Heterosexual Hollywood Harmonies

It is undeniable that the genre of the musical film is neither solely created by, nor solely enjoyed by heterosexuals. In fact, the musical film has historically been hugely popular within the gay community. The irony is that the classic Hollywood studio musical is all about the formation of the heterosexual couple and it works very, very hard to deny the possibility of homosexuality.

Gene Kelly and Donald O'Connor in Singin' In The Rain
theatlantic.com

In Rick Altman’s essay “From Homosocial to Heterosexual: The Musical’s Two Projects” Altman examines the openings of Hollywood musicals which most other writers on the genre have ignored in favor of an analysis of endings. In fact, in Altman’s previous work, he himself had only analyzed the beginnings of films to see how they supported a film’s ending. He primarily considered the resolution of the plot through the formation of the heterosexual couple and the dramatic musical numbers that often accompanied this event. Altman now criticizes his previous statements that the beginnings of Hollywood musicals do not have shared commonalities in the same way as endings, saying “on what basis I made this claim I have no idea.” So Altman turns his attention to the openings of musicals and the message he might find in them outside of the context of endings. Altman points out that while the endings of musicals focus on the heterosexual couple, the beginnings are largely homosocial in nature. They show one or both of the characters that make up the main couple in the company of a single companion or a group of friends and colleagues of the same sex. 

The start of Grease
www.collider.com

Over the course of the film, the characters eventually come to find their true place in life through the centrality of a relationship with a member of the opposite sex. Altman states that musicals are actually about this move from homosocial to heterosexual.

The ending of Grease
www.hitfix.com

Altman presents two different hypotheses to address the effect of this structure of moving from homosocial to heterosexual. Altman’s first hypothesis is that the homosocial relationships at the start of musical films provide examples of wrong couples that emphasize the rightness of the final heterosexual romance. This hypothesis supports the traditional theory that the plot of the musical is the formation of the couple and that the character dynamics of the beginning are in service of the film’s conclusion.

Altman’s second hypothesis is that opening the musical film with homosocial relationships is not just to stress the ultimate rightness of the heterosexual couple but also to subvert the formation of a homosexual couple. Altman claims that the development of the heterosexual romance is a rite of passage for the members of the couple. The characters’ growth and maturation goes hand in hand with abandoning homosocial ties in favor of heterosexual ones. 

The Jets in West Side Storywww.lens-views.com

Through presenting the heterosexual couple as a natural replacement for the homosocial relationship, the musical does not leave room for the formation or even a consideration of the homosexual couple. By previously only focusing on the ending and the creation of the heterosexual couple, Altman realizes that he had missed the message in the opening of the Hollywood musical, which was a specific argument against the homosexual relationship.

Tony and Maria
rogerebert.com