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How did classical music in movies and TV become synonymous with villainy?
- johncoltrane 8y agoIt didn't.
- pjc50 8y agoIs this Wagner's fault?
- honestoHeminway 8y agoImagine if hitler had loved pepermint drops. His favourite- and nobody would sell those anymore. Everybody with a lack of bad breath would be under immediate racism-facism suspicion. Wriggle out of this one Wrigglys.
- jacknews 8y agoI would say the premise itself is bogus 'Classical' music, old and new, is prevalent in movies As a guess, because it is able to affect mood indirectly, 'in the background'
- _bxg1 8y agoI think the author is distinguishing "real" classical music from "movie music", which isn't the same just because it uses the same instruments.
- ken 8y ago"Real" classical music, like the 19th century Russian opera "Ruslan and Ludmila", the title music for the sitcom "Mom"?
- _bxg1 8y agoI'm pretty sure "jacknews" was talking about standard cinema scores, written specifically for the movie.
- crooked-v 8y agoI find that division in and of itself a key part of the disconnect here. People are naturally going to be drawn to new music, and so if you define an entire genre by not being new, obviously its popularity is going to pale in comparison to other music.
- jerf 8y agoI think this is one of those cases where the analysis is waaaaay too smart for the subject material. There's a lot of stuff in Hollywood where it's just cargo culting something that worked once. We have good reason to believe this is the case because it also has a long history of anti-cargo-culting things that failed once. You can see this whenever you have movies that killed an entire genre for 5 or 10 years, only for that genre to explode in success later (superhero movies I believe have been through that cycle twice now), or for some really good movie to surprise its way on to the scene only to be followed by a ton of crap copying only the most superficial aspects of the successful product ("apparently, people really like found footage movies where you can't see anything, so shake that camera even more"). It turns out Hollywood isn't particularly good at understanding what the root causes of a movie's success or failure is, so there's a lot of cargo culting, and cultural shortcuts. As for how it started, I think it was just a simple class signifier, used for incongruity's sake. (Itself something that Hollywood has cargo culted; incongruity is a powerful tool but IMHO it's more than just jamming things together that don't seem to belong, which is done a lot. There's thought that can be put into what is being incongruous and why.) (Note this isn't a terribly strong criticism of the article, it's more a terribly strong criticism of Hollywood. Sometimes a subject matter just doesn't have enough strength to support a careful analysis in the first place.)
- diego_moita 8y ago> There's a lot of stuff in Hollywood where it's just cargo culting something that worked once. > cargo culting, and cultural shortcuts. You've just described "cliché", an unavoidable component of any industrial art. The article explains that very same thing when it argues that Kubrick's "The Clockwork Orange" started the trend.
- naravara 8y agoNot quite. The person you’re responding to is talking about the motivations and beliefs that lead to the clichés, not the things themselves.
- theoh 8y agoMan, the subject matter here is literally human nature (why certain things "work" for movie audiences). It's a well-established fact that "low" culture (Hollywood) is just as susceptible to analysis as high culture. By attempting to shoot down both this article and Hollywood at the same time you are really pushing the limit.
- jacknews 8y agoI'd like to know how and why red hair, and British accents became synonymous with villainy
- zimpenfish 8y ago> British accents became synonymous with villainy [gestures vaguely at British Empire, Irish famine, etc.]
- benj111 8y agoI was thinking the same, but didn't work it in to my reply. Also why Romans have British accents?!?
- jacknews 8y agolol indeed, latin was obviously pronounced similar to modern spanish/italian
- barry-cotter 8y agoHow on Earth is that obvious? There’s no special reason to expect the pronunciation of any particular Romance language to more closely approximate Classical Latin than another, especially when it’s been 400 years since Latin was a language many people spoke fluently and well over a thousand years since Vulgar Latin diverged from the written standard? Why Spanish or Italian and not Portuguese, Romanian, French or Sardinian? This is like expecting Mashreqi Arabic to be closer to the spoken language in Mohammed’s time than Levantine, Egyptian or Maghrebi Arabic. There’s no real reason to privilege one of the Arabic languages above the other as more conservative, a priori. If you’re interested in Latin pronunciation read this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_spelling_and_pronunciation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_spelling_and_pronunciati...
