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Nik Cohn disco article



Here it is, without comment, from LIFE magazine, July __, 1998:

ANOTHER SATURDAY NIGHT
The man who wrote the story that became the movie marvels two decades later
at what he wrought.  By Nik Cohn

For years I used to cringe. Whenever Saturday Night Fever came up in
conversation, I'd hurry to change the subject or, if my secret was already
known, attempt to deflect the blame. Disco wasn't really my doing, I
claimed. I had merely written a short story about a kid in Brooklyn who
lived for Saturday nights. Any horrors that followed should not be charged
to my tab.

All this dodging and diving was very much required. Nothing in recent pop
history has been more despised than disco, or has spawned more easy gibes.
Polyester suits, gold medallions, glitter balls, the hustle, KC & The
Sunshine Band -- the list of crimes against good taste is endless. For
once, the sneering classes have felt free to mock the lower orders at will,
without fear of backlash. The laws of political correctness do not apply to
flashing checkerboard dance floors.

As a result, the recent debut of Saturday Night Fever -- The Musical in
London stirred more wariness in me than glee. Nor was my confidence level
helped by my next-door neighbor. When I told him I was flying to England to
catch the opening night, he gave me a pitying look and muttered, "I'd fly
to England to miss it."

It wasn't always thus. I can remember a brief span, in the weeks and months
after the film's release, when SNF and its world were quite respectable.
Critics praised its realism and grit, its energy. Hot and raw, with no
pretenses to world salvation, it seemed then a welcome counterblast to the
faux-poetic pieties of the '60s.

The word that kept recurring was "innocence." But innocence, of course, is
a kissing cousin to mindlessness. So long as it remains fresh and vivid,
it's irresistible. The moment it lapses into routine, it loses all appeal.

That's what happened to disco. The first electric charge of 1977 soon
sputtered. By 1979 the dance floors no longer belonged to the real Tony
Maneros. The young and the lithe had moved on, and Saturday nights were
annexed by hordes of wannabes, limbs in spastic frenzy.

Came the dawn, came the payback. When the dancing fools of the late '70s
woke from their delirium (or when their loved ones pointed out exactly how
gross they looked), they plunged into blanket denial. Either they pretended
they'd never discoed at all, or if telltale Polaroids survived, they
claimed temporary cocaine insanity. At all events, out went the white suits
and body shirts, and in came ritual contempt.

It would have taken a brave man, in the '80s and early '90s, to stand up
and admit that not only had he bought all the Bee Gees albums way back
when, but he still played and relished them now. More likely, by far, he'd
slink off to D.A.: "Hi, my name is Tony, and I'm a discoholic. . . "

About four years ago, however, I began to be aware of a subtle sea change.
First John Travolta was resurrected, then the Bee Gees. SNF itself showed
more and more frequently on TV, and a Los Angeles cinema started running
the movie every weekend, in the manner of The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
The audiences at these midnight showings, so I heard, were fanatical. A mix
of old believers and new converts, many of them in their twenties, they
knew the film's dialogue by heart and shouted key lines aloud.

A few even dressed the part: Not long ago, I received a letter from an old
Los Angeles friend who had been out driving one night and turned a blind
corner to find himself faced by three Tony Maneros in a row, ceremonially
combing their hair.  For me, these were strange tidings. Once innocence is
lost, in my experience, it doesn't return. Yet something was clearly
stirring. The twitching in my insteps when the night winds blew in from
Brooklyn here witness to that. So did my royalty checks.

And now the floodgates have sprung. Suddenly, the '70s are everywhere -- in
music, in fashion and in films like Boogie Nights and The Last Days of
Disco. After nearly 21 years in hiding, it's finally safe for me to come
out.

Over the past few months, I've waded through a slew of explanations
attributing the boom in '70s retro to everything from a mass revulsion
against cynicism to a quest for lost simplicities.

According to the latter, the new generation of Fever freaks is driven by
the need to return to basics. There's a mass hunger for a time when males
still knew their role, sex was unshadowed by AIDS, and every tension could
be purged by getting down on a Saturday night. Hence the Gadarene rush back
to stacked heels and flares. It's all a response to premillennial angst.

Well, maybe. But I remain unconvinced. I've talked to some of the kids who
have hopped on the disco bandwagon, and not one has mentioned the
zeitgeist. On the contrