Reader Response: The King of Jazz

The movie that we viewed this week was The King of Jazz, and instead of a continuous movie with some type of foundational plot it was actually a series of short skits. Which by the end of the movie I was immensely tired of viewing. The theme I did perceive in the movie was only the idea of music, dancing, by a guy who supposedly ‘thought’ he was The King of Jazz. Ironically, I did not see any actually Jazz being performed in the movie.

What I am sure is the big ‘ah ha’ moment of the film was that a movie, which was released in the 1930’s, proposing to be about Jazz, really did not have a Jazz motif or music until the last scene. Where the movie advocates the American value of ‘woo hoo’ the melting pot, but in reality I really felt that I could have seen an edited version of this movie if the biggest point, theoretically or critically was the irony of a guy proclaiming to be the King of Jazz when obviously he was not.

Arguably, even in the last scene Jazz was not present. But in all fairness, I think the film, at the end, was articulating that Jazz was a legacy from many different cultures. Even though the obvious culture I was looking for was not present. Therefore, I am sure tomorrow in class the question of why a film proposing to support the premise that Jazz was the cultural mingling of different types of people then proceed to exclude or ignore the influence of African-Americans or other blacks in the Diaspora will be forthcoming.

On a brighter note, I thought some of the dancing in the movie was great and interesting. But by the last scene of the movie, I was definitely tired of the hundreds of people on the set and the line of women in their short skirts kicking their legs in the air.