Muzykol – kulturowa metafora PRL
“Muzykol” – A Cultural Metaphor of the Polish People’s Republic

Summary/Abstract: The article is an attempt to use the category of the musical as a tool for describing the society of the Polish People’s Republic (PPR) era. PPR film musical is shown here to be a rare phenomenon, but a symptomatic one. The author reinterprets the theory of Rick Altman in relation to socialist mass culture, ascribing the duality of cultural and counter-cultural on to the conflict between the interests of disliked powers and the unfulfilled expectations of the citizens. He shows how the analysed films differ from the Hollywood model in the attitude towards work and entertainment, and how they fulfil propaganda and compensatory functions. As a result, the communist musical turns out to be something more than an inept imitation – it becomes a “muzykol” [locally made musical like film, that is not up to Western standards], a cultural metaphor for the communist era in Poland.

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