Singing in the Rain Prompts
Compare this film’s representation of the movie fan/movie producer relationship to the other films with similar narratives we’ve watched in class (Movie Crazy, Prix de Beaute, even Purple Rose of Cairo). How is this relationship gendered?
How does this film imagine the movie industry and its stars? Are they accessible to fans or held apart?
How does this film represent audience savvy about film technology? [Compare the sound play with that in Movie Crazy.]
How does this film imagine the transition to sound (and the transitional cinema audience)? In so doing, what narrative is this film constructing about contemporary cinema (at the time of its release, in 1952) and the history of cinema and movie audiences?
How does this film represent and/or trade on cinema as spectacle (or audience investment in spectacle) (as compared to 42nd Street, Steamboat Bill Jr., etc.)?
In Singin’ in the Rain, the transition to sound is imagined as a natural course in the history of cinema. Apparently, film viewers were at first astonished and although some were reluctant to partake in this new phenomenon, sound cinema was a clear financial success. It was in fact such a success that the industry made the technology standard relatively quickly and the rest is history. In “Breaking the Sound Barrier,” Mark Juddery points out that the transition to sound was not as smooth as it was presented in the film. As with any new technology, it took a significant amount of time to take hold and become normalized and mainstream. Singin in the Rain, by contrast, presents a single narrative in which the sound is seen as so essential to cinema that one comes away from the film wondering how people could have ever watched movies without sound. Clearly, this story is from a hindsight perspective, where the events leading up to the current status quo are taken to have been natural and inevitable. What’s interesting is that the film constructs an audience new to sound in cinema with the same expectations as a contemporary audience. According to Juddery, many of the technical mistakes that occurred in the sound reshoot of Lockwood’s movie were actually common in the debut of cinematic sound. The Jazz Singer, the first sound movie, did not have the same technical sophistication in terms of audio as a film like Singin’ in the Rain from the 1950s. Clearly, the film presents a biased and distorted view of the transition to sound.
Step Right up, Read All About Them!
Singin’ in the Rain represents how movie stars lives and film became so accessible to fans that star on and off screen personas started to merge. From the beginning of the movie we are set in the world of movie stars and the fans that longingly follow them. There is a close up of a fan holding a film magazine, which is supposed to represent Photoplay, and a woman announcing who is coming down the red carpet. Juddery describes, “A number of characters in Singin’ in the Rain are based on popular characters…Gossip columnist Dora Bailey, who speaks the opening lines…” (p.40). This woman based on real life personas explains who the movie stars are walking down the carpet and what is going on in their personal lives. Which leads us to Don telling his personal life story. Here we see how the film industry was obsessed with knowing about the movie stars lives and that the film industry was satisfying the fans hunger with film magazines and on-the-carpet interviews. Unlike the silent era, movie stars personal lives were kept a secret, even their names. These two start contrasts between early silent film era and talkie films represent a huge cultural shift. As we go on throughout the movie we come to see how this off-screen digestion of material affects the movie stars.
Don has to tell Lina that, “you can’t believe what they publish in the articles” because she thinks that they are in a relationship because the gossip magazines say so. Here we are witnessing how the stars struggle to separate their personal lives from their public lives. While some can do it, like Don, others act like fans themselves and fall subject to what gossip is put in the magazines. Even Kathy, who supposedly doesn’t read them, believes the stories she reads in the magazines to be true. The fans have access to the movie stars lives through texts but they also influence how the movie stars live as well. We see the head of the studio, Mr. Simpson, make Don and Lina take two different taxis in order to keep up the story of them being together. Since their onscreen personas represent the two of them being constantly in love with each other, the fans and gossip magazines reinforce this perception of the two onto their real life personas, which forces the two to continue to act out their relationship in public. Through this process we can see how the fans have clear access to the stars on and off screen personal lives, through gossip magazines, and eventually start to affect the ways that movie stars live their personal lives.
“Singing in the Rain” creates a sense of duality within the film industry that still caters to the daydreams of every average teenage girl living in our consumer-frenzied nation. Within the film, the stars are idolized, idealized, and pawed after. They are put on porcelain pedestals supported by whimsical fan magazine fodder and fur stoles. Yet at the same time, the film puts the fan-star connection just within reach; if you’re down to earth and treat the actor like a human being, then maybe he’ll fall in love with the purity of your spirit and your own talent can shine through! This fantastical concept lives on today in every Los Angeles neighborhood – the idea that a sense of false pop-culture naivete mixed with God-given talent and good looks is the key to succeeding in the industry. And who knows? Maybe it is. It’s certainly worked for some people, after all, isn’t that at the very base of “networking? – authenticity, humility and a little glamour?
