This is Don't Explain. 

Every time you go to the theater, you're experience an onslaught of movie tropes. Every romantic comedy has the down-on-her-luck best friend. Every action movie has the badass one-liners. Every Oscar-bait drama has that tear-jerker ending.

But where do those tropes come from? How do audiences become so aware of Hollywood's bag of tricks, parody movies can become a massive genre on their own?

This season explores the birth, death, and rebirth of one of the most successful cinematic genres ever: the rockstar biopic. In this episode, we start from the beginning, focusing on the earliest established tropes of the genre.

Lady Sings the Blues, The Buddy Holly Story, and 8 Mile.

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What happens when two films stuck in development hell for more than a decade finally make their way to the silver screen? Money, critical acclaim, and ultimately, the complete destruction of the rockstar biopic as we know it.

On this episode of Don't Explain, we watch as Hollywood strikes gold by telling the stories of some of the best musicians of mid-20th century America, only for a single film to tear it all to the ground.

Ray, Walk the Line, and Walk Hard.

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In the years following Walk Hard's release, Hollywood struggles to produce rockstar biopics that can attract critics or audiences. It's not until three films, each buoyed by up-and-coming actors trying to cement their place in cinema history, can the genre finally make it's comeback.

On the season finale of Don't Explain, the rockstar biopic is reborn, with flashier filmmaking, bigger performances, and centered around some of the most famous performances of all time. From box office bombs all the way to earning nearly a billion dollars at the box office.

Get on Up, Straight Outta Compton, Bohemian Rhapsody.

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