Performing Cold War American Identity: Ethel Merman and the Origins of the Broadway “Belt”

• In Event: Musical Movements and Sonic Identities

Abstract

Belting is a style of singing characterized by a piercing vocal sound, especially in the upper range. Sometimes called the “Broadway belt,” the style is widely regarded as a quintessential feature of the US musical theater tradition. In this paper, I argue that the modern “belt” style developed in the Cold War era and was used by American musicians, critics, and advertising agents to promote a specific vision of the ideal Cold War American. Drawing on a range of sources, including recorded performances, the scripts and scores of Broadway musicals, and contemporary journalistic accounts, I show how the “belt” style embodied American imperial identity in its Cold War phase.

Most historians assume that “belting” originated early on in Broadway history with singers like Ethel Merman (1908–1984). Merman was the undisputed star of Broadway’s mid-century “Golden Age.” Today, she is often called one of the first “belters,” a style, we are told, she developed in the 1930s. In fact, however, the terms “belt” and “belting” were not coined until the 1950s. Before then, theatrical performers like Merman were often described, in overtly racist language, as “coon shouters.” It was only in the Cold War era, in other words, that Broadway got its now famous “belt.” In this presentation, I explore how and why this term and the specific style it described—which was related to but different from the pre-1950s “coon shout”—emerged in the Cold War United States. I show how Americans used the new terms “belt” and “belter” to describe a performer who embodied important cultural values in the Cold War phase of American empire: autonomy, indomitability, tolerance, and modernity. I conclude that the “belter” ultimately became a fixture of the Broadway tradition not because “belting” had always been tradition, as has often been assumed, but because in the 1950s, urban, white Americans craved heroes who represented values that would ensure victory in the Cold War struggle for geopolitical dominance. In the autonomous, indomitable, tolerant, and modern “belter,” first embodied by stars like Merman, they found one. I conclude my presentation with discussion of how the Cold War “belter” gradually transformed into the less overtly political yet no less ideological “Broadway belt” tradition that continues to thrive today.

Biographical Information

John Kapusta is Assistant Professor of Musicology at the Eastman School of Music of the University of Rochester. His research focuses on musical life in the postwar United States. His research articles are published in the Journal of Musicology, Cambridge Opera Journal, and the Journal of the Society for American Music.

Author

• John Kapusta, University of Rochester