The transition to sound, the real core and narrative of the film, is represented in such a way that indicates the presence of a highly adaptable and eagerly consumptive audience. This is a strong contrast against the depiction of industry reluctance towards filmic change. This disparity is most clearly highlighted in the party scene where the studio executives display a “talking picture.” At first, the partygoers believe it to be a trick, and then they decry its validity as a fad. This reaction is not what we see with the test audience for the “Dueling Cavalier” although it’s only been a few weeks since the “Jazz Singer” introduced the masses to “talkies, this audience has modern day expectations for the technology of film. They laugh hysterically when the sound doesn’t sync up to the actors mouths, and mock the simplicity and hokey-ness of the lines; they’ve gobbled up the new advances within the medium and have little patience for mistakes and give little lee-way for adaptation. Today’s audience can be just as critical; with the awe of the medium quickly fading, our standards raise to extraordinary heights. Perhaps unfair to those who put their blood and sweat into producing pictures, but with so much product out there, haven’t we afforded the right to be selective?
How does this film represent and/or trade on cinema as spectacle (or audience investment in spectacle) (as compared to 42nd Street, Steamboat Bill Jr., etc.)?
Early Hollywood musicals in the style of Busby Berkeley and other famous choreographers and stage directors had a lavish style that was more about spectacle than relation to the plot. A lot of the time these rich bursts of energy and performance were incorporated as productions within the film, but sometimes they were supposed to be interwoven as part of the plot. The difference with these musical numbers and those of Singin’ in the Rain is that the only large scale productions in the latter were meant to be just that: productions separate from the plot. They were not meant to be on stage productions and did not take the audience out of the film and break the fourth wall, making us think about the movie we were watching and not get immersed in the story we were being told.
The few musical numbers that were interwoven with the plot had a certain subtlety that wasn’t present very much in earlier musicals, save some Fred Astaire moments. They were all believable and portrayed the correct emotion. While the Busby Berkeley numbers were not meant to portray emotions besides excitement to be seeing such spectacle by the audience, numbers like Gene Kelly Singin’ in the Rain genuinely made us feel, if not helped us feel, exactly what he was feeling.
Singin’ in the Rain had a little bit of slapstick humor and a few large numbers, but all fit seamlessly into the plot. It was clear that the history of the period and the story of the film were first and foremost in the mind of the filmmakers, and the movie even seemed to sometimes take the huge production numbers to a circus-like extreme. In the middle of the film, there is the montage of actual songs from the time, shown in the brightest technicolor with all the bells and whistles of 1920s and 30s musical glitz. It is clear that these scenes contrast highly with scenes like the long, romantic scene to “You Are My Lucky Star”. Even the dramatic lighting in this scene was explained by Don Lockwood turning all the lights on to create the effect.
I have seen Singin’ in the Rain at least 25 times in my life, and it continues to be one of my favorite movies. The one scene that I never really feel fits into the movie is the “Broadway Melody” sequence, including the part with Cyd Charisse. When I was little, I used to fast forward this scene because it always bored me and was too theatrical. Now I understand that it is the contrast between the more two dimensional lack of reality in that scene, which is meant to be a musical number in a 1920’s musical, and the scenes within the plot of the actual film we are watching. It was vaguely reminiscent of the scene in 42nd Street where they are on stage, especially when we close-up on faces, don’t seem to cut and seem to be temporally continuous, and then pull out to find we are in a completely different setting. It is nice to be able to appreciate these little details more through the parallel study of two very distinct musical styles.
Singin’ In The Rain is a film that provides both incredible entertainment, as well as a sophisticated self-examination of Hollywood culture both in a modern and historical sense. The film illustrates an uneasy time in the history of cinema, when both fans of the film world and the industry itself were unsure where things were going in the business. This uncertainty is a theme that has not really been shown in any of the other films we have screened so far this semester and it tells a lot about both fan culture and the industry of the time.
