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Refiguring American Music
Real Men Don't Sing: Crooning in American Culture
Duke University Press
Copyright:
This content is made freely available by the publisher. It may not be redistributed or altered. All rights reserved.
ISBN electronic:
978-0-8223-7532-6
Publication date:
2015
Book Chapter
Falling in Love with a Voice: Rudy Vallée and His First Radio Fans, 1928
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Published:September 2015
This chapter focuses on Rudy Vallée’s earliest fan letters to help explain and contextualize his rise as a popular idol in 1929. During this era gender and sex became the primary discursive frames for understanding American life and identity; the contexts examined here include the promotion of radio as a domestic companion, the new social acknowledgment of female sexual desire and the availability of sex advice manuals, the promotion of companionate marriage and reproduction as the focus of social life for both men and women, and the emphasis on consumerism as a source of comfort and romantic fantasy. The chapter...
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