Kimberly Monteyne
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- May 2014
- ISBN:
- 9781617039225
- eISBN:
- 9781621039990
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781617039225.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
Early hip hop film musicals have either been expunged from cinema history or excoriated in brief passages by critics and other writers. Hip Hop on Film reclaims and reexamines productions such as ...
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Early hip hop film musicals have either been expunged from cinema history or excoriated in brief passages by critics and other writers. Hip Hop on Film reclaims and reexamines productions such as Breakin’ (1984), Beat Street (1984), and Krush Groove (1985) in order to illuminate Hollywood’s fascinating efforts to incorporate this nascent urban culture into conventional narrative forms. Such films presented musical conventions against the backdrop of graffiti-splattered trains and abandoned tenements in urban communities of color, setting the stage for radical social and political transformations. Hip hop musicals are part of the broader history of teen cinema as well, and films such as Charlie Ahearn’s Wild Style (1983) are here examined alongside other contemporary youth-oriented productions such as Valley Girl (1983) and Pretty in Pink (1986).Breakdancing, a central element of hip hop musicals, is also reconsidered. It gained wide-spread acclaim at the same time that these films entered the theaters but the nation’s newly-discovered dance form was embattled—caught between a multitude of institutional entities such as the ballet academy, advertising culture, and dance publications that vied to control its meaning. As street-trained breakers were enticed to join the world of professional ballet, this newly-forged relationship was recast by dance promoters as a way to invigorate and “remasculinize” European dance. These multiple and volatile histories influenced the first wave of hip hop musical films, and even structured the sleeper hit Flashdance(1983). Monteyne places these productions within the wider context of their cultural antecedents and reconsiders the genre’s influence.Less
Early hip hop film musicals have either been expunged from cinema history or excoriated in brief passages by critics and other writers. Hip Hop on Film reclaims and reexamines productions such as Breakin’ (1984), Beat Street (1984), and Krush Groove (1985) in order to illuminate Hollywood’s fascinating efforts to incorporate this nascent urban culture into conventional narrative forms. Such films presented musical conventions against the backdrop of graffiti-splattered trains and abandoned tenements in urban communities of color, setting the stage for radical social and political transformations. Hip hop musicals are part of the broader history of teen cinema as well, and films such as Charlie Ahearn’s Wild Style (1983) are here examined alongside other contemporary youth-oriented productions such as Valley Girl (1983) and Pretty in Pink (1986).Breakdancing, a central element of hip hop musicals, is also reconsidered. It gained wide-spread acclaim at the same time that these films entered the theaters but the nation’s newly-discovered dance form was embattled—caught between a multitude of institutional entities such as the ballet academy, advertising culture, and dance publications that vied to control its meaning. As street-trained breakers were enticed to join the world of professional ballet, this newly-forged relationship was recast by dance promoters as a way to invigorate and “remasculinize” European dance. These multiple and volatile histories influenced the first wave of hip hop musical films, and even structured the sleeper hit Flashdance(1983). Monteyne places these productions within the wider context of their cultural antecedents and reconsiders the genre’s influence.
Kimberley Monteyne
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- May 2014
- ISBN:
- 9781617039225
- eISBN:
- 9781621039990
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781617039225.003.0005
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
The last chapter focuses on breakdance—an inner-city dance practice originating in the 1970s that was an integral part of hip hop culture—in both film and print. It offers a history of the dynamic ...
More
The last chapter focuses on breakdance—an inner-city dance practice originating in the 1970s that was an integral part of hip hop culture—in both film and print. It offers a history of the dynamic relation between ballet and breakdance, drawing on popular magazines, academic and professional journals, newspapers, and film of the 1980s. Contrary to popular opinion, this research shows that breakdancing in the early 1980s was practiced by women and girls. Moreover,the female breaker used the dance form in a critical manner, which negated the marginalization of women in certain avenues of hip hop culture. Female dancers flirted with breakdance on screen as well, and the chapter explains how institutional dance figured prominently inhip hop musical films of the era, as well as in the sleeper-hit Flashdance.Less
The last chapter focuses on breakdance—an inner-city dance practice originating in the 1970s that was an integral part of hip hop culture—in both film and print. It offers a history of the dynamic relation between ballet and breakdance, drawing on popular magazines, academic and professional journals, newspapers, and film of the 1980s. Contrary to popular opinion, this research shows that breakdancing in the early 1980s was practiced by women and girls. Moreover,the female breaker used the dance form in a critical manner, which negated the marginalization of women in certain avenues of hip hop culture. Female dancers flirted with breakdance on screen as well, and the chapter explains how institutional dance figured prominently inhip hop musical films of the era, as well as in the sleeper-hit Flashdance.
