#13 - Specific Reference, Weaken

[Adam Tyson]

Not really, jm123, because that still would not address the argument made by Bordwell that is described in the first two sentences of the fourth paragraph (and that is what the stem told us to focus on). That position is that audiences know what to expect from film musicals because of what they have experienced with musical theater. So we need to focus on musical theater NOT influencing the audience to accept the conventions of film musicals. Focus on theater, not on reviewers.

[StephLewis13]

I also misread A as "viewers" instead of "reviewers," and I understand why C would weaken the argument. I was attempting to eliminate B, and could use some verification or re-direction. Thanks.

B) Is incorrect because even if audiences attended primarily to enjoy the interludes (musical performances), the genre could still be defined as classical because the film/plot is primarily concerned with the narrative and does not necessarily negate the musical performance's ability to "cue viewers to expect a different structure"

Is this correct? Thanks.

[Adam Tyson]

That sounds about right to me, StephLewis13! Good analysis. Bordwell seems to think that musical films fit his overall description of classical era films as being "realistic" because they present what the audience expects to see. It's "realistic" because it's a lot like musical theater. Going to the film because they want to enjoy the music doesn't do anything to negate that position.

[ladybug]

I know this is an older one now, but I was doing this passage for practice (I'm signed up for April) and I'm still really confused about this question.

Bordwell argues that musical evolved from popular theater, and that it was taken to be realistic because of that. My understanding from those two sentences was that the main point is that this format could be considered realistic. Wouldn't evidence that reviewers noted it to be unrealistic, then, directly contradict this? From reading the earlier responses, I still don't understand why the focus is on the "evolved from popular theater" part of those two sentences and not on the "realistic" part, which seemed to be the crux of those sentences to me (but clearly i was wrong).

Also, in general, for these RC questions that ask us to look back at a specific set of one or two sentences, should we think of them as independent of the rest of the passage? Like, say, a mini-stimulus within an RC passage? Because for this q, it seems like we were supposed to focus on his argument in those two sentences alone, independent of the rest of the passage. Maybe de-contextualizing for these "specific reference" questions is helpful, or is that a terrible idea on RC?

[KelseyWoods]

Hi ladybug!

We're rarely looking at an excerpt of a passage without considering its context in the paragraph and in the passage as a whole. In specific reference and concept reference questions, we at least want to read a little above and below the area they've referred us to so that we how the statements relate to what comes before and after. Even when we're focused on a very specific piece of the passage to answer a very specific question, we're never totally ignoring everything else.

To fully understand Borwell's argument, we need to look at more than just the two sentences the question refers us to. In fact, the first sentence starts with "Bordwell's response..." so we need to ask ourselves, "Bordwell's response to what?" For that, we need to look at the question at the end of the preceding paragraph: "Can the musical—in which such differently motivated and constructed sequences abut so closely—fit comfortably within Bordwell’s definition of the classical style?"

Bordwell's argument in response to that question is that musicals do fit within his definition of classical style because, though musicals contain performances which interrupt the narrative, the conventions of the musical genre learned from the theater "cue viewers to expect a different structure—alternating narrative scenes and self-contained performances—from that of other genres, a structure that audiences are prepared for and thus accept as “realistic.”"

His argument isn't that musicals are realistic--clearly people don't spontaneously burst into elaborate song and dance performances several times throughout the day (at least not in my experience). His argument is that viewers perceive musicals to be "realistic" because they are accustomed to the structural conventions of the genre. It's a subtle but important difference. It's this whole explanation we're trying to weaken--we need to show that audiences are not necessarily conditioned to accept musicals as "realistic" just because they have seen the genre play out on stage.

Answer choice (A) states: "evidence that reviewers of musical films in the 1930s generally praised the films’ unrealistic elements." This does not weaken his argument because, again, his argument is not that musicals don't contain unrealistic elements. His argument is also not that viewers do not recognize that musicals contain unrealistic elements. Rather, his argument is that they accept these unrealistic elements as "realistic" within the confines of the musical genre. Many films have a mix of realistic and unrealistic elements. Praising unrealistic elements, such as musical numbers, does not mean that the reviewers do not find the film "realistic" based on it conforming to the musical genre. Another thing to note here, it "praising unrealistic elements" does not necessarily mean that these reviewers noted that these elements were unrealistic or called them out for being unrealistic. Musical numbers are objectively unrealistic as compared to our general experience of the real world. But they are considered realistic when watching a musical film. Reviewers may have praised the musical numbers without necessarily praising them for being unrealistic.

Furthermore, this answer choice is referring specifically to "reviewers" which are a very small subset of moviegoers and, due to the nature of their jobs, may view and interpret films differently than the average audience member that Bordwell is referring to. Even if reviewers did not find the films to be realistic (which, again, is not exactly what answer choice (A) is saying), that would not necessarily mean that audiences in general did not find them to be realistic.

