The forgotten history of the Australian film musical: tracking the production and development of the genre in Australia

ABSTRACT

While Australian film studies has located various genres, including horror, comedy, action/adventure, science fiction, and crime within the broader ‘Ozploitation’ discourse and the increase in Australian genre production in the 2010s, there has been little discussion of how a variety of song- and music-based Australian cinema operates in dialogue with the classical Hollywood musical and the global musical genre. Existing scholarship on the Austrlian musical has largely focused on singular well-known examples, including Strictly Ballroom (1992), The Adventures of Priscilla: Queen of the Desert (1994), Moulin Rouge! (2001), Bran Nue Dae (2009) and The Sapphires (2012). Specific film studies on successful musicals, particularly on Moulin Rouge! and The Sapphires, are often framed in popular and academic circles as ‘reviving’ the genre for Australian audiences, due in large part to their box office success. This does not account for the long history of Australian musical films, and their popularity. This article posits a theoretical re-evaluation of the Australian film musical genre through its unusual variations and lesser-known examples, including dance films, animations, and musical biopics. It traces the Australian film musical genre in detail, considering its rich history, numerous subgenres, and its interconnections with Australian national cinema and the global musical genre.

KEYWORDS:

• Film musical
• Musical genre
• Australian film musical
• Australian cinema
• Film history
• Screen studies
• Film genre studies

Acknowledgements

I would like to acknowledge the Australian Film Institute Research Collection and the National Film and Sound Archive for their assistance with this project.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Many sources, including papers at the time, bill Showgirl’s Luck as the first ‘talkie’ with synchronised sound, although Pike and Cooper cite Diggers (F.W. Thring 1931) as the first sound feature in Australia (1998, 150). See Australian Centre for the Moving Image https://www.acmi.net.au/works/99921--arrival-of-sound-supercut/ and Northern Star (Lismore, NSW) 23 March 1932, 3. The Kyogle Examiner (Kyogle, NSW) 19 February 1932, 4.

2 Happy Feet made $384 million USD at the global box office, while Happy Feet Two made $159 million USD. Box offices figures from https://www.boxofficemojo.com/.

3 Box office figures from https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt3704428/.

Additional information

Funding

I would like to acknowledge the assistance of the University of the Sunshine Coast for supplying research funding for this project.

Notes on contributors

Phoebe Macrossan

Dr. Phoebe Macrossan is the Screen Media Study Area Coordinator at the University of the Sunshine Coast and a researcher of musical film, television and video. Her research has been published in leading journals on a range of topics including contemporary American screensong, jukebox musical Across the Universe, musical television series Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, Nashville and Glee, as well as Beyonce’s visual albums.