Prof. Isabel Capeloa Gil, associate professor at the Catholic University of Portugal (UPC), gave a talk on “Entertainment and Financial Narratives in Busby Berkeley’s ‘Gold diggers’ of 1933 and Michael Jackson’s ‘This is It’” at the University of Macau (UM) on 20 March.

Based on Aristotle’s points of view on change, complexity and cycle, as well as Kracauer’s study of the Tiller Girls, Prof. Gil noted that any change, including boom and bust, is crucial for world-making and for the marking of modernity in economic, social and cultural ways, and also represents the regularity in capitalism.  Prof. Gil extended the idea of cycle, saying that popular entertainment such as dance could be a meaningful metaphor to reflect the economic state of a given period, especially during a  financial crackdown.

Referring to Busby Berkeley’s 1930s musicals “Gold diggers” and Michael Jackson’s 2009 “This is It” London concert rehearsal clips, Prof. Gil said that both works mirror the economic crisis and social upheavals through its dance, performance and settings. While the previous one addresses the paradoxical relationship between the masses’ desire to be wealthy and the machine-like factory work and the relationship between desexualized and sexualized art forms shown in the body movements; the latter represents the crush of capitalism in 2008, which is set in a sad and phantom-like lonely mood. These two works perfectly depict the irony of hegemonic capitalism.

These two examples aroused  great interest in gender issue and subjectivity among the audience, and they asked a lot of questions during the Q&A session. Dang Hao, a student of Communication and New Media, said that he was amazed by the dance metaphor for social cohesion and the economic recession in the 1930s, particularly by how the synchronized indissoluble movement corresponds with the de-individualized factory work, and how the surface-level expressions demonstrate the unique identity of the masses rather than the individual. He said that the talk helped him to gain a new understanding of the world-famous “This is it” concert.

Prof. Isabel Capeloa Gil is an associate professor of german and comparative literature and vice-rector for research at UPC. Her research interests include intermedia studies, performance studies, gender studies as well as representations of war and conflict. She is also a director of the Lisbon Consortium and a visiting professor at the St. Joseph University in Macao.


Should you have any inquiries about the press release, please feel free to contact Ms. Veronica Tang at（853）8397 4323 or prs.media@um.edu.mo or visit UM webpage www.umac.mo.