Faulk’s first couple chapters in his book Music Hall and Modernity explore the music hall and its ties with English essence, the hall’s rise and downfall, and the analysis of the musical hall through the lens of Victorian critics. The description of the music hall as a corny but entertaining variety show reminded me of a show I saw while visiting the Chitwan rainforest in Nepal. The act, which included singing, dancing, and stunts, was supposed to introduce tourists to the culture of the indigenous people. I found it odd that my mind kept returning to this experience, considering that the music halls of England were not necessarily intended for tourists. The target audience was the English middle class. Especially as the music hall developed into a popularized, commercialized form, it was as if the English middle and upper class became tourists to their own country, embracing the songs and dance of the working people. This interest in the exoticism of one’s own country reminded me of slumming, a kind of tourism in which the wealthy visit impoverished communities for sport. However with slumming, just as with the music hall, the more popular the idea of escaping into a national subculture became, the less of a subculture it actually was. I remember reading that in the Latin quarter of New York City, there was a “divey” restaurant that rich tourists liked to visit to experience the dirty underbelly of city life. However, as slumming became more popular, the restaurant became a place for the upper class in search of adventure, without an impoverished person in sight.
As the music hall became more family friendly and less reflective of folk culture, society critics like T.S. Eliot began writing music hall laments. These laments mourned the music hall’s inevitable demise. While paying tribute to the nationally infamous and deceased music hall singer Marie Lloyd, “the poet emphasizes that Lloyd’s death affects more than a single mourner and means much more than a setback for music-hall audiences; it constitutes a full-blow, national crisis.”[1] It seems to me that the English were trying so hard to establish a national identity that to many the music hall because a national treasure, the one slimmer of hope is “Das Land ohne Musik.” In my own personal experience however, the more we try to define ourselves, the less real we actually are. England reminds me of an angst-ridden teenager searching for identity amongst existential emotions. The music hall is the perfect snapshot of England’s identity crisis.
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