Representation

Singing in the Rain

 Patterns of Character Representation in Singin' in the Rain Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly's 1952 masterpiece, Singin' in the Rain, is more than just a joyful, light-hearted piece of entertainment with great, unforgettable dances in it, but a satire on Hollywood's transition from silent films to talkies; really more importantly, behind its main characters lies serious representation patterns. Don Lockwood and Lina Lamont are emblematic of the competing models of filmmaking, old and new, which give perception into the preoccupation of image and voice within the film industry.

Don Lockwood

Don Lockwood is the classic male movie star of Hollywood's Golden Age-smooth, talented, and easily adaptable to the shifting cinematic landscape. With his charm and talented abilities, with appeal both in front and behind the camera, he is an asset to this new world of talkies. The film portrays him as the quintessential man for this transition, changing seamlessly from physical, silent stunts to more verbal and musical ones. Whereas Don is often cast as a hero, he serves to mirror the Hollywood system in which it can create stars as workable icons, conversely demonstrating that talent alone is less important than the ability to fit the demands of the evolving industry. This again is apparent in his relationship with Kathy Selden who plays the character Debbie Reynolds, who is cast as his love interest; after all, it is Kathy's "voice" that ultimately saves Don's career, underscoring the power of image and sound in creating stardom.

Lina Lamont: The Tragic Product of Hollywood 

Lina Lamont

By contrast, Lina Lamont is portrayed as the tragic victim of the sound revolution. While she was a huge star of silent films, her thick nasal voice becomes her undoing in the realm of talkies. The failure to make a transition into sound films, despite a glamorous image, says everything about superficiality-obsessed Hollywood. Not only was Lina's portrayal comic, but it was very tragic too; it underlined the ruthlessness of the industry towards those who fail to keep pace with changing technologies and styles. The irony, of course, is that this face, tailor-made for a movie star, belongs to a voice-a supposed mark of authenticity-that reveals the artifice of her screen persona. Lina thus becomes an icon of Hollywood's expendability, a metaphor for the way in which Hollywood discards its stars once they no longer serve its purposes.

Hollywood's Reflection on Itself
In Singin' in the Rain, the characters of Don and Lina represent two aspects of Hollywood's perception of itself. Where Don represents the resilient face of the industry, Lina is its victim-a ruthless causality. The film uses their characters to comment upon this constructed nature of stardom and how careers can be made or ruined based on factors as arbitrary as a voice. Beyond the individual characters, the entire movie allows one to visualize just how Hollywood presents its own mythology-celebrating and poking fun at the glitz, glamour, and inevitable obsolescence of its stars.

Multimedia Companion:
Clip of Don Lockwood dancing in "Singin' in the Rain": This iconic scene makes him swim into sound films with ease-it symbolizes his adaptability and Hollywood's romanticized idea of the perfect male star. Lina Lamont voice scene: A small clip of Lina attempting to speak on the film would insinuate the tragedy of her fall, as that juxtaposed her voice against her beauty and really hammered home the superficiality theme of the film. Movie poster and behind-the-scenes photos: These will be useful in showing the difference between the public personas of the characters and the behind-the-scenes images of their struggles in a transitional Hollywood. While the wittily noticed film commentary on stardom reminds us that behind this spectacle lies an industry that is as fickle as it is glamorous, where representation makes or breaks a career.