«I want to be a pop idol» Oscar Wilde tra parodia e reinvenzione glam in Velvet Goldmine di Todd Haynes

Parole chiave: Wilde, Glam, Parodia, Parody

Abstract

Il presente studio analizza Velvet Goldmine un film del 1998 diretto da Todd Haynes al fine di indagare come il regista americano riesca ad evidenziare la centralità del glam (emerso in Gran Bretagna nei primi anni Settanta) nella cultura contemporanea, ponendo un' enfasi specifica sull’aspetto che più di ogni altro aveva caratterizzato quell’esperienza, ossia la sovversione parodica dell' idea di mascolinità normativa nei decenni precedenti. Sul palco i 'glamsters' – ossia artisti quali Bolan, Bowie, Roxy Music, Glitter – erano in grado, utilizzando segni visivi quali trucco e abiti 'glitter' di costruire un’identità di genere ibrida che si poneva in netto contrasto con il machismo di molti musicisti degli anni Sessanta. Seguendo un approccio metodologico in cui studi culturali, studi letterari e neo-musicologia finiscono per dialogare tra loro, la presente indagine crea uno stretto rapporto tra Oscar Wilde e la cultura glam – un rapporto individuato dal regista sin dalle prime battute del film – ma che qui viene declinato in un senso più specifico, in base al quale l' intero film rappresenta una parodia o reinvenzione glam dell'intera epopea wildiana e in cui le immagini e gli aforismi wildiani sembrano interrogare con la loro complessità e la loro portata dissacrante il nostro presente. 

The present essay analyses Velvet Goldmine a 1998 film directed by Todd Haynes, in order to investigate how the American director points to the relevance of glam (emerged in Great Britain at the beginning of the Seventies) within contemporary culture, focusing on one of its most relevant aspects, that is the parodic subversion  of the normative idea of masculinity which was dominant in the previous decades. Glamsters – that is, such artists as Bolan, Bowie, Roxy Music and Glitter – were able, using such visual signs as make-up and glitter dresses, to construct a hybrid gender identity, which sharply contrasted with the normative masculinity of many 1960s musicians. Employing a methodological approach in which cultural studies, literary studies and neo-musicology  speak to each other, the present analysis establishes a strong connection between Oscar Wilde and glam culture – a relationship established by Haynes himself in the very first scenes of the film – which nevertheless the present essay defines in a more specific way, considering the film as a whole in terms of a glam parody and refashioning of Wilde's epopee, one in which Wilde's images and aphorisms seem to question with their complexity and their desecrating potential the present age. 

 

Downloads

I dati di download non sono ancora disponibili

Biografia autore

Pierpaolo Martino, Università degli Studi di Bari Aldo Moro

Ricercatore di Letteratura Inglese

Dipartimento di Lettere Lingue Arti. Italianistica e Culture Comparate 

Riferimenti bibliografici

Auslander, Philip, Performing Glam Rock: Gender and Theatricality in Popular Music, Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press,2006.

Bachtin, Michail, L’opera di Rabelais e la cultura popolare, Torino, Einaudi, 1979.

Beynon, John, Masculinities and Culture, Buckingham and Philadelphia, Open University Press, 2002.

Bracewell, Michael, Oscar, BBC, 1997.

Bristow, Joseph, (ed.), Oscar Wilde and Modern Culture. The Making of a Legend, Athens, Ohio University Press, 2008.

Coppa, Francesca, “Performance Theory and Performativity”, Palgrave Advances in Oscar Wilde Studies, Ed. Frederick S. Roden, London, Palgrave, 2004: 72-95.

Crespi, Alberto, “Velvet Goldmine”, Cineforum n. 381 (1999).

D’Amico, Masolino, “Introduzione”, Detti e aforismi, Oscar Wilde,Milano, Rizzoli, 1999.

Dentith, Simon, Parody, London and New York, Routledge, 2000.

Devereux, Eoin – Dillane, Eileen – Power, Martin (Eds.), David Bowie. Critical Perspectives, London, Routledge, 2015.

Doggett, Peter, The Man Who Sold the World. David Bowie and the 1970s, London, Vintage, 2012.

Donadio,Francesco, David Bowie. Fantastic Voyage. Testi Commentati, Milano, Arcana, 2013.

Eagleton, Terry, Saint Oscar and other Plays, Oxford, Blackwell, 1997.

Eagleton, Terry, “The Doubleness of Oscar Wilde”, The Wildean, n. 19, 2001: 2-9.

Ellmann, Richard, Oscar Wilde, London, Penguin,1987.

Gantar, Jure, The Evolution of Wilde's Wit, New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2015.

Haynes, Todd, Velvet Goldmine, A Screenplay, New York, Miramax Books/ Hyperion, 1998.

Kaye, Richard A., “Gay Studies/Queer Theory and Oscar Wilde”, Plagrave Advances in Oscar Wilde Studies, Ed. Frederick S. Roden, London, Palgrave, 2004: 189-223.

Kureishi, Hanif, “Hanif Kureishi intervista David Bowie”, Panta, n. 11, 1993, pp. 200-235.

Martino, Pierpaolo, La filosofia di David Bowie. Wilde, Kemp e la musica come teatro, Milano, Mimesis 2016.

Pearsall, Judy, (ed.), Oxford English Dictionary (Concise), Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1999.

Rojek, Chris, Celebrity, London, Reaktion Books, 2001.

Sandford, Christpher, Bowie. Loving the Alien, London, Time Warner Paperbacks, 1997.

Schutz, Alfred, “Fragments on the Phenomenology of Music”.? In Search of Musical Method, Ed. F. J. Smith, New York, Gordon and Breach Science Publishers, 1976: 23-49.

Sinfield, Alan, The Wilde Century: Effeminacy, Oscar Wilde and the Queer Moment, London, Cassell, 1994.

Sloan, John, Oscar Wilde, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2003.

Stetz, Margaret Diane, “The Bi-Social Oscar Wilde and ‘Modern’ Women”, Ninenteenth Century Literature, Vol. 55, Issue 4, March 2001. 515-537.

Waldrep, Shelton, The Aesthetics of Self-Invention. Oscar Wilde to David Bowie, Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 2004.

Watts, Michael, “1972, Oh You Pretty Thing”, The Faber Book of Pop, Eds. H. Kureishi, J. Savage, London, Faber & Faber, 1995: 391-396.

Wilde, Oscar, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Ed. Michael P. Gillespie, New York, Norton, 2007.

Wilde, Oscar, "De Profundis", Complete Works of Oscar Wilde, Ed. M. Holland, London, Collins, 2003a: 980-1059.

Wilde, Oscar, "The Critic as Artist", Complete Works of Oscar Wilde, Ed. Merlin Holland, London, Collins, 2003b: 1108-1155.

Wilde, Oscar, The Importance of Being Earnest, Ed. Michael P. Gillespie, New York, Norton, 2006.

Wood, Julia, The Resurrection of Oscar Wilde. A Cultural Afterlife, Cambridge, The Lutterworth Press, 2007.

Pubblicato
2017-01-03
Come citare
Martino, P. (2017). «I want to be a pop idol» Oscar Wilde tra parodia e reinvenzione glam in Velvet Goldmine di Todd Haynes. Between, 6(12). https://doi.org/10.13125/2039-6597/2207
Sezione
A volte deturnano. Parodia e satira a cavallo tra i linguaggi