- save_ferris 8y agoOverall, this was fairly interesting until the end. The author very loosely questions whether the association of classical music to villainy is the real reason behind the lagging attendance of millenials in the symphony scene. The piece cites several anecdotal cases, but I couldn't think of a single one from memory that supports this idea. My first thought was Fantasia, which really doesn't fall into this argument. I grew up as a music student and loved going to the symphony as a kid, so I'm not necessarily the target audience here. But the one thing I notice when I go these days is that sitting through an entire performance challenges my attention span much, much more than it used to. It's a common theme I've seen around HN, particularly with reading. The symphony isn't really a visual experience (unless they're showing video, which is becoming more common), and it can be really difficult to sit through sometimes, especially if you don't love the music. There are a couple of symphonies I love to listen to all the way, but most have a few exciting themes with several minutes of "meh" in between them IMO.
- vict00ms 8y agoI grew up in a house where a sibling played brass but (though I did play an instrument) I lacked any sort of "classical" training. I never much enjoyed symphonies but strangely enough did enjoy (parts of) the ones that I'd heard my sister practicing because it was interesting to hear everything else fill in around it and finally appreciate the context.
- _bxg1 8y agoI think you nailed it; there's relativism at play. Classical music was the vibrant, popular music of its day. It was the showiest kind society had. As that goalpost has moved, classical has become - comparatively - austere. Over the 20th century, but especially the past decade, more and more immediately-satisfying media has come to pull attention (and change tastes) away from the now-slow-burning classical. It's become the vegetables of the music world.
- msluyter 8y agoYes, the article is definitely overgeneralizing from a number of anecdotes, imho. While I tend to agree with the notion that classical music tends to signal a certain remoteness -- thus correlating with villainy -- that's not its only use in movies. One example: I recall when Star Wars came out, a lot of my friends bought the soundtrack. It served as sort of a gateway to classical music. It's hard to measure, of course, but I'd bet that that had a larger positive impact on classical attendance than, say, Hannibal Lector killing people to Bach's Goldberg Variations had a negative one. To your lack of visual stimuli hypothesis, I'd also add as other more likely drivers of classical's decline: a) Live classical music is expensive and getting more so. b) Sound quality in a concert hall is different than via digital means. It doesn't wash over you like it does when listening via your Bose headphones. It's less visceral and more distant. And you have to tune out the other sounds of coughing, people shifting in their seats, etc... c) And finally, we have the best recordings of any work available on demand. In economic terms, that creates really cheap substitutes. Speaking for myself, I'd rather just listen to the Vienna Philharmonic on the couch for free than dress up, drive across town, find parking, and pay $100+ to hear the Austin Symphony play the same work.
- arethuza 8y agoI don't know if it counts as classical music, but since seeing the landing scene from First Man I can't get this music out of my head - for me it is now synonymous with general heroic awesomeness: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Tf8MaKYhfw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Tf8MaKYhfw
- benj111 8y agoThe Author and I obviously have different definitions of classical music. They point out a 'villain' playing Bach. But to me, the whole film score is classical music. Yes the film is about an evil thing but the music conveys other things. He identifies A clockwork Orange as a turning point . I could point to a host of 70s and 80s film that had classical music scores, Star Wars, Indiana Jones etc, etc. I'll admit 'pop' music has become more popular in recent films, but classical music is still really good at communicating certain moods, including but not necessarily villainy.
- Freak_NL 8y ago> I could point to a host of 70s and 80s film that had classical music scores, Star Wars, Indiana Jones etc, etc. Let's not forget Zardoz (1974)! Weird sci-fi, Sean Connery, and Beethoven's Seventh; what's not to like?
- benj111 8y agoThat's the one with Sean Connery with pony tail and underpants? I want to look to confirm, but then I don't..... Edit: Even worse than I remember. I had forgotten the bandolier.
