Download PDF Something for the Boys: Musical Theater and Gay Culture, by John M. Clum
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Something for the Boys: Musical Theater and Gay Culture, by John M. Clum
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This is a question that has plagued humankind through the ages, or at least ever since Riff lost his heart to Tony in West Side Story and Ethel Merman proved that you don't have to be a drag queen to find love with a high C. In this book, John Clum gives us a guided tour through the history of the musical comedy in UK and US culture, examining specifically why gay men find it so attractive. Along the way he shines a spotlight on the allure of the diva; the lives of Noel Coward, Cole Porter, and Lorenz Hart, the homophobia of Rogers and Hammerstein, the mixed musical messages of Stephen Sondheim, and the first brassy notes of the overture to 'Gypsy'
- Sales Rank: #1371675 in Books
- Published on: 2001-04
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: .94" h x 6.10" w x 9.20" l,
- Binding: Paperback
- 336 pages
Amazon.com Review
If you think this is one of those academic gay- or gender-studies-type tomes that applies a lot of incomprehensible French terms to good old-fashioned American entertainment, think again. John M. Clum may be a professor at Duke, but what this garrulous gay-inflected romp around the past 75 or so years of musical theater reveals him to be is, to use his own affectionate term, a hopeless and incurable "show queen." Indeed, Something for the Boys is so personal and idiosyncratic in its survey of the gay side/subtext of musical theater that's it's kind of like a looooong dinner with an invaluable surviving old-school elder queen. You know the type--she's seen every show and/or owns every score since 1703 and she's not afraid to hold forth tartly on everything from Julie Andrews's performance in the film of Victor/Victoria ("She was Mrs. Blake Edwards and that's why she was at the center of a Blake Edwards film") to Rodgers and Hammerstein (whose work Clum provocatively finds impossible to extract a gay reading from--or, in his words, to "queer"). Of course, she's also got the last word on every diva to walk the floorboards, from Garland ("the Wreck Who Went On--brilliantly") and Streisand (who has "the toughness that drag queens aspire to") to Bernadette Peters ("as close to a diva as the New York theater has produced in the past 30 years") and an underrated treasure like Barbara Cook (whose story reflects that of gay history, Clum informs us, since she "'came out' as a fat woman." We're sure Miss Cook's happy to know that).
Clum writes that he didn't intend this book as a traditional thesis-based academic tome, which is good, since it fails miserably in that regard. He too loosely throws around terms like "camp," "irony," and "diva" that others have applied careful meanings to. He refers more than once to The Queen's Throat, Wayne Koestenbaum's meditation on the storied bond between gay men and opera divas, but fails to do what that book did so brilliantly even amidst its over-the-top language--pinpoint the reason gay men have traditionally been so drawn to a particular genre. (Koestenbaum argues that the full-throated utterances of the opera diva gave release to the rage and pain pre-Stonewall gays weren't allowed to express, but Clum never attains as deep a conclusion, chalking up the gay Broadway link to those tired old undefined catch-alls "camp" and "irony"). Clum suggests that what sports are to many straight men, musical theater has been to many gay men, and, in the end, the facile nature of his own survey supports such an analogy: When there's a gay reading to be found in a show or song (as there always is, he insists, in Porter, Coward, or Lorenz Hart), the gays "win"; when there's not (as in Hammerstein), or when it's not as clear (as in Sondheim's Company, notoriously), the gays "lose"...or the game goes into overtime.
But I'm just quibbling. I read Clum's book straight through to the end (including his lushly opinionated personal discography) because I envy and aspire to this kind of encyclopedic, microscopic knowledge of art and entertainment as a sort of venerable gay badge of honor. So if, like me, Lady in the Dark, Anyone Can Whistle, and Mack and Mabel mean as much to you as Crazy for You, Follies, and Mame, you'll quit your bitching, Mary, and eat it up, too.--Tim Murphy
From Library Journal
In this entertaining book, Clum (drama and English, Duke Univ.) answers the age-old question, Why do so many gay men love musicals? He links musical theater to gay culture through an analysis of music, lyrics, and plot (or lack thereof) as well as the personal lives of composers (from Noel Coward and Cole Porter to Stephen Sondheim and other contemporary artists) and divas (like Judy Garland and Ethel Merman, whom he links to the history of drag performance and heroine worship). Mixing personal anecdote with scholarly analysis, Clum takes his readers into a world where, despite homophobia and plots that seemed basically heterosexual, life could be fabulous. Also included are lively endnotes and a lengthy, annotated discography of cast recordings. Highly recommended for academic and public libraries, particularly those with theater or gay studies collections.
-Lisa N. Johnston, Sweet Briar Coll. Lib., VA
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Kirkus Reviews
Why do gay men so love musical theater? Clum purports to answer this question but instead offers only petty commentary and obvious observations to support queer readings of his Broadway passions. It's lights down, curtains up, and the diva's dead. Clum (Acting Gay: Male Homosexuality in Modern Drama, 1994, not reviewed) presents himself as an academic Auntie Mame guiding the reader through the delights of queer Broadway. Peering into the sex lives of Noel Coward, Cole Porter, and Lorenz Hart, dissecting the ambivalences of Stephen Sondheim, attacking the social conservatism of Rodgers and Hammerstein, Clum trots out musical after musical to delineate its queer edge, yet no momentum develops from this strategy. Although Broadway divas from Ethel Merman to Carol Channing, from Bernadette Peters to Betty Buckley, are lauded and lionized, they are never analyzed. The question that remains, then, after finishing his tour of the fleshpots, is exactly the one we began with: Why do gay men so love musical theater? Unwrapping the semantic layering of the diva would have been a valuable beginning to such a project, but Clum praises her many incarnations rather than probing deeply into her significance. Unfortunately, Clum so revels in celebrating the obvious queer sensibility of these musicals that he often fails to take into account more profound levels of meaning and cultural significance, as when his necrophilic male gaze savors in the King of Siam's beautiful dead body, shunting aside the postcolonialist horrors of the plot in favor of the giddy pleasures of a shirtless Yul Brynner. Rather than producing the Broadway musical equivalent of Wayne Koestenbaum's The Queen's Throat, which analyzed the nexus of queer culture and opera, Clum has failed to make any contribution to analyses of the Broadway musical or queer culture, except to bask in their collective fabulousness. (12 b&w illus.) -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Most helpful customer reviews
16 of 19 people found the following review helpful.
