greater value than they actually have. Along similar lines, Feuer notes that all musical films
are filled with deceptions and could therefore be seen as pure ideological products (Feuer
443). Thus:
“Art musicals are structurally similar to myths, seeking to mediate contradictions in the
nature of popular entertainment. The myth of entertainment is constituted by an
oscillation between demystification and remythicization. Musicals, like myths, exhibit a
stratified structure” (Feuer 443).
Thereby, she differentiates between three forms of entertainment myths, namely the ‘myth of
spontaneity’, the ‘myth of integration’ and the ‘myth of the audience’, whereby she points to
the fact that musical films generally combine all three myths. The first form could be
described as the attempt of self-reflexive musicals films to mask the fact that the seemingly
spontaneous song and dance performances are in fact highly (technologically) calculated.
So, the ‘myth of spontaneity’ functions to: “make musical performance, which is actually part
of culture, appear to be part of nature” (Feuer 447). The ‘myth of integration’ is described by
Feuer as the desire of self-reflexive musicals to overcome the segregation of groups and in
this way unify the community and the audience. Musical films for example show this through
changing characters’ isolation into integrating them into a group or society throughout the
narrative of the film. Hereby, these films are: “promoting audience identification with the
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collectively produced shows, the myth of integration seeks to give the audience a sense of
participation in the creation of the film itself” (Feuer 449). Lastly, Feuer refers to the ‘myth of
the audience’ as the construction of an apparent privileged relationship between the self-
reflexive musical and its audience. In a similar way to the previous myth, this myth also tries
to manipulate the feelings of its audience and give them the impression of the ability to
participate in the performances. Musical films try to incorporate this direct musical-audience
relationship by for example using theatrical audiences within the film itself to trigger
identification. Or by positioning the camera at a front-row position, in a way that the audience
is positioned as if they were present at the performance of that particular musical number
(Feuer 450). Lastly, Feuer ends her text by noting that musical films go to great lengths in
order to articulate the above myths and consequently their ‘self-reflexivity’:
“All ritual involves the celebration of shared values and beliefs; the ritual function of
the musical is to reaffirm and articulate the place that entertainment occupies in its
audience’s psychic lives. Self-reflective musicals are then able to celebrate myths
created by the genre as a whole.” (Feuer 453)
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4.2 Self-reflexivity and Metareference in La La Land (2016)
As already stated in paragraph 1.3, self-reflexivity can be regarded as a particularly tricky
subject, because it can be argued that the Hollywood musical film genre is an inherently self-
referential genre devoted and bound to specific motifs and mannerisms. Any new
contemporary Hollywood musical film can almost only be seen as a palimpsest, due to the
fact that it contains recognizable traces of the films that came before. In part this is also true
for La La Land (2016) in a way that it is very aware of its own generic history and contains
numerous intertextual references to older traditional Hollywood musical films, as already
mentioned in paragraph 1.3 in relation to ‘generic pastiche’. However, what sets the film
apart from purely being another self-reflexive Hollywood musical film within the demarcated
genre, is that it is not only reflexive of its own genre but also comments on the actual current
state of the genre in relation to the phenomenon of postmodernism. La La Land (2016)
predominantly comments on the current state of the genre by emphasizing the inability of the
traditional Hollywood musical film conventions to survive and keep their original meanings in
a contemporary (postmodern) musical film. More precisely, different elements within La La
Land (2016) reflect Los Angeles, the (musical) film industry, the characters’ self-awareness,
the history of the genre and the current state of the genre. With this is mind, it is important to
note that in essence all recognizable self-reflexive elements are merely self-referential or
self-referential with a meta-dimension.
First of all, La La Land (2016) can be seen as a highly self-reflexive meta-musical
film, by being a musical about artists in the music business and a film about people in the film
industry. The meta-aspect of La La Land (2016) is mostly articulated by foregrounding the
process of the film’s own production. For example, the use of spotlights, already discussed in
paragraph 3.2 in relation to the reality-utopia dichotomy, which indirectly reflects the
production side of the (musical) film. It also once again shows that the protagonists are
essentially living inside one big film scene as mentioned in paragraph 1.3. Another way in
which the production of the film is reflected is when Mia and Sebastian are walking past and
looking at a specific film set on the Warner Bros. lot. Remarkably this set will later be used as
a real set in the utopian ending sequence, showing Mia and Sebastian dancing like they are
part of a classical musical number. In this way, the film builds a framework wherein the
characters themselves are witnessing the production of a scene coming up later. What can
be remarked from this example is that the protagonists are to a certain extent aware of the
fact that they are used as pawns in a game of self-reflexivity and metareference the film
plays. But, at the same time they are also aware of their own position and ability to perform in
the creation of a musical film.