- crazygringo 8y ago> It was not always this way. Once, classical music was the backbone of American popular entertainment. Enrico Caruso’s rendition of the aria “Vesti la giubba” from the opera Pagliacci was the first record to sell a million copies. Looney Tunes lampooned The Barber of Seville’s “Largo al factotum,"... This is changing the goalposts. The article talks about "serious" classical music associated with evil characters... then uses two light-hearted comic operas as a counterpoint? Sure, technically both classical, but as far away from each other as you could get. Look, this isn't mysterious. Rich people are associated with evil in films, and their stereotypical "too-good" pursuits -- mansions, opera halls, tuxedos, and yes, classical music. > Maybe millennials are repelled by classical music not for coherent reasons but by a vague sense of mistrust, nourished for decades by movies and media. This is ridiculous for a million reasons. It's simple, and I say this as someone who has studied classical music for many years (including conducting): classical music isn't that much fun, compared to so many other options today. The kind of people who like classical music are the kind of people who enjoy watching documentaries or reading Shakespeare. It's high-effort, high-reward for a particular kind of person.
- TulliusCicero 8y ago> reading Shakespeare This is pretty funny considering the connotation of Shakespeare's works at the time. Something similar with video games in more recent times. Playing NES games has a slightly high-brow -- or at least higher-status -- connotation, compared to when the games were new. Now they're retro, which means playing them or similar games is more serious or something. Whereas back in their heyday, they were seen as almost entirely the domain of nerdy little boys, a silly thing for silly children.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- hrktb 8y agoI wonder if it's less the perception of the art form that changing, than the people in position to voice high brow opinions rotating. My parents still think of NES games as silly blocks on the silly TV. But their generation progressively gives up on writing articles in magazines or curating expositions in museums, whereas people now in their 40s who loved and still love NES games are now in charge.
- ccvannorman 8y agoTotally agree. Another example, that damned Bugs Bunny and his brethren with their malicious activities! I've never been able to enjoy The Barber of Seville since :-[
- honestoHeminway 8y agoGTA ruined the kids, just watch how they careshare today. They just bash each other on the had. The world is a dangerous place, a mad maxian dessert due to people simply copy pasting behaviour.
- stuart78 8y agoClassical music in film and tv more commonly signals erudition, not simply villainy. When there is a class conflict involved In film, the higher class characters are more commonly the villains, and an appreciation for classical music signals their remoteness. Philadelphia uses Hanks’ appreciation for opera to signal his class status, not villainy. Silence of the Lambs uses music and food same way. Making the direct hop to villainy is too simplistic, and pointing fingers at Clockwork Orange is absurd. That film’s synthesized classical music is used to draw a parallel between the commodification of violence and the commodification of culture more broadly.
- rdiddly 8y ago...and to create what was, at the time, a stark juxtaposition.
- _bxg1 8y agoI agree with the general thesis, but this: > Maybe millennials are repelled by classical music not for coherent reasons but by a vague sense of mistrust, nourished for decades by movies and media. Sounds like the exact kind of conspiracy theory he's accusing "the populace" of having.
- fopen64 8y agoWell, heroes only emerge when there are good villains.
- coldtea 8y agoA better question is "when". I've never noticed classic music being synonymous with villainy. "Refined" or "high class" status/taste yes.
- sfx77 8y agoA Clockwork Orange
- abruzzi 8y agoAs a devil's advocate--while there is definitely associations classical music with wealth, classical music for evil I don't entirely see. Classical music is a very deep trove of, mostly, royalty free music. Hannibal Lecter listening to the aria from the Goldberg Variations is probably less about signaling his sophistication, and more about the fact that it is a profoundly calm, even serene, piece of music playing during a scene of horrific violence. It mirrors the scene earlier where the said something like "his pulse never got above 80, even when he ate her tongue." It shows the calmness in Lecter despite the violence--this is not a crime of passion or hate. Another small reference that I think is misused--he mentions Fritz Lang's M, and the "Hall of the Mountain King" melody that the killer whistles. First the film was made around 1931. Classical music would not have that sort of reference to the audience at that time. In my opinion M was the first movie to really understand sound film. The whistling tunes was a way to use sound to evoke presence without the character on screen. We could see a child playing, and hear the whistle in the background, and know that this child was being targeted without having to cut away. We get this kind of film information all the time in movies, but this is the first film that used the technique, and it had nothing to do with classical music. (Lang also invented some other sound dependent techniques in this film.) This is not to say that some of the other examples are not instance of signaling "bad person" sing classical music, but I don't think its evil. I think the association of classical music with wealth/elitism is well established in modern films, so its presence for a wealthy/elite killer is expected, without taking that to also denoting evil.
