An Unpredictable Storm - “Singin’ in the Rain” by Grant Hiskes
Image from Mental Floss
(This essay was composed for a school assignment addressing critiques of ‘Singin’ in the Rain’ (1952)
When Singin’ in the Rain made its debut in 1952, it was not the biggest commercial success. However, no one at the time could have predicted the cultural relevance and weight it would carry for the decades to come. Many film institutes now regard the musical film as one of the greatest films to ever grace the big screen. Not all reception of the film has painted it as a rainbow after those rain showers though as several academics see the clouds from the film’s rain shower linger around today and casting dark shadows of racist undertones and subversion. Dr. Warren Hoffman writes of the subversion created against non-whites by Singin’ in the Rain by staying silent on their identities and stories. Carol Clover illustrates the subversion of non-whites through examples of uncalled-for instances of derogatory shots at non-whites throughout the film. I acknowledge the arguments made by Hoffman and Clover, though I have reservations about their interpretations of the film’s intentions. The objective of Singin’ in the Rain is not to subvert racial minorities but to entertain. However, negligent efforts to entertain prevent Singin’ in the Rain from advancing progressive ideologies of race but more notably sexuality and societal structure.
In my opinion, the creators of Singin’ in the Rain valued entertaining audiences far more than persuading or informing them. The creators gave up a lot of opportunities for artistic expression outside of choreography aside in the making of this film. This makes sense as Gene Kelly, the film’s star also doubled as a director for the film. He was sure to put his dance moves on display throughout the film but the rest of the creative time was not worried about creating original songs for the musical. Singin’ in the Rain was as we discussed in class a “catalog musical”, meaning the musical reused songs that already existed from the studio’s catalog from past productions for the majority of the musical numbers featured in the film. There is nothing wrong with a catalog musical, but the fact Singin’ in the Rain is a catalog musical signals two things to me. The first is that the film’s creators wanted to lean on songs and music that had already been successful in some regard, indicating that the creators intended for the film to be a commercial success more than anything. The second is that the creators of the film gave up valuable opportunities for artistic expression in the film, which signals to me that they were not likely to be trying to have much more than surface-level resonance with the audience. If the intention was primarily to subvert non-whites, I cannot imagine why they would not capitalize on the opportunity to supplant the music with numbers that had more obvious racial tones.
With that being said, I will take a moment to acknowledge a concern noted by Dr. Hoffman in “All Singin’! All Dancin’! All White People?” that “the musical, with few exceptions, is written by white people for white people about white people” (Hoffman 5). I agree with Hoffman on this point. I think the playwrights, directors, and choreographers of this time were trying to cater their musicals towards white people because they were the ones generating the most revenue for the productions. On top of that, if the creators of these musicals and musical films were white, the best productions they could create likely reflected the stories of white people and white society as those were the most authentic stories they knew and that translated to more resonance with the audience. Likewise, the creators of Singin’ in the Rain indicate this subtly yet unabashedly as just about every character in the audience when the film is taking place in the theatre is white.
The other reason that I am far more inclined to believe this film is concerned with entertainment above all else is the plot structure. The plot tells a love story that is very similar to every other love story told, the story of a man and woman who the audience wants to be together but obstacles stand in the way. As the story goes on, the man and woman overcome these obstacles until their unity and living happily ever after as the story’s resolution. We see this same plot precisely with Don Lockwood and Kathy Selden in this film. From early on in the film, we are conditioned to empathize with Don. We see the montage of his backstory with Cosmo at the beginning of the film and even sympathize with him a bit as he escapes the crowds. On top of that, we are turned off to Lina shortly after her introduction and want Don to get away from her. We also develop a sense of respect for Kathy as she is made out to be a strong, independent woman that does not need a man. We see her turn down Don Lockwood after he hops into her car, and does not even recognize him because she does not care too much for all those movies that seem to be the same. We even have an inclination to back her up when she tries to throw a cake in Don’s face and it hits Lina in the face instead. Lina is an unattractive character, but her role as the obstacle in the way of Don and Kathy’s romance and the antagonist gives us the audience something to rally around and a stake in the storyline. With the telling of a story that would typically have some more serious undertones, Cosmo’s character serves as a means of comic relief through his “Make ‘em Laugh” number, funny facial expressions, and witty remarks. The few characters all have a critical purpose in the telling of the story, but the few characters also keep the film’s storyline simple. The film’s creators are not trying to confuse audiences with complex character arcs and dynamics, which further attributes to my claim that the film is primarily seeking to entertain the masses.
