From Bohemian Rhapsody to the Buddy Holly Story

I was recently interviewed for an article about the factual accuracy of musical biopics, written by Tom Fordy for the Telegraph. Following on from last year’s Queen film, Bohemian Rhapsody, which was criticised for manufacturing and being loose with the truth (notably in relation to Freddie Mercury’s diagnosis and disclosure that he had AIDs), there was a rash of articles that explored the printing of musical legends. With the recent release of the Rocket Man about Elton John, similar thought pieces have made a return.

            Fordy asked me to talk about the ‘truth’ of the Sex Pistols-related film Sid and Nancy and the Joy Division films Control and 24 Hour Party People. One thing that I wanted to get across, which is in the piece, is that music films rarely do a good job of dealing accurately with bands. They are oriented towards star turns by individuals, including the ability of an actor to assume the persona of a lead singer or musician. What they do not manage to capture is intra-band politics. Hence, Gary Oldham delivers an astonishing performance in Sid and Nancy, where he embodies the spirit of Sid Vicious. Andrew Schofield’s limp turn as Johnny Rotten could hardly be called nuanced, however. Similarly, the various Joy Division films have worked hard at capturing the tics of lead singer Ian Curtis, but have spent far less time on the other members of the band (this seems particularly unjust, as Joy Division are one of the rare bands in which each member’s contribution is equally vital). Bohemian Rhapsody offers a partial exception to this rule, with its attention to detail spreading beyond the lead singer. The fact that Queen members Brian May and Roger Taylor acted as consultants to the film presumably helped here, as did the fact that the group had already developed ways of portraying themselves on screen, notably in the video for ‘The Miracle’, in which four young children do a great job of being Queen.

            Another thing that I talked about with Fordy, but which did not make it into the article, is that this analysis of historical accuracy should be extended to documentaries. It is presumed that they get closer to the reality of singers and musicians than acted portrayals, but I’m not sure this is always the case. On the one hand, musical biopics such as 24 Hour Party People or the Todd Haynes’ Bob Dylan film I’m Not There have done a better job of capturing musicians and scenes than most parades of talking heads could ever do. On the other hand, a documentary can be just as partial as a biopic. They will be oriented towards one version of the truth or one member of a band. Take, for example, the three attempts that director Julien Temple has made to tell the Sex Pistols’ story. He has spoken of the Rotten-oriented The Filth and the Fury (2000) as being a ‘corrective’ to his earlier film, the Malcolm McLaren-instigated Great Rock ‘n’ Roll Swindle (1980). This did not stop him from having another crack at the Pistols, however, providing a more London-based setting in The Knowledge (2008). Each film has its moments, but they are also indicative of the fact that the Sex Pistols’ story is too rich and diverse to be contained. A further point about documentaries is that their tendency to place social context around music can be just as falsifying and mythologizing as the manufacture of narrative events in biopics. About ten years ago I heard a great talk by Richard Witts, in which he took apart the documentary Factory: Manchester from Joy Division to Happy Mondays, indicating that its scene-setting footage of Salford, which was supposed to visualise the milieu in which the members of Joy Division emerged, was in fact taken from an era prior to their births. It had originally been employed to illustrate ‘before’ and ‘after’ images of slum clearance, but the film implied that those slums were still there.

And there’s a final thing that I didn’t mention to Fordy at all. When analysing the ‘reality’ of music films, the focus tends to be on truth to history, truth to personality or truth to sociology. There is less discussion about truth to music. But which films best manage to capture the spirit of a song? Musical biopics are not the place to look. With their orientation towards narrative and character they lose the ability to deliver a good tune. Documentaries can edge closer to the marvels of music. As I have written elsewhere, there is something exciting about hearing music talked about. It sets up a thrill of anticipation for the moment that the song in question finally arrives. Ultimately, however, the films that best communicate what music feels like for us – the fans - are not the ones that concentrate on its makers. It is the reception of music that comes across most effectively. Therefore, if you want to see a movie that conveys the musical impact of Elton John, you would be better off watching the bus scene in Almost Famous than digesting Rocket Man.

And which moment of film best captures the essence of Queen? It’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ in Wayne’s World of course. 
 

         

One Direction for Media Studies

Marco Roth, editor of N+1, has recently complained about sociology. His beef is that sociology has lost its power as a critical tool and has instead become the lens through which most art is judged:

Sociology has ceased to be demystifying because it has become the way everyone thinks. Discussions about the arts have an awkward, paralyzed quality: few judgments about the independent excellences of works are offered, but everyone wants to know who sat on the jury that gave out the award. It’s become natural to imagine that networks of power are responsible for the success or failure of works of art, rather than any creative power of the artist herself.