- silvat1 8y agoI would flatly respond to this title with 'it isn't' Classical music is used to convey pretty much every different idea/feeling. Aaron Copland is often used for fun, to use just one of the infinite counter examples should the author choose to look https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Un0BCd3Kb3I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Un0BCd3Kb3I
- Udik 8y agoIn one word: populism. Wikipedia has a good definition: "an ideology which presents "the people" as a morally good force against "the elite", who are perceived as corrupt and self-serving." So in Hollywood blockbusters those who listen to classical music are identified with the elite, which by the enjoyment of something "complicated" sets itself apart from the good common people who pay the ticket to see once again Good triumph over Evil.
- mamcx 8y agoIs far simply, if a character like X genre, what it is signaling? - Classical music: Signal of a "cultivated"/intelligent mind. Similar to how many villains play chess. Also, is a contrast of how some high evil actions contrast with the "calm" cold mind of the villain. - Pop music: Signal of fun. Depending also, romance, liberation, etc - Rap music: Signal of the oppressed. Street-wise. - Rock music: Signal of rebellion, action. - Jazz music: ? - Latino music: Is Latino!
- ByThyGrace 8y agoJazz music: "cool" criminals pulling off a heist.
- SubiculumCode 8y agoLeia's theme-I knew she was a villian, or at least a counterpoint.
- Mikeb85 8y agoI don't know about this. In the past, entire soundtracks consisted of classical music. One track for the good guys, another for the villain, but all were orchestral. I think classical music works well for soundtracks because it can convey feelings well, without the distraction of lyrics. Some of my favourite games ever were from the Final Fantasy series, and they often used composed music that was a similar style to classical music, and it added greatly to the ambiance, whether it was walking around a village or fighting a boss. Classical music just conveys a lot of emotion without the use of lyrics.
- atoav 8y agoA interesting thought on this is whether it is linked to the rise of rock music — people started to realize that “those wild rockers” were usually just very nice people, while the real villains always wore ties suits and went to the opera. So I would say suspicion aboit the burgoise or the establishment played always a role. Or maybe they read about the opera loving Nazis and thought this is a interesting contrast.
- davesque 8y agoIt's just too easy to find counter examples to this claim. Hard to take it seriously. I think the author was just very good at finding data points to fit his theory. Take the movie "Shine", for example, from 1996. The story of David Helfgott. There's a dark side to be sure, but nothing like villainy. The classical music in that movie, in fact, comes to symbolize a kind of redemption or transcendence over madness -- not a succumbing to it. As for the decreased symphony attendance, drawing a connection to his claim seems pretty outlandish to me. A more likely explanation is that the symphony as a live concert format is just really outdated. It was all the rage in the 1700s and 1800s in the western world. But that was a long time ago.
- 8bitsrule 8y agoThe very premise of the piece is shaky. "But the 1960s ushered in a new era of mass entertainment. The expansion of film, TV broadcasting, and especially TV advertising toppled the orchestra’s place in popular culture..." Three points: Pop music has come to demand high royalties. Most classical music is in the public domain. Use a recording by a small orchestra, and ... cheap. Like RKO. Next: 'the orchestra's place' was not very high in American popular culture -at any- time since the LP was introduced. There were many people who tried to make it that way (the inventor of FM for one) but no. Leonard Bernstein tried, but no. Author's misreading history here. Finally: Films as a whole, sorry to say, have gotten A LOT darker in the past 50 years. Still, I can go through any number of movies made in the decades since Space Odyssey and find uses of classical that wasn't associated with darkness. Just one example: Elmer Bernstein, very successful in the film-score business, borrowed heavily from classical for his music, and wasn't associated with 'heavy' films in my recollection. Listening to and appreciating classical music (as it is, not for any social status it may pretend to confer) takes time. Like any advanced art, much of art music is inscrutable to the casual listener. That may further the disorientation of the dark-film fans.