Answer choice (C), on the other hand, directly challenges Bordwell's argument that audiences accept musical performances as realistic because they are accustomed to the musical genre from stage performances. This answer choice tells us that audiences experience musicals in the same way, regardless of whether they have been accustomed to stage performances or not. If prior experience with the theater does not affect how viewers experience musicals, that challenges Bordwell's argument that audiences perceive musicals as "realistic" because they fit with their previous experiences with the genre.

Hope this helps!

Best,
Kelsey

[ladybug]

Ahh, thank you so much!!! That was super helpful! I really appreciate it

[Tajadas]

I was stuck between A and C and chose A. I recognized the issue of 'reviewers' in A, but thought that it weakly weakened Bordwell's argument in the two sentences in question, where as C didn't weaken at all.

I didn't choose C because I don't think there's a reason to assume audiences need to have seen other musicals prior to be prepared for the different structures. The musical conventions within the musical they are currently watching can be enough to cue them to the fact that musicals have different structures from other genres and so they should set their expectations accordingly.

I thought of Star Wars to explain this. The first Star Wars (and all subsequent ones) movie had a text crawl in big yellow letters at the beginning of the movie-- something no other movie had done. It didn't have director credits at the front like movies before it did. This cued the audience that they will have to change their expectations from that of a typical action movie. This was good, because Star Wars' scene transitions were different from other actions movies-- transitions would just slide left to right, up down, or from a small circle to a big one. In this example, the conventions of Star Wars within the movie, which was new to all viewers when it came out cued the audience to expect something different.

Why can't a musical's conventions cue viewers to expect something different while the musical is happening, to all viewers, regardless of whether they've seen musicals before?

[Beth Hayden]

Hi Tajadas,

The idea behind the argument is that the audience's past experiences with musicals in theater "primed" them to expect a certain structure in a musical as opposed to another kind of story. So Bordwell is saying that because they have that expectation, musicals are "realistic"--the audience knows that musical numbers are fantastical, but they've been conditioned to not let that detract from the narrative, so it still feels "real" to them.

The point is not that a musical has a different structure, but that because audience members understand that structure, they are not distracted from the narrative by the interjection of spontaneous song and dance in the middle of the story. If you had never seen a musical in your life, that might throw you off, because you might think the characters are actually all singing and dancing and think, "that is totally unrealistic, I have never seen anyone break out into song in the middle of a conversation."

For example, say you watch a musical where all of the musical numbers are there to show that the character is daydreaming. Even though it seems weird that people are singing and dancing for no reason, you've seen enough musicals to get that it's not supposed to be interpreted literally and is more of a representation of what the character is thinking/feeling, so the narrative still feels realistic. Of course, the author doesn't quite buy that, and wants to use a more narrow definition of "realistic."

The reason (C) is correct is that Bordwell's argument doesn't make any sense if watching musical theater didn't actually "prime" audience members to make that leap. If people who have seen musical theater react the exact same way as those who haven't, then clearly that prior experience didn't impact their ability to follow the narrative. Maybe you're right and any person, even one who hasn't seen a musical, is going to be able to intuitively figure out how the songs fit into the narrative (and that it's not supposed to literally mean everyone is randomly singing their feelings). If that were true it would directly contradict an assumption behind Bordwell's argument. That's exactly what (C) is getting at--maybe it's not the audiences' prior understanding of the structure of musicals, just that people are smart enough to figure it out.

Hope that helps!

[ange.li6778]

Hi Powerscore, after reading through all the posts in this thread, I think my primary confusion is about how the sentences in question can be summarized as Bordwell claiming that experience with live theater primed audiences for the conventions of a musical film. I understand the first sentence makes the connection between live theater and musical films: "Bordwell’s response is that the musical, no less than comedy or melodrama (two other staples of the classical era), evolved from popular live theater."

But neither sentences appear to be claiming that the conventions of live theater prepared the audience for musical films. The second sentence just says that "The musical’s conventions ... cue viewers to expect a different structure from that of other genres, a structure that audiences are prepared for and thus accept as “realistic.”" It's saying the conventions of musical films primed viewers to expect the structure of those films. Nowhere does it mention the conventions of live theater. Do we assume that the first sentence implies the "conventions" in the second sentence were a holdover from live theater, even though the sentence itself only says "the musical's conventions"?

[Robert Carroll]

ange.li,

I'm not seeing how that makes a difference to the answer at all. Musicals' conventions prime viewers to expect a certain structure, according to Bordwell. Answer choice (C) shows that people not even exposed to musicals (and thus not even possibly people who could have been so primed) experienced musicals just like anyone else, so Bordwell's "priming" argument falls apart.

If those musical conventions came from live theater...Bordwell is wrong. If they didn't...Bordwell is wrong. I thus don't see what it matters whether Bordwell is claiming those conventions are a holdover from live theater or were new to musical films.

Robert Carroll