PBS just advertised a new show about disco. The thesis is that disco “start[ed] a revolution.”
No. Not at all. Not even close. Not nearly.
The language and the ideas of the Sixties: the civil rights movement, the anti-war movement, women’s liberation, gay rights, trans rights (still fighting for all of them), economic justice, started by the true revolution of the Sixties, has now been so co-opted it is thoroughly meaningless. I thought MAGA had finally done that. I was wrong. This is truly the last straw.
Words have lost their meaning. Concepts have been bankrupted. It’s time to really wipe the slate clean and start over.
going to bars in the 70s. PBfriggin'S is claiming disco started a friggin' revolution? I was there and it was one of the things along with Happy Days nostalgia, StarWars, and other crap that pretty much ended anything revolutionary about the 1960s. I associate it with Nixon and Ford and me losing hope that gay liberation was going to turn into a real political movement like the Women's movement had been. I also associate disco with the backlash against second-wave feminism, the most poisonous of old line gender roles was a feature of disco. I associate it with a circle of NYC guys I knew whose lives revolved around clubbing, Ayn Rand was considered an intellectual among them. All of them died of AIDS in the 80s through 00's. I was encouraged to move to The City by a couple of them but when I saw how their lives revolved around going to the Mineshaft and The Toilet, I decided to stay in Maine and keep up with political action. Disco was putrid and the entire scene around it was, too.Saturday Night Fever was hardly a paen to women’s lib; or gay liberation, for that matter. And Travolta’s real sequel to it was Urban Cowpie (I know; but I refuse). Which pretty much marked that disco was over, just as much as SNF announced it was real.
Well, disco is what got me out of the habit of going to bars in the 70s. PBfriggin'S is claiming disco started a friggin' revolution? I was there and it was one of the things along with Happy Days nostalgia, StarWars, and other crap that pretty much ended anything revolutionary about the 1960s. I associate it with Nixon and Ford and me losing hope that gay liberation was going to turn into a real political movement like the Women's movement had been. I also associate disco with the backlash against second-wave feminism, the most poisonous of old line gender roles was a feature of disco. I associate it with a circle of NYC guys I knew whose lives revolved around clubbing, Ayn Rand was considered an intellectual among them. All of them died of AIDS in the 80s through 00's. I was encouraged to move to The City by a couple of them but when I saw how their lives revolved around going to the Mineshaft and The Toilet, I decided to stay in Maine and keep up with political action. Disco was putrid and the entire scene around it was, too.
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