Unlike Movie Crazy, Prix de Beaute, and Purple Rose of Cairo where fan characters are illustrated as being caught up in the magic of cinema, Singin’ In The Rain shows a time in cinema history where studio heads, producers and actors alike were terrified of losing fans and unsure about what the future held for them. Much like Juddery describes in his article, “Breaking the Sound Barrier,” silent film stars were losing their careers, screenwriters and directors were lost, and nobody knew what technological advances would stick and what would only be a brief fad. Singin’ In The Rain does an excellent job of evoking nostalgia of the silent film era, and showing a scared, uneasy, and even sympathetic Hollywood.
The fans play an important role in the dynamic of the film. Again, as Juddery describes, and as we have discussed with the start of fan magazines in the late 1910’s and early 1920’s, fans beginning to learn more about the actors and actresses that they saw on the screen represents a major shift in the Hollywood dynamic. The character Lina represents the story of many silent film actors who struggled to maintain their image when their voices were recorded. The idea that fans have a certain idea of what an actor/actress is like in real life, and that that idea affects how they respond to them on screen is one that is worth considering in modern times with the presence of gossip columns, celebrity blogs and sources like TMZ, but Singin’ In The Rain is very significant in that it provides commentary on this practice during the time in cinema history when this was most important. The introduction of sound let the fan in even closer to the industry and its stars, and the shift had a huge effect on how fans appreciated/participated with cinema, and how the industry changed their content/production methods.
As every new generation of filmgoers is wont to do, Singin’ In the Rain does a great job of making very recent cinema seem primitive. The stars in the transitioning talkies are whiny, shallow, and caught off-guard from the technological change. And perhaps for good reason. No one likes going through the embarrassing steps of learning, especially when you make your living off appearing to be perfect.
It’s for this reason that I love Mark Juddery’s consistent reference to the stars “learning how to talk.” Surely one could have said the stars needed to train their voices, adapt to dialogue and sound, but instead this much more apt description captures the complete infancy Hollywood silent stars experienced. They were really and completely set back to square one with the method of performance, and Singin’ In the Rain argues that the new blood this change brought to the medium was far more charismatic, belonging to an older more established tradition (Vaudeville) that was finally able to show its superior merits on the screen.
And because that falls in line with what we would tend to believe today, it’s tricky to try and sidestep that stereotype. Just as we thought audiences ran screaming from the image of a moving train, we severely undersell our silent stars for the comparably shallow performance. Mary Pickford, Lon Cheney, and Charlie Chaplin, among others, of course would not agree with this comic portrayal of the silent simpletons holding back the rest of us, but I think the movie can be forgiven for its necessary representation of sound as a metaphor for the greater eradication of vain celebrity image.
That is to say, as Alexander Walker explains, the addition of voice meant the subtraction of a certain mystique. The fan culture in early tabloids painted stars as unattainably perfect, and without too much trouble, as the limited experience an audience would get of a star left much to be filled in and dreamt up. Once a star had a voice, the game was in many ways over.
Singin in the Rain thus stands at the beginning of a growing trend toward realism, which would be expanded as time went on both through narrative and technological development. And yes, a realistic musical is perhaps an oxi-moron, but my intended meaning of “realism” is less one of real life and more one of the portrayal of honest flaws. When actors are made to talk, the curtain comes down, and the discovery of truth is just as shocking as it is cheeky and fun. The enemy is the secrets silent films hide, and Gene Kelly is the hero, revealing truth.
Of course, this is vastly ironic, as the realism and behind-the-scenes feel of Singin’ In the Rain was just as intensely orchestrated (and apparently just as riddled with voice-overs) as any other Hollywood film, and for every secret revealed another is expanded and kept. The spirit survives, though, and makes this movie one of immense influence towards the future film of the real, and away from the pretty faces of a shallow charade.
Singin’ in the Rain, 42nd Street, Prix de Beauté, and Purple Rose of Cairo all contain representations of female figures, doe-eyed and innocent (and always very attractive) that exist as fans or persons on the periphery of the entertainment industry, and then get somehow caught up in the mystery and machinery of this industry, for better or for worse. In Singin’ in the Rain, this character—Kathy Selden—is hardly the protagonist, but her character, revealed to be an avid movie fan (a fact she tried to hide), is much more sympathetic than the other female lead. Lina Lamont is an industry professional who appears stupid, but knows how to get what she wants; Kathy is much more helpless, but her character is the one with “real talent”, and we root for her to “beat” Lina. In the end, with the help of her savvy male counterpart, she is able to cross the line from fan to behind-the-scenes presence to bona fide star.