However, it is the negligence in some of the entertainment efforts that cause academics to see Singin’ in the Rain in a distasteful light. Carol Clover points out several of these distasteful, race unconscious jokes and remarks in her paper “Dancin’ in the Rain”. I did not catch a lot of the examples Clover pointed out when I first watched the film, but after reading her paper I can see how uncalled for these scenes and lines were in the context of the film. Clover discusses several instances of these sideways glances to blacks. The instance that most stood out to me as uncalled for retrospectively was during the scene discussing the Duelling Cavalier with music, and Cosmo jokingly comes up with the name Dueling Mammy (Clover 161). I did not know what a mammy was, but I know now that it is an offensive term used to describe a black woman who is a nanny of white children. There is no reason why they had to bring in race for the punchline of the joke in this scene. I think that attests to the general lack of racial sensitivity of the time, more than a decade before the Civil Rights Act was enacted and a time when Jim Crow laws still existed in parts of the country. The remark is most certainly distasteful but pales in comparison to the other racial injustices transpiring during those times. It's sad to say, but I think the joke was a cheap low-blow employed by the writers to get a few laughs. I think it shares the sentiment observed with the dancing savages in the other scene where Don is walking between sets (Clover 161). Those jokes would never fly today, but at the time they were a cheap low-blow for the writers to accomplish their objective of entertaining their audience with laughs. These shots and lines are far from acceptable by any means, but in the context of the time, I think it would be a bit extreme to assume that these instances were intending to serve a racial subversion agenda as opposed to negligence in crafting incremental entertainment for the story’s plot.
I would say that the film’s refusal to divert from this entertainment objective has a more detrimental effect from a sexual perspective than a racial one. After all, those instances mentioned by Clover take up a very small proportion of the screen time compared to the narrative of the triangulated dynamic we see play out between Don. Kathy, and Lina. This is first evident with the crude characterization of Lina Lamont. She has an annoying voice and is very concerned with her self-image. She does not seem to have a sense of independence or any other admirable traits and is very preoccupied with her image. We see all this negativity surrounding an affluent white woman that has a prominent role throughout the movie, and I would say that characterization at the end of the film gives viewers a more distasteful look at upper-class, snobby white women than it does of non-whites. Furthermore, women have an association with sex appeal throughout the movie. Even though we have a greater admiration for Kathy than Lina, we still see Kathy sexually objectified early on in the “All I Do Is Dream of You” musical number. There is nothing inherently wrong with the number but attests to the need for the sexual component of attraction that was prevalent then and is still prevalent today.
Because the objective of Singin’ in the Rain is to entertain as evidenced by the use of recycled music and a simple plot structure, I think it is unfair to judge this film for subverting non-whites. Elements of racial subversion are evident in retrospect but pale in comparison to other racially-motivated texts of the time. The subversion of women is more persistent and evident is more prevalent in the film than that of non-whites. However, just as the film does not actively intend to subvert non-whites, it also lacked the capacity to actively subvert females as they focused on achieving their objective of entertaining the masses. Fortunately, we have made significant social progress to this point where those subtle jabs and remarks would no longer fly and we as a whole have a more developed understanding and empathy of non-whites and women. Singin’ in the Rain accomplished its objective of entertaining audiences, but the film fell short in advancing the way its audience viewed non-whites and women.
Works Cited
Clover, Carol. “Dancin’ in the Rain” Reprinted in Hollywood Musicals: The Film Reader, ed.
Steven Cohan (New York: Routledge) 2004, Essay originally published in
Critical Inquiry 21:4, 1995
Hoffman, Warren. “All Singin’! All Dancin’! All White People?”
The Great White Way: Race and the Broadway Musical, Second Edition
(New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press), 2000, 1-28