Roth is reflecting upon the ideas of the great French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu. In his book Distinction, Bourdieu claims there is no such thing as pure aesthetic judgement. He argues that differences in taste are instead the result of, and help to reinforce, stratifications of social class.

            What is true of sociology is also true of media studies. Its viewpoints are no longer restricted to academia; they now have a wider reach. One example is the study of audiences. There is a long tradition within media studies (plus sociology and cultural studies) of ignoring that artist’s role in creating works of art and instead concentrating on how audiences re-appropriate those artworks. Although these disciplines are concerned about class clichés, they have been happy to undertake their own research on a class basis. In an attempt to elevate working class audiences, and suggest that they are not prey to the ‘shit of capitalist production’, theorists have argued that these audiences creatively rework the products of mass society. The idea of the creative consumer is there in Stuart Hall’s theories of ‘articulation’, Michel de Certeau’s idea of ‘textual poaching’, John Fiske advocation of ‘resistance’, and Henry Jenkins’s work on ‘participatory culture’.

            This idea has also taken root amongst boy bands. At some point in the current century, these pop performers stopped talking about artistic creation and instead began to talk about what they owe to their fans. In boy band interviews, you will hear these acts say that they are ‘humble’, rather than glory in being stars. Gone, it seems, are the days when pop acts claimed that they were born to boogie or were kings of the wild frontier. The new bands don’t claim to make art, but suggest instead that their fans make them. The debt, it seems, is wholly one way. Take, for example, a recent interview with One Direction that Tom Lamont conducted for the Guardian. The band members stress the role that chance has played in their success. ‘We’re normal lads’, says Louis; ‘we’re normal guys’, says Zayn. And this is what they say about their relationship with their audience: ‘it’s great to give back to the fans’, says Zayn; it’s all about ‘giving back to the fans’, they point out collectively.

            The band’s relationship with their fans is, of course, also the focus of publications such as the Guardian, whose readers aren’t necessarily interested in One Direction’s records, but are curious about sociology and media studies. All the same, this doesn’t stop the band from toeing their ‘giving it back’ line in every media forum that they appear in. One reason for this outlook, perhaps, is that they don’t have any outlet in which to talk at length about their artistic endeavours. As Lamont points out, they have a different relationship with media than stars of old:

One Direction is the first mega-band of the social media age, and this has a direct knock-on effect for me: the boys have very little incentive to promote their wares through old institutional channels such as the press. They don’t give long interviews; they don’t need to.

All of this probably makes the media theorists happy: the rest of the world has cottoned on to the fact that it is not artists who matter; what’s more important is the creative practices of their fans. And this includes the fans and artists themselves: they both know who is doing the real work.

            I can’t be so sanguine about this. On the one hand, I have an outdated faith in artistic creation. I even want to see it in boy bands. These groups have millions of fans and so their work ought to be good. If you are hugely successful, you should have some sort of statement to make. Fans certainly have a part to play. Their input can help move artworks to a higher and more interesting level. However, I believe that it stands a better chance of doing so if: a) the fans are given interesting material to work with in the first place; and b) the worth of this material is acknowledged. The quality of dialogue that surrounds works of art can be of as much benefit to audiences as the works of art themselves. One Direction certainly talk to their fans: there is an endless stream of tweets and instagrams. This dialogue isn’t always inspiring, however. They are usually telling their fans that they have a new product out. No wonder they feel indebted to them.

            The textual poaching of the fans isn’t always inspiring either. It can range from the mundane (Lamont watches Liam tweet ‘very interesting day today’; this message is soon re-tweeted 55,000 times) to the threatening (when the magazine GQ ran an unflattering portrait of One Direction, a fan articulated her anger by saying ‘GQ needs to shut up before I break my glass nail file in two and stab them in the eyes’). Here she is clearly doing something with the artwork beyond the original intention of the artists, but is it really what we need?

            Ultimately, we need more art, and more talk about art, from the boy bands and from their fans. The media theorists like to think that they’re looking favourably upon audiences when they describe their work as being ‘creative’. However, it is usually only a certain type of fan whose behaviour is described in this way. Marco Roth is wrong about the complete takeover of a sociological perspective. For example, when the Guardian explores the work of opera singers or jazz musicians, its analyses are different to its analyses of One Direction. There’s more talk about the artists’ intentions, and less about the activities of fans. As a consequence, opera and jazz are still musics of ‘distinction’. Conversely, despite Bourdieu’s exposure of the stratification of taste groups, there’s still little cultural capital to be gained from being in a boy band or being a fan of a boy band. Audience studies have, in fact, helped to reinforce social stratifications. It is usually only the ‘lowest’ forms of art that are approached by looking at the fans’ perspective first. Sociology and media studies are not the way that ‘everybody’ thinks; they are instead the preserve of an elevated sector of society. This sector likes to analyse other audiences, but rarely stops to consider that it is an audience itself.