In many of these films, this same pattern emerges of the naïve female “needing” some sympathetic male character (usually fitting into more of a “producer”, rather than consumer, role) to fulfill her potential. Even in a separate film that I just watched—The Bad and the Beautiful—this pair of archetypes is perfectly encapsulated. The self-destructive Georgia Lorrison (Lana Turner) is lifted to stardom by the crazy and determined Jonathan Shields (Kirk Douglas), and in a sense, her stardom is his “product”. Lucienne is somewhat more self-made in Prix de Beauté, but the lives of Cecelia (Mia Farrow) in The Purple Rose of Cairo and Peggy Sawyer (Ruby Keeler) in 42nd Street are only lifted from mediocrity in relation to/with the help of male figures like Billy Lawler (Dick Powell) and Tom Baxter (Jeff Daniels). Obviously, we cannot be too reductive—after all, real-life producer figure Gil Shepard (also Jeff Daniels) is responsible for returning Cecelia to her non-glamorous lifestyle—but the strongly gendered pattern that has emerged is certainly still clear.
These films’ portrayals of these women are by no means derogatory—we see the potential in Peggy Sawyer and Kathy Selden, and we want them to be a star and not just a fan/consumer (plus they are just so adorable)—but it some sense it seems their intelligence has been short-changed. They possess a natural talent and charm, but their characters are portrayed as being unable to rise without the help of a man to coach and vouch for them.
Singin’ in the Rain does two things very successfully–it depicts the struggle that many actors faced when making the switch from silent films to talkies and in a way, it shows how Hollywood executives are so quick to jump on bandwagons and make changes to suit the market in order to produce commercially successful films–usually compromising the integrity of the original film.
As seen in Singin’ in the Rain, Lina Lamont has a voice that does not translate well on screen, which is the reason that Kathy is brought on board to the project. Both Lina’s frustrations and demands increase as Kathy becomes a threatening figure because of Lina’s inability to adapt to the new direction that cinema is taking. This represents the many changes that took place in Hollywood at this time–established stars become obsolete and newcomers found themselves with new spots to take up–a fresh wave of celebrities were born.
The second thing to note is how executives changed the name of the film from The Dueling Cavalier to The Dancing Cavalier and transformed it into a musical after another talkie film was so successful. This reminds me of studios today that have been producing 3D films–not because they are necessary to the narrative or nature of the film–but because it is the new trend that audiences have been very receptive towards. In fact, some directors are even re-releasing their films in 3D (as seen with James Cameron’s Titanic which will be released in early to mid 2012 in 3D to “mark the 100th anniversary of the ship’s sinking”–aka, to make more money and attract a newer and younger audience with the spectacle).
The film’s approach to the fan is a peculiar one–at first the fan (Kathy) acts as if she is better than the star–as it turns out, she is not. But then, the real star gives her the opportunity to showcase her talent and in the end she comes out on top. This almost gives off the unrealistic impression that all it takes is the right place and the right time and you too can become a star. Or perhaps it is realistic… Regardless, Singin’ in the Rain is a wonderful film that integrates a historical component with a charming love story and an unforgettable tune!
Singin’ in the Rain is a film about cinema. 42nd Street is a film about the stage. While these are easy distinctions to make, how they comment on their respective mediums is quite complicated. Busby Berkeley’s 42nd Street, while trading on the “let’s put on a show” musical theater trope, is in fact a celebration of the spectacle of film, not the stage. Berkeley uses the advantages of film to augment his dance sequences in ways that are impossible on stage. Singin’ in the Rain is also a backstage drama, but it is also a fantastical look at the advent of synchronized sound in cinema and its effects on the actors and actresses working in the industry. While in many ways it is an ode to filmmaking – especially evident in the stunt work montage – there is a strong undercurrent of hostility toward the industry as well, that only subsides once evolves to be more like vaudeville or musical theater.
Cary Grant’s Don Lockwood is introduced early on as an enormous movie star at the premier of his newest movie, The Royal Rascal, a silent, formulaic romance. However, after being lavished with praise by the media, he encounters Kathy Selden (Debbie Reynolds) who insists that “pantomime isn’t acting” and he is “nothing but a shadow on film.” Her barbs prove painfully true once Lockwood and Lamont. The addition of sound exposes both Don Lockwood and Lina Lamont (Jean Hagen) as terrible over-actors in their talkie debut, The Dueling Cavalier. Their performances get laughs at the preview and the final picture is atrocious. Only a miracle will save the careers of Lockwood and Lamont.
