"Oh, Brucie, Remember The Good Old Days Of Disco And Roses..."

Once again, Amanda proves that the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy is vast, right-wing, and, well, a conspiracy:

When people think of the culture wars, they think of abortion, gay rights, guns, or Sarah Palin shoving cookies on innocent children. But they don’t often think of what I think of as one of the most interesting cultural happenings in the past 40 years, the disco riot of 1979, which was a culmination of the baffling Disco Sucks movement of the late 70s.  Not baffling in the sense that people were tired of disco, which dominated the airwaves, but baffling in how angry it was, how semi-organized.  Enough, apparently, to kick off a riot.  Cultural critics with more heft that I have analyzed the entire thing, looking over the way that Disco Sucks movement channeled of lot of straight white male resentment at women, people of color, and GLBT people---groups that culturally dominated and defined disco, especially in its early days.  Disco Sucks was supposed to be straight white men reclaiming the radio dial that was rightfully theirs.

Remember: No matter what it is, it's always about Amanda and the Angry White Males.

Always.

Wild Guess: I'm not quite sure the Bee Gees would buy into her analysis.

Next Up: Amanda analyzes the various sackings of Rome between 387 BC and 546 AD and discovers that the Gauls, Visigoths, Vandals and Ostrogoths were - you guessed it - just bunchs of angry white males venting on various Romans demographic sub-groups because they'd had their masculinity threatened.

Comments

[James]

"Staying Alive, Staying Alive" had long run at the top of the charts ( 387BC-546AD).

[Dennis the Peasant]

Same with "Macho Man".

[Allen]

I'm beginning to believe Amanda can't read in the conventional sense. I remember the disco sucks business, and I always thought it was related to the fact that disco did indeed suck. But, at the same time I thought most southern rock sucked. Given enough time I'm sure she could equate both things to white males.

[Dennis the Peasant]

Part of the problem is that Amanda doesn't think disco sucks.

Probably has K.C. & the Sunshine Band on her iPod.

[Bee Jays]

Dennis, Dennis, Dennis, finally you got it wrong. Disco doesn't suck.

It blows.

[Christopher]

I'm ready to start another riot to promote Newfoundland folk music. The problem is, everyone I know who would join me to advance the patriarchy is, well, out working. Mostly two jobs. Damn Newfie folk singers.

[JeffS]

My defining moment of the "Disco Sucks" movement was a bumper sticker so profound that I remember it unto this day.

(Well, as profound as can be when said wisdom was slapped on a dented bumper for a farm truck rambling through Rapid City, South Dakota, back in the late 1970's.)

Perhaps that wisdom will enlighten Amanda, as she clearly needs to lighten up. Thus, I will share it with her here, in the hopes that she might understand just how silly her logic is:

"I'd rather eat barbed wire than listen to disco."

I hope that dear Amanda reads this, and changes her ways.

(Of course, the chances of THAT happening are about one in a gazillion. But I thought I would give it a try, just this once.)

[Texasyank]

This is like how the Jewish guy said to the asshole in "Porky's": "It's not 'kites.' It's 'kikes.' You don't even make a good bigot."

Mandy doesn't even make a good chronicler of crap culture. It wasn't the Disco Riot, it was Disco Demolition Night at Comiskey Field, held during the break in a White Sox double-header, one of Bill Veeck's quirky moves to draw fans to his (he said as much) awful on-field product. A pile of disco albums were exploded, and yes, the fans stormed the field, and yes, the White Sox had to forfeit the second game, but Amanda completely gets her time frame wrong. Disco was a mainstay of black, gay and Manhattan socialite culture in the early seventies. By the time it caught on in Kansas City, that crowd had all moved on, embraced punk and headed down to the Village to watch the latest next Johnny Rotten. In "Saturday Night Fever," releasd in 1977, the disco is located not in Manhattan, but in Brooklyn--Tony Manero's working class friends are the original Bridge & Tunnel crowd. John Travolta has talked about how "out" disco was with his actor/dancer/musician friends when he filmed the movie; except for the famous white suit, he purchased his own wardrobe--in New York second-hand stores, out of large cardboard boxes where they'd been dumped, yesterday's news. The revulsion against disco was a totally predictable reaction to disco's later (and second-wave) omnipresence in Middle America. Ethel Merman did a disco song. The fucking Burger King filmed disco commercials. Predictably, there was a market for a counterweight, and Bill Veeck (and countless others) cashed in.

What killed off that whole so-hip, so-cool club scene was first blow, then AIDS, then crack, and Mr. White Middle American Angry Male was standing far away when that happened.

[Texasyank]

Ah, I'm Jeff Gordon. Comiskey Park.

[Richard mcenroe]

Well i hope allen will remember, southern man don't need him round anyhow...

[Christopher]

Jesus. I'm glad I was too busy listening to Gordon Lightfoot lament the loss of the Edmund Fitzgerald on my mono clock radio to notice the controversial demise of disco. After all, it's hard to imagine a disco beat that could accept a bunch of white men vocalizing "the big lake they called kitchegoomi..."

[Simon]

When I was a teenager in the mid eighties disco/dance music was a bastion of snobby, rich, inner city 'white people' who could afford expensive drinks, drugs and cover charges, and could actually get to inner city night clubs.

Prole youth from the outer suburbs like me were into bands.

Not really surprising to see Mandy line up with the rich. She's not the first girl to have her head turned by a bit of glitz, glamour and hatred of white males like Daddy, who never appreciated Mandy's special gifts.

Remember: No matter what it is, it's always about Amanda and the Angry White Males Daddy

BTW Mandy gets all this shit from a music podcast called 'Sound Opinions', which Mandy often references. They puffed this idea about disco a few months ago, and Mandy was following along like a mule soon after.

[Mike C.]

"Cultural critics with more heft that I have..."

Okay, first of all, it's "than", not "that." "Weight" would be a better term than "heft." And finally, are there any identifiable cultural critics that don't have more "heft"?

[Mike C.]

"I'm ready to start another riot to promote Newfoundland folk music."

The "Sons of Maxwell"? Or are they Nova Scotia ? In any case, don't go all Celtic on us now.

[Allen]

Good one Richard. What can I say, when it comes to southern music if it's not the blues, or bluegrass it's just not for me. Personally, I'm waiting for Amanda's take on country western, now that should be good.

[Eric Blair]

Nobody I knew in high school listened to disco. Just not on the radar.

[word economy]

Who did you noh in HS, Eric Blair?