Saturday Night Fever on Saturday Night
Roy and I made a wee date to stay home in each others presence and watch a NetFlix movie. After watching Airplane! and realizing we knew that there were parodies of Saturday Night Fever that we IDed but didn’t “get,” we decided that we should watch that one.
So, we watched it, while eating delivered pizza.
And then I watched the “King of the dance floor” scene about 4 more times.
But, to be honest, I was really happy to see it. I’ve been in a rut of watching movies that I’ve seen before and realizing they’re pretty crappy, or worse than I remember. But this one, maybe I was distracted or confused or just had less experience and didn’t get what was going on, but I remembered it as being mediocre when actually it’s really well done. It looks at really important and pervasive issues of abusive family systems, women’s lack of options in the ’70s (which aren’t as obvious but are still in effect today), racism and bigotry.
Roy put it well. To paraphrase him, we were worried that the depiction of spousal abuse, racism, aggression, and objectification and use/abuse of women was being portrayed as normal and not a problem, but in fact they addressed it and showed that those things are terrible even when they are widespread.
Also, the men dancing look goooood. I love it when men aren’t afraid to show off their skills for fear of being labeled effeminate or homosexual.
Also, I bought the soundtrack this morning.