Unstaged Grief

Musicals and Mourning in Midcentury America

Jake Johnson

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English

University of Illinois Press
25 February 2025

Film theory & criticism; Television; Music reviews & criticism; Music: styles & genres; Psychology: emotions

Series: Music in American Life

Often dismissed as escapism, screen musicals of the 1960s in fact tapped into unspoken sadness about an America that was slipping away. Jake Johnson delves into film and television musicals of the era to examine their place in networks of grieving in America, for America, and about America.

The Golden Age of musical theater ended just as Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’s On Death and Dying debuted, and Johnson uses Kübler-Ross’s five stages to frame the intertwining of musicals and grief. He analyzes films like Seven Brides for Seven Brothers and State Fair alongside paintings, poetry, and other images and texts to reveal how the musical theater engine built in the first half of the century broke down just as a new language emerged to describe the melancholy felt by people facing the end of the world they had known.

Nuanced and original, Unstaged Grief plumbs the grief, loss, and hope behind the Technicolor spectacle and rousing showstoppers.

By: Jake Johnson
Imprint: University of Illinois Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 229mm, Width: 152mm, Spine: 13mm
Weight: 227g
ISBN: 9780252088407
ISBN 10: 0252088409
Series: Music in American Life
Pages: 160
Publication Date: 25 February 2025
Audience: Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

How to Process This Book Introduction--Grief Hides First Stage: Denial and Isolation Chapter 1--Frozen Figures Second Stage: Anger Chapter 2--Sobbin’ Men Third Stage: Bargaining Chapter 3--Dead God Fourth Stage: Depression Chapter 4--Good Grief Fifth Stage: Acceptance Chapter 5--Deus ex machina Codetta--Hope Shows Notes Index

Jake Johnson is an assistant professor of musicology at the University of Oklahoma. He is the author of Lying in the Middle: Musical Theater and Belief at the Heart of America and editor of The Possibility Machine: Music and Myth in Las Vegas.