Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? Rocketman (2019) and Bohemian Rhapsody (2018)

Authors

  • Alison Blair University of Otago

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1558/prbt.39752

Keywords:

Elton John, Freddie Mercury, Queen, Rocketman, Bohemian Rhapsody, music biopics

Abstract

In this RIFF article, the author provides a contextual discussion of two widely publicized music biopics, Rocketman (2019) about Elton John, and Bohemian Rhapsody (2018) about Queen. The films portray the life and careers of similarly canonized popular music artists and, through a blending of nostalgia and escapism, each film invokes popular music as a vehicle for personal transformation. Alison Blair explores how these films apply different storytelling devices to offer historical and contemporary insights into the broader intersection between popular music and sexual politics.

Author Biography

  • Alison Blair, University of Otago

    Alison Blair is a PhD finalist in the School of Performing Arts at the University of Otago. Her thesis explores 1970s British glam rock as a carnivalesque genre, and in terms of the gender, sexual and class politics of the era. Her publications include book chapters on David Bowie and Marc Bolan, in Global Glam: Style and Spectacle from the 1970s to the 2000s (eds. Ian Chapman and Henry Johnson; Routledge, 2016), and most recently in David Bowie and Transmedia Stardom (eds. Ana Cristina Mendes and Lisa Perrott; Routledge, 2019).

References

Bakhtin, Mikhail. 2009. Rabelais and His World. Trans. Helene Iswolsky. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Blair, Alison. 2016a. ‘Children of the Revolution: Bolan, Bowie and the Carnivalesque’. Unpublished Master of Arts thesis. Dunedin, New Zealand: University of Otago. https://ourarchive.otago.ac.nz/handle/10523/7067.

—2016b. ‘Cosmic Dancer: Marc Bolan’s Otherworldly Persona’. In Global Glam: Style and Spectacle from the 1970s to the 2000s, ed. Ian Chapman and Henry Johnson, 25–41. New York: Routledge.

Gill, John. 1995. ‘Dire Straights: Ziggy, Iggy, Marc, Lou’. In Queer Noises: Male and Female Homosexuality in Twentieth Century Music, 106–113. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Gregory, Georgina. 2002. ‘Masculinity, Sexuality and the Visual Culture of Glam Rock’. Culture & Communication 5/2: 35–60.

Sexual Offences Act 1967. 1967. http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1967/60/pdfs/ukpga_19670060_en.pdf.

Downloads

Published

2020-09-22

Issue

Vol. 20 No. 1

Section

Riffs

License

© Equinox Publishing Ltd.

For information regarding our Open Access policy, click here.

How to Cite

Blair, A. (2020). Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? Rocketman (2019) and Bohemian Rhapsody (2018). Perfect Beat, 20(1), 92–98. https://doi.org/10.1558/prbt.39752