This miracle, or course, is the Musical. The film is saved is when The Dueling Cavalier is transformed into The Dancing Cavalier, a musical with Broadway song and dance numbers. While these additional scenes are quite impressive from a cinematic standpoint, it is a Broadway aesthetic.
Present in the film is an indication that a well-rounded musical theater or stage actor is far superior to early film stars. Gene Kelly described the initial plot as “a skit about a movie star becoming a sound star.” In the finished product, the transition is not linear as Kelly suggests, but circular. The success of Lockwood comes not from an evolution, but from a return to form. Drawing upon his experience in Vaudeville, Don Lockwood is reborn as a song and dance man.
Just to personally comment, I feel Singin’ in the Rain (1952), is one of the most entertaining and intelligent films of its time. Notwithstanding, the performances are truly captivating due to its inclusive subject matter into the major arc of the story, but its intelligence derives from its commentary on the emergence of sound into film. In the film, the studio head and his colleagues ridicule and express their skepticism about sound being introduced into silent films, which has already established itself within highbrow cinematics. Immediately afterwards, the same studio execs run frantically to cancel all silent productions and prepare to incorporate future projects as sound films, or better known as “talkies.” Ironically, the first attempts to include sound into silent films caused skepticism and proved very difficult, but Alan Crosland’s, The Jazz Singer (1927), really was the first film to successfully include synchronized sound into their film.
The social commentary on sound’s transition into the film industry, as well as its acceptance by mainstream audiences, plays a key role in the production of cinema prior to 1927. Many of the popular actors and actresses who flourished during early talkies were not as well received with audiences due to their voices—being extremely exaggerated in Singin’ in the Rain—not having an aesthetically pleasing tone. Furthermore, the distorted sound that was displayed in the early screening of, The Dueling Cavalier, often occurred during many screenings of films, where the film would move slightly and distort the sound. With that said, what is this film commenting on in 1952? Film had already included sound for more than twenty years, how is sound, Hollywood, and the audience related?
I feel the film was taking on a satirical perspective about what it truly meant to be an actor/actress, where the film placed a heavy emphasis on the “true” talent behind the performance. Also, topical themes pertaining to the technology of film became very informative, dare I say a spectacle in its presentation. For example, the film, The Dueling Cavalier, brought about fans, journalists, stars, and even producers whom have all invested in this one film, which included sound. In brief, one can deduce that this film examines the relationship between Hollywood and the people from a bottom up point of view.
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 8, 2010
Dazzle Them!
42nd Street is a backstage musical that uses the medium of cinema to get the audience involved with making a theater performance while trying to dazzle them at the same time. The film addresses the viewer by allowing them to go behind the scenes of a theater show and then ending with a grand performance to astonish them. It’s as if the viewer were seeing how this movie was made possible throughout the strenuous rehearsals, financial and relationship problems. As Feuer explains in the Pattullo article, the audience experience “double identification” and “demystification” (p.75) are present in backstage musicals. This movie wants the viewer to feel like they are a part of the process of putting on a performance while also putting on a final show for the audience, thus providing a spectacle for the audience. We, the audience, get to see how hard it is to make a film and thus feel that we are actually involved in making the film. However, when they are practicing for the final showing the camera tends to be placed right where the audience would sit. It even pans around to show us a few of the audience members sitting there with us. This represents the ‘double identification’ of the audience. 42nd Street then performs the final showing in which demonstrates as the demystification of the audience. We were allowed access that showed how this theater performance was put together but are then exposed to so much more that we didn’t see and are given private access to the final show. This occurs when we watch the finale from the audience stand point, however, the camera then gives us different angles, which the audience wouldn’t get. We are taken above the stage, go through the dances legs, and get close up profiles of the two main characters at the end. We were demystified when learning how the show was done, but then were hit again with a spectacle that we were only allowed to see, thus breaking us a part from the normal viewing audience present watching the performance. This film, and backstage musicals during the 1930’s, used the medium of cinema to present an insiders look to the art while at the same time preparing them to ultimately be dazzled by the production they just watched come to fruition.
A thing is perfect when you cannot see its flaws, when the work that goes into making this thing is invisible. The perfection lies in the complete, untainted finished product, not in the blood, sweat and labor. Audiences desire to see a seamless film and when the production is visible, the experience can still be pleasant but it will also be jarring. Singin’ In The Rain seamlessly depicts the process the film industry undergoes in making a film seamless for the audience, particularly the shaky move to “talkies,” through its narrative.