Error after Mistake after Error
By Michael B. Jones
John Clum, whose unusally good book "Acting Gay" should have served as a model for this text, falls flat with his analysis of musicals and gay culture.
Individually, each chapter serves as its own essay on a topic (ranging from Divas to Sondheim to Gay Musials), but when put together in book form, serve the gods of redundancy and contradiction as the materials get rehashed throughout the book.
Furthermore, while crediting queer theorist Eve Sedgewick and author Ethan Mordden throughout his text, Clum makes the reader want to search out copies of Sedgewick's "the Epistimology of the Closet" and Mordden's "Make Believe" and "Coming Up Roses", rather than continue reading his text.
Factually, Clum makes a number of errors through the book, most of which such minor but obvious errors as listing The Boys in the Band with a 1958 date. If I, a casual reader and student of Broadway, can pick up on such obvious mistakes, what will his academic colleagues think?
Perhaps his biggest blunder occurs during his worshipful chapter on Divas. Mr. Clum continually praises such contemporary divas as Betty Buckley (who, aside from a supporting turn as Grizabella, has yet to originate a major and critically acclaimed Broadway role) while confessing his personal dislike and ignoring the achievements of Patti LuPone (whose name he mis-capitalized throughout). Clum's continual comparison of divas to drag queens becomes tiresome, and at times (see Carol Channing) offensive.
The text is a personal journey - not based in any true theatrical reality, and certainly not applicable to the "real world." I was born after A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC opened, and yet, have a better understanding of the discussed topic's historical significance and place in the theatrical canon than Mr. Clum seems to have. Why then, does every "Generation X-er" he describes have a dumb, vague and incomprehensible adulation of musical theatre? Are those of us under thirty incapable of truly appreciating Merman, Martin or Channing because we were not able to see them in person? Our (post-stonewall gays) experience is not based wholly in the diva musical, as he would assert, but in the ensemble. Names like Randy Graff, Rebecca Luker and Audra McDonald barely enter his text. Next-Generation Divae like Marin Mazzie, Donna Murphy and Faith Prince are mere footnotes. Where does the history go from MAME and FOLLIES? Unexamined.
Perhaps if Mr. Clum wants to rewrite his text from beginning to end, it might eventually make an academic document worth reading. As it stands now, it is merely a gossipy, cocktail-party conversation with little merit and no lasting value.
6 of 9 people found the following review helpful.
Give this one a try -- it's fabulous!
By A Customer
I read the first reader's comments below and I must completely disagree. I am a gay, musical-comedy fan from NYC and I think John Clum has written, probably, the best book on the subject that I have ever read. Having toiled in graduate school for many years and having received a number of degrees, it was refreshing to read a really smart book that uses all of the postmodern ideas that we've grown up with in a way that is accessible. I've become so TIRED of pomo-academy speak because, for all of its erudition, it really doesn't say anything. Here's a book that does in language that everyone can understand.
I bought this book because of the review in OUT that said reading it was like getting a call from a friend who says -- Hey, I saw the greatest show last night! -- and that's exactly what I experienced when I read it. When my parents took me to see the original production of HELLO, DOLLY at the tender age of 9, they never knew what they were creating. Gay men seem to worry about liking musicals these days because they worry about the stereotype of the musical comedy queen. Do I worry about being thought of as a musical comedy queen? No. My partner and I have been together for over twelve years. I go to the gym and lift weights just like everyone else. I have a good job. I love musicals -- gay, straight, whatever. I don't care what anyone -- especially the academic thought police -- thinks about that and I absolutely loved this book.
If you love musicals, and especially if you're gay, I'd give this one a try. And, yes, it will make a great Christmas gift for anyone on your list who cares about the state of the musical theater in America today.
4 of 6 people found the following review helpful.
Something for the Girls Too!
By A Customer
All right, I admit it. I'm straight and female, so I was curious about the gay subculture in broadway musicals. I never really understood the gay appeal of "Gypsy" and "Wizard of Oz" until I read this book. (Oh, so gays identify with Louise with her dominating mother and with her feelings of inadequancy? So gays understand Dorothy's loneliness until she experienced the colorful and accepting world of Oz? Now I get it!) I was able to see the Broadway musical through gay eyes and found the experience much richer than before. Being an uninformed straight, I needed a gay author to lay his cards on the table and tell me exactly WHY characters and divas appeal to gays.
Therefore, I was pleased that this book was not another academic book on gay broadway, but was a gay man's personal experience with the theater. So what if his opinions did not jive with other gays? After all, who can really know why a particular musical appeals to a particular person? I liked his admittance that these were his own personal favorites, and to hell with the critics. I might have disagreed with his dismissing Liza Minnelli and Vanessa Williams as divas (if they aren't, who is?), but his "bitchy" (sorry) comments made it all worthwhile.
The only complaint I have is about the godawful cover. Seeing a middle-aged man in drag is not pleasing to my eye. So there. I guess if Mr. Clum is entitled to his opinion, I'm entitled to mine.
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