The studio and the song: synergy and self-mythology in Bohemian Rhapsody (2018) and Mary Poppins Returns (2019)

Abstract

This article analyses Hollywood’s synergies with the music industry, as well as the cultural and economic relationship between US and UK contemporary media industries. I focus on two films that were released along with soundtrack albums – Disney’s Mary Poppins Returns (Rob Marshall, 2018) and 21st Century Fox’s Bohemian Rhapsody (Bryan Singer, Dexter Fletcher 2019) – in order to interrogate their participation in what John Caldwell calls the ‘para-industry’: the ubiquitous corporate fields that surround the primary media object. By analysing Fox and Disney’s reflexive filmmaking and marketing strategies, I demonstrate how the studios control their films’ reception by mythologizing the industrial processes that enabled their production. I argue that Mary Poppins Returns and Bohemian Rhapsody are the fruit of a number of synergies between Hollywood, the UK film industry, and the music industry that are motivated by the current political, economic, and technological climate, and I demonstrate how Disney and Fox mythologize historical events and texts that were important for fundamentally changing the industry’s relationship to music, such as the original Mary Poppins, the Live Aid concert of 1985, and ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ the song.