In the film, and in real life, many were hesitant to make the shift to talkies because sound equipment had to be bought and more importantly, silent films had already been perfected. Now the same evolution would need to take place for sound. The film is essentially a neatly crafted, enjoyable representation of a turbulent process. The dissent towards sound is visible throughout the movie, but one actress personifies it best, she states, “it’s vulgar,” until of course the audience demanded more.
But this demand is qualified. When Monument Pictures releases its first talkie, Lina’s slams her beads, the voices do not match the picture and Don is literally beat by Lina’s fan all because of terrible sound. The audience laughs at this; they want distance from the process and full engagement with the film. In this pathetic release the opposite manifests—all that is noticed is the process and therefore the audience is detached. Singin’ In The Rain shows credulity as a prerequisite for early moviegoers. This credulity is contingent on the mastering of the technology by which the product is made, not the visibility of it.
Likewise, the audience desires the same relationship with the stars. Lina is the most adored and elegant silent film actress. However, this is only due to the industry’s careful construction of her. She is never allowed to speak due to her shrill, high-pitched voice; instead she is kept silent both on and off screen. The industry’s fear is not exaggerated by any means. The transition to sound ruined the elegant image of an actress due to her Brooklyn accent and other stars feared for their jobs (Juddery). In the film, when the industry’s protective hand is lifted off of Lina’s pampered head, the audience discovers her actual voice. Her perfected image is shattered and as a result she is thrown off her pedestal. In addition, since her voice was dubbed the process by which she was made appealing is also revealed. This shows that indeed fans do want to be accessible to stars—they want autographs, tidbits of their personal lives through fan magazines—but not complete access that would destroy their image and ruin the perfection.
On one hand, Singin’ in the Rain depicts silent cinema negatively, implying that silent actors are not thespians or true performers but instead mimes overacting. In recreating the transition to sound cinema, there are moments were connotations pervade throughout the film, turning some audience members into credulous beings that cannot comprehend technological advances and production crews into bumbling, fumbling simpletons. Moments exemplifying this condescending representation include a female audience member insisting there is a man behind the screen talking— a moment that replicates the same credulity described in some histories of A Train Arrives at the Station— and the immense trouble the director has coordinating the sound mike. First, he cannot capture Lina Lamont’s voice. Then he records the wrong sounds; Lina’s heartbeat becomes audible, a tap resounds as if made by a blackjack and mere shuffling becomes a tremendous aural nuisance. To state, however, that the film is creating a historical narrative to condemn silent and transitional sound cinema would be one shade too critical. To rephrase our framing, I would claim the purpose is to satirize an earlier time period in order to promote the contemporary cinematic technological advances. The beauty of Singin’ in the Rain is its sound. The film’s melodic lilting between musical outbursts and satire elevates the film’s tone, instilling the viewer with a sense of awe in gazing at a history of cinematic developments. The viewer sees Kathy Selden and Don Lockwood singing in harmony—an expansive cloth train swirling magically around the two lovers— and cannot help but be amazed. How spectacular contemporary cinema crafts its image! How much more elegant and agile! How fine! Such aesthetic and aural advances make Lina Lamott’s crunching necklace cringe. Its pearls seem so ugly in comparison. Even though both the silent and transitional periods are critiqued in good fun, and even though transitional problems are shown abounding, the film does not specifically condemn silent and transitional audiences. The earlier example of the credulous woman demonstrates sound audience’s naiveté. But once that initial confusion is overcome, the other audiences in the film become more perceptive. They laugh at the ineptitude of Lockwood’s “I love you, I love you, I love you,” dialogue. They bemoan the incompetence of The Dueling Cavalier and, when the curtain is pulled on Lamott, they immediately understand that her voice was dubbed. In other words, they have learned and have advanced along with contemporary cinema. They have arrived to be more technologically adept. In depicting them as such, one notices that the film is constructing a historical narrative mocking its origins and not necessarily demeaning its audiences. But, to take this analysis to a new level, it is interesting to bring up Brendan’s e-mail, which mentions the film’s complicated series of dubbings. The film’s creators did not fear their artifice being exposed, but assumed they had successfully convinced their audiences that Debbie Reynolds was singing all her songs. And they did. It is impossible to tell Reynolds is dubbed. I would suggest this historical sidenote shows that the film creates a narrative not deprecating its audiences, but that its artistry and design instead demonstrate its ability to manipulate them.