Fly Me to the Danger Zone: Sublimating Song and Dance in the 1980s

Key Points

The analysis uncovers the musical dimensions present in films like Top Gun and Good Morning Vietnam.
Incorporating elements of song and dance, the MTV aesthetic reshapes how narratives are presented visually.
Observational analysis highlights how these films embed musical structures in otherwise non-musical narratives.
These findings imply a transformation in cinematic storytelling, infusing traditional musical elements into diverse genres.

Abstract

Though the musical was not nominally a popular genre in the 1980s, it can be argued that many of the inherent structures of the musical, as well as their oscillation between episodes of spectalce in the form of song and dance, became sublimated during the decade into what became labelled as the 'MTV Aesthetic'. This paper analyses Top Gun (1986), Highlander (1985), and Good Morning Vietnam (1987) as examples of films which, to one degree or another, represent the musical dimensions of non-musical genre films in the 1980s

Fly Me to the Danger Zone: Sublimating Song and Dance in the 1980s

Key Points

Abstract

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