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Figure 14. Mia and Sebastian looking into the mirror to reflect on themselves and the characters they
play.
In other words, the protagonists of the film are implicitly acknowledging the genre, by being
conscious of the fact that they are in a musical. They are for example living in a world where
they are aware of the existence of Rebel Without a Cause (1955). So, it be can assumed that
they know the traditional Hollywood musical films they are referencing in their dancing, their
surroundings, the way they dress and even the way they behave. When Sebastian and Mia
talk to each other for the first time he finds out Mia aspires to be an actress and subsequently
tells her: "guess I'll see you in the movies”. Hereby, he indirectly acknowledges them being
aware of the fact that they are part of a film themselves. Another way in which the film shows
the characters’ awareness is when they are looking at themselves in the mirror (see figure
14). In these scenes Mia and Sebastian are looking at themselves to have a moment of self-
reflection, but they also indirectly look at the characters they are playing in this particular
musical film. At the same time, the audience can recognize the soft-focus old Hollywood
close-up style and the yellow lightbulbs typically seen backstage, again foregrounding the
production side of (musical) films. So, the film plays with the fact that the protagonists partly
acknowledge that they are in a musical film and uses this to bend the traditional conventions
into a postmodern direction by almost overacting the reflective aspect within the film.
As mentioned above, the film also, on a meta-level, reflects the film industry, Los
Angeles as the centre of film culture and specifically Hollywood as the centre of producing
traditional Hollywood musical films. Whereby, Los Angeles is the place where the imagery,
values and motifs of old Hollywood are endlessly reproduced by new Hollywood films. The
biggest reference to Los Angeles is obviously the title of the film, namely La La Land (2016),
which refers to the abbreviation of the city Los Angeles as well as to the conventional singing
of musical numbers in traditional Hollywood musical settings and Los Angeles surroundings.
As already mentioned in paragraph 1.3, the opening number ‘Another Day of Sun’, shows the
harsh reality and the inherent paradox of the Hollywood dream factory that is Los Angeles.
Thus, in this way the imagery of Los Angeles being the ultimate idealised dream is
immediately disregarded.
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Figure 15. Post-card highlights of Los Angeles used wihtin La La Land (2016).
Accordingly, Mia and Sebastian are both struggling to live in a city where they are constantly
reminded of its utopian pop-culture (film) history, especially due to the way in which the city is
depicted. Furthermore, the representation of Los Angeles consists predominantly of ‘post
card highlights’, which are the most iconic and utopian looking places of the city, for example
the Rialto theatre, the Griffith Observatory, the Hermosa Beach Pier, The Lighthouse Café,
Grand Central Market and the landmark Angels Flight (see figure 15). These are also the
settings primarily used for utopian spheres depicted in the film. However, as already
extensively discussed in the previous chapter, the reality-utopia dichotomy is central to the
film’s ideology, whereby the two-sided depiction of Los Angeles is also contributing to this.
So, aesthetically La La Land (2016) cannot be seen as an adequate reflection of the real Los
Angeles, but more as a representation of the narrativized and glamorized Los Angeles as
commonly used in films and popular culture. On the other hand, the film bends this imagery
to its will in order to show a more realistic view of the struggles people face when living and
trying to make a career in Los Angeles.
