The Original Village People

Well…. If I can say nothing else on behalf of Netflix, it’s the ease at which they enbalbe you to embrace the obscure.

Chad pretty much manages our Netflix account. When I saw “Can’t Stop the Music” on our cue list online, I figured the title was a documentary or something. Well… I was “sort of right”… The fictitious musical biography about the climb to fame of one of the 1970′s most notorious disco acts… The Village People.

OH… My .. God..

It was like a train wreck. So wrong and yet so completely right. We were hypnotized.. I couldn’t even get up to pee despite the pause button. What a delicious, polyester-wrapped slice of history.

I was nine years old when the movie was first released. Though I saw bits of the film broadcast on television and remember being vaguely stimulated by the homoeroticism – at that age, I was entirely more interested in freezing my Star Wars action figures in blocks of ice.

Tickle worthy.. Bruce Jenner’s character, the uptight-tax attorney turned cool-guy supporting protagonist, was from Saint Louis…. You never hear our town’s name dropped in movies anymore.

Was that era really that sleazy? More than once we’d balk and look at each-other in amazement at how trashy the female characters were rendered. It’s funny how times / attitudes change…. which brings up another question. Take this film, release in 1980…. Now compare trends / fashions / attitudes to 1990… A fairly dramatic shift. Just as dramatic if you compare 1970 and 1980….

Now.. I may just be getting old or moved to a bigger rock to live under… but I don’t perceive “that” dramatic of a difference between now, 2004 and ten years ago.

I had a great discussion with my friend Jay about this, who was around and mentally mature by the late 60′s. I should have saved the IM conversation – because his insights were brilliant. The gist of his idea was basically: “Because of how media has evolved and the great homogenizing effect it has, fashion and counter culture today are pre-determined. It’s sorta flip-flopped now.. Instead of culture informing the media, media now informs the culture”. – I’ll flush that out and write about it later.

So anyway.. the movie was damn fun to watch – and we want to own a copy now.

I walked away with a little more insight about the decade which bore me…

I also take with me now a seriously developed obsession for Glenn Hughes..

I wouldn’t dare blog about this.