The love of Summer
The Secret Disco Revolution
The narrator of Jamie Kastner’s The Secret Disco Revolution teases viewers right off the bat by declaring there’s “more to disco than meets the eye — much more.” But as we discover by the end of the documentary, this isn’t really true. What you see is usually what you get: Kool & The Gang’s Celebration is about celebrating, the Village People’s YMCA is about the yMCA (the producer desperately needed a “filler song” to complete the album and had just learned of the association).
It seems the point of the film, then, is less about revealing a big disco secret than simply journeying through all the madness of the ’70s and entertaining a few bizarre theories as to why this booty-shaking, drug-fuelled, bell-bottomed genre became so popular before suddenly crashing in 1979.
Interview subjects include quite a few celebrities — most impressive, every member of the Village People, one of whom is still donning a police hat — plus pop culture writer (and frequent Studio 54 guest) Michael Musto, authors, historians and others. Their commentary is occasionally interesting, often meandering and at times completely indigestible; one expert insists a donna Summer single is “the musical expression of the feminist critique of three-minute sex,” whatever that means.
Because the narrator’s voice is so thick with sarcasm, especially in lines such as, “Another disco hit, another fundamentalist societal shift,” it’s obvious Kastner doesn’t really buy into most of the theories his experts discuss, and this is a relief; but he also manages to spin these pseudo-academic concepts into humour without belittling the subjects, which isn’t an easy task.
Presumably, humour was also intended to come through with a trio of ’70s-attired, modern-day actors who crop up throughout the film to help illustrate various tidbits of background info, often with the aid of a giant disco ball. unfortunately, it backfires. The goal is surely to provide a bit of reprieve from all the stock footage of early Soul Train episodes or clips from Saturday Night Fever, but these silent and not very wellperformed vignettes are more awkward than entertaining.
Also awkward is the pacing of the film, which can drag in parts when the interview clips don’t necessarily lead from one coherent thought to another. The overarching hypothesis is that disco was all about the “mass liberation of gays, blacks and women from the clutches of a conservative, male-dominated world,” but there are quite a few unrelated tangents that result in a rather non-linear progression of thoughts. Then again, considering how scattered disco was, this almost makes sense.
It’s evident the artists themselves were just having fun creating danceable hits. Some appear almost reticent to provide analysis on camera, knowing they won’t be able to offer much to chew on. When Kastner asks whether disco was a form of political protest, they all reply with, “uh ... no,” and Felipe rose — the Native American member of the Village People — adds, “you’re reading too much.”
That said, it’s fun to read too heavily into the meaning of disco, especially when it involves a heavy dose of retro-attired flashbacks, behind-the-scenes anecdotes from those who were at the forefront of the genre and, needless to say, a great soundtrack. When, in the film, The Knack comes around with My Sharona to hammer the nail in disco’s coffin, it feels downright tragic — to the point where viewers may rush home to blow the dust off their donna Summer record and give it another spin. Δ∂Σ