Divine Decadence (eBook)

Fascism, Female Spectacle, and the Makings of Sally Bowles

Linda Mizejewski (Autor)

eBook Download: PDF

2014
274 Seiten
Princeton University Press (Verlag)
978-1-4008-6300-6 (ISBN)

Infos

As femme fatale, cabaret siren, and icon of Camp, the Christopher Isherwood character Sally Bowles has become this century's darling of "e;divine decadence"e;--a measure of how much we are attracted by the fiction of the "e;shocking"e; British/American vamp in Weimar Berlin. Originally a character in a short story by Isherwood, published in 1939, "e;Sally"e; has appeared over the years in John Van Druten's stage play I Am a Camera, Henry Cornelius's film of the same name, and Joe Masteroff's stage musical and Bob Fosse's Academy Award-winning musical film, both entitled Cabaret. Linda Mizejewski shows how each successive repetition of the tale of the showgirl and the male writer/scholar has linked the young man's fascination with Sally more closely to the fascination of fascism. In every version, political difference is read as sexual difference, fascism is disavowed as secretly female or homosexual, and the hero eventually renounces both Sally and the corruption of the coming regime. Mizejewski argues, however, that the historical and political aspects of this story are too specific--and too frightening--to explain in purely psychoanalytic terms. Instead, Divine Decadence examines how each text engages particular cultural issues and anxieties of its era, from postwar "e;Momism"e; to the Vietnam War. Sally Bowles as the symbol of "e;wild Weimar"e; or Nazi eroticism represents "e;history"e; from within the grid of many other controversial discourses, including changing theories of fascism, the story of Camp, vicissitudes of male homosexual representations and discourses, and the relationships of these issues to images of female sexuality. To Mizejewski, the Sally Bowles adaptations end up duplicating the fascist politics they strain to condemn, reproducing the homophobia, misogyny, fascination for spectacle, and emphasis of sexual difference that characterized German fascism.Originally published in 1992.The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 14.7.2014
• Reihe/Serie: Princeton Legacy Library
• Reihe/Serie: Princeton Legacy Library
• Verlagsort: Princeton
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Kunst / Musik / Theater ► Film / TV
• Themenwelt: Kunst / Musik / Theater ► Theater / Ballett
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft ► Anglistik / Amerikanistik
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft ► Literaturwissenschaft
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Kommunikation / Medien ► Medienwissenschaft
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Politik / Verwaltung ► Politische Systeme
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Politik / Verwaltung ► Politische Theorie
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Soziologie
• Schlagworte: Andrea Dworkin • Arrival and Departure • A Woman's Face • Berlin Diary • Bertolt Brecht • Born of Hope • Broken Glass (play) • burlesque • Busby Berkeley • Caesarism • Camp (style) • Caryl Churchill • Castration Anxiety • Censorship • Christopher and His Kind • Christopher Isherwood • Claudia Koonz • Counterculture • Dada • Diamond Lil (play) • Diana Dors • dirk bogarde • Dumbshow • Exchange of women • Exorcism • Experimental Theatre • Falling in Love Again (Can't Help It) • Fortune and Men's Eyes • Gay Liberation • George Grosz • Gilbert Adair • Goodbye to Berlin • Homosexuality • i am a camera • Ibid (short story) • Jay Presson Allen • Jean Ross • Joke • Judy Garland • Kurt Weill • Lady Windermere's Fan • Legitimate theater • Life is Beautiful • Lili Marleen • Lilli Palmer • Liza Minnelli • mae west • male gaze • Marilyn Monroe • Marlene Dietrich • Marquis de Sade • mel brooks • Melodrama • music and lyrics • narrative • Nazism • Overreaction • Paragraph 175 • Parody • Persecution of homosexuals in Nazi Germany and the Holocaust • Political Correctness • Pornography • Promiscuity • Prostitution • Racism • radical feminism • Rage in Heaven • Reductio ad Hitlerum • reichstag fire • Richard Plant (writer) • Romanticism • Sally Bowles • Satire • sensationalism • sex comedy • Sexism • sex kitten • Sexual Desire (book) • Shirley MacLaine • Sleep With Me • sodomy • Springtime for Hitler • The Barefoot Contessa • The Comic • the Fatherland • The Film Crew • The Incredible Shrinking Woman • The Lady Vanishes • The loved one • The Misunderstanding • The Moon Is Blue • The Night Porter • The Other Hand • The Pawnbroker • The Prisoner of Zenda • The Voice of the Turtle (play) • Throw Momma from the Train • To Catch a Thief • Tom Wolfe • Wilhelm Reich
• ISBN-10: 1-4008-6300-7 / 1400863007
• ISBN-13: 978-1-4008-6300-6 / 9781400863006