Pitching utopia: popular music, community and race in the choir film

Sammartino, Eleonora (2021) Pitching utopia: popular music, community and race in the choir film. In, Shearer, Martha and Lobalzo Wright, Julie (eds.) Musicals at the Margins: Genre, Boundaries, Canons. London. Bloomsbury Academic, pp. 28-40. (doi:10.5040/9781501357084.0008).

Record type: Book Section

Abstract

Critical discourses that have focused on the 1990s crisis of the musical invoke different cycles to demonstrate the proliferation of the genre, from the Disney Renaissance films to the international art musical. Although neglected in such debates, the choir film has been fundamental in the revitalization of the genre. The chapter explores this cycle, from its emergence with Sister Act to the success of Pitch Perfect, considering its gradual association with the musical due to the transmedia influence of musical TV programmes such as Glee. The analysis of these films traces the fundamental role of popular music in mediating musical conventions, such as qualities of spontaneity and authenticity that enable the formation of utopian communities. However, the socio-historical contextualisation of the choir film within neoliberalism demonstrates the untenability of utopia, with the reshaping of the classical musical conventions in favour of entrepreneurial individualism, self-government and self-empowerment.

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