Lastly, the most important reflexive perspective the film takes is commenting on the
current state of its own genre by subverting the traditional generic conventions and by taking
jazz as an implicit but telling metaphor. More precisely, the film mainly subverts the
conventional ‘dual-focus narrative strategy’, the conventional depiction of ‘utopianism’ and
the ‘American Dream’. The fact that the ‘dual-focus narrative strategy’ does not survive after
one third of the film reflects the Hollywood musical film genre not surviving in its entirety
within the contemporary film industry. Similarly, the eight-minute ending sequence is
essentially one big reflection of the genre itself, in a way that it shows what the film would
have looked like if it stuck to the conventions of the traditional Hollywood musical film genre,
as mentioned in paragraph 2.2. Moreover, this sequence also contains a short scene in
which Mia and Sebastian watch their own home videos, they are literally looking at
themselves living the ‘happily ever after life’. It can even be stated that this image is triply
mediated, because the audience witnesses Mia’s fantasy sequence in which Mia and
Sebastian look at footage shot of themselves in an alternate reality. Besides, La La Land
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(2016) portrays a ‘critical utopia’ instead of conveying a complete utopian story without
splices of reality and real world complications traditional Hollywood musical films are known
for. In general, La La Land (2016) deliberately chooses to subvert these conventions to
indirectly show that a film of this kind that conveys different meanings can still be regarded
as a musical film, despite it taking a postmodern take on the fulfilment of dreams. Speaking
of the film reflecting the current state of the genre, the notion of jazz can be seen as a
remarkable metaphor for the development and transformation of the Hollywood musical film
genre. This can be recognized when closely observing the conversation Mia and Sebastian
have about his passion for jazz music when he shows Mia the famous Lighthouse Café. In
this scene Mia confesses she strongly dislikes jazz music, to which Sebastian responds in a
defensive but very passionate manner with: “It’s conflict it’s compromise, and it’s just new
every time. And it’s dying, it’s dying on the vine. And the world says let it die, it had its time,
well not on my watch”. What he says can be seen as highly self-reflexive, because with the
first sentence he indirectly refers to the fact that each new Hollywood musical film has to find
its own comprise between the past of the genre and its potential future. Thereby, Sebastian’s
stubbornness and traditionalism reflect the films complex relationship with the past and the
current state of the genre. In this way, it almost like the film is directly talking to itself and
asking the question of: how could this film be revolutionary while at the same time preserving
and respecting the past? The last two sentences of Sebastian’s quote, knowing Sebastian
being a traditionalist himself, again refer to the fact that the musical genre is dying and
therefore needs to be revived or at least transformed to preserve its existence.
As a final point, it is interesting to come back to the wall painting Mia walks past in the
beginning of the film, already briefly mentioned paragraph 2.2, in regard to its remarkable
reflexive nature. This old and faded looking wall painting, painted on the exterior of the
restaurant Sebastian works at, shows an audience in a cinema. When Mia walks past it, it
almost seems like the audience in the painting is watching her. This can be seen as a
metareference to La La Land (2016) being a film about a film, but it is also a visual cue for
the film’s and Mia’s awareness of performing in this particular film. However, the wall painting
can also refer to the actual audience that is watching La La Land (2016) in the cinema,
whereby the film acknowledges its own awareness of being a musical film that generates a
real audience. This essentially touches upon the overarching question that surrounds this
entire overly self-reflexive musical film, namely: who is actually looking at whom?
One reflexive aspect that should be highlighted once more in regard to reflexivity is
Mia and Sebastian’s meaningful reflection of respectively postmodernism and traditionalism,
which is already extensively discussed in all of the previous chapters. However, notable is
that this is obviously also an indisputable reflexive element of La La Land (2016), if not the
biggest one. So, what sets La La Land (2016) apart from just being another self-reflexive
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Hollywood musical film within the traditional Hollywood musical film genre, is that it goes to
great lengths trying to reflect on the current state of its own genre in order to express the
prominence of its postmodern ideology over a traditionalist ideology.
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Conclusion
The overarching purpose of this thesis was to examine the position of the contemporary
Hollywood musical film La La Land (2016) in respect to the traditional Hollywood musical film
genre. Therefore, the thesis statement that had to be proven, justified and substantiated was:
The musical film La La Land (2016) is a self-reflexive postmodern subversion of the
traditional Hollywood musical film genre, especially in the way it articulates the ‘dual-focus
narrative’, a ‘critical utopia’ and the ‘Hollywood Dream’. In essence, the multidimensional
analysis that has been done demonstrates that La La Land (2016) can be regarded as a self-
conscious postmodern musical film that revisits a lot of the traditional Hollywood musical film
generic conventions and deliberately juxtaposes these classical conventions with
postmodern conventions. More precisely, from a narrative as well as an aesthetic
perspective La La Land (2016) tries to create a tension between the past and the present,
between reality and utopian spheres, between a traditionalist ideology and postmodern
ideology and most importantly between affirming and subverting the generic conventions.
The beginning of La La Land (2016) is mostly dedicated to the conveyance of a
credible integrated musical film and a credible traditional ‘dual-focus narrative’. However,
after the first twenty minutes the film for the most part disregards this entirely strategy, to
show that a musical film can also maintain its (male-female) duality without adhering to the
conventional way of structuring a narrative. Moreover, the unconventional ending sequence
also marks a dramatic rupture from the traditional and conventional way to end a Hollywood
musical film, by disregarding a happy ending and failing to merge the romance plot and
professional plot together. Ultimately, this is done to strengthen the main ideology of the film,
namely that the fulfilment of dreams does come with difficulties and sacrifices. A
phenomenon that strongly contributes to this postmodern ideology is the portrayal of a
‘critical utopia’. The ‘critical utopia’ portrayed in La La Land (2016) is characterised by the
creation of a conscious tension between the utopian spirit and spheres of the film, mostly
conveyed through the performance of the musical numbers, and the postmodern sense of
the ordinary world in which the protagonists experience real life problems. Moreover, the
central objective of conveying an imagery of a ‘critical utopia’ is illustrating the postmodern
thought of not completely believing in the possibility of fulfilling utopian desires, whereby the
utopian imaginations of the protagonists are not able to survive into reality. Important to note
is that the portrayal of a ‘critical utopia’ can be seen as postmodern and not as purely a
specific form of an ‘anti-utopia’, because it foregrounds the scepticism towards the fulfilment
of utopian dreams but does not reject the possibility fulfilling these utopian dreams in its
entirety.
In regard to the inherent reflexive character of La La Land (2016), it can be said that
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the film obviously draws heavily on its own Hollywood musical film history, by referring to
numerous popular ‘Golden Age’ musical films. However, what separates the film from the
traditional Hollywood musical film genre in terms of ‘self-reflexivity’ is that it extensively
comments on the current state of its own genre. This becomes apparent from closely
observing the way in which the film uses jazz music as an implicit but interesting metaphor to
articulate the need for revival of the Hollywood musical film genre. Nevertheless, the most
important reflexive element of the film is the protagonist’s embodiment of the tension
between the traditional and postmodern aspects of the film. Hereby Mia reflects the
postmodern aspects of the film by not completely believing in the possibility of fulfilling her
utopian imagination. While Sebastian on the other hand is convinced that there is a
substantial possibility of fulfilling his utopian desires and holds on tight to this belief
throughout the whole film. In the end, none of these two perspectives wins from the other
one, but this is exactly what the film tries to tell its audience. Because in essence La La Land
(2016) itself reflects the impossible dream or the so called ‘pipe dream’, by attempting to
make a film with a postmodern ideology within the traditional Hollywood musical film genre. It
tells the audience a postmodern story set in a utopian looking old Hollywood with an
unflinching look at real life, but conveying a postmodern ideology naturally comes with
sacrificing a lot of traditional Hollywood musical film conventions.
However, as with any research done, it is important to highlight any possible
limitations to this research, which could consequently be addressed in further research. One
obvious limitation is the fact that this research only focusses its analysis on one
contemporary Hollywood musical film. So, in order to affirm and validate the findings of this
research more research has to be done in regard to other contemporary Hollywood musical
films. This will specifically be interesting, because in this way research is able to find out if
the postmodern approach of La La Land (2016) is characteristic for all or at least more than
one contemporary Hollywood musical film made in the last few years. This could well be the
case when looking at the current situation wherein a lot of films aim to transform and
revolutionize specific generic conventions and thereby try to explore the boundaries of the
specific genre they operate in. Therefore, it would also be interesting to investigate if the
subversion of the traditional Hollywood musical film genre conventions is connected to
particular directors of contemporary musical films or if La La Land (2016) is an exception in
the way in which director Damien Chazelle portrays and conveys his own ideas and ideals
through the film.
So, it can be concluded that La La Land (2016) has an obvious impulse for preserving
the art form of the traditional Hollywood musical film genre, but at the same time is driven to
revolutionise it in a postmodern direction. Maybe La La Land (2016) can even be regarded
as the perfect combination of what made the old good and the new better. Coming back to
59
Michael Korensky stating that we are now living in a so called ‘perpetual post-musical-era’,
the question arises whether we are in fact beyond the end of the rainbow? In a way La La
Land (2016) indeed shows that the traditional Hollywood musical film genre can no longer
completely survive in its originality within this contemporary postmodern film. However, La La
Land (2016) is not mourning the genre’s demise and extinction, precisely for the reason that
it wants to transform the traditional generic conventions in order to give them a new
ideological meaning in the process. In fact, La La Land (2016) sets the example for other
contemporary Hollywood musical films to come, in a way that it has found a balance between
the past, present and eventually the future by still portraying the traditional aspects of
‘dancing and dreaming’ but also by ‘transforming’ these traditional conventions, like the title
of this thesis already foreshadowed.
60
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