The diva in musicals and brothels: studio cinema and contemporary visuality in the United States

Abstract

The figure of the diva is the center of a series of discourses that associate gender, nation and sexuality. This article claims that it is possible to establish a genealogical identity between the American visual production of Hollywood musicals of the early twentieth century andmusic videos of the early twenty–firstcentury. From a queer theory perspective —which draws on analytical vectors from gender studies, film studies and visual studies— this article raises reflective axes on the functioning of the figure of the diva within the musical genre and its particular appearance within the space of the brothel. Previous theories that have approached the subject are tackled; connections betweentwo ways of thinking space, utopianism and pornotopia,and the figure of the Tiller Girls, are presented; two mystifying categories of feminine representation are proposed: dreamy girl and Gold Digger,to finally conclude with some considerations on the issueof sex work as a contemporary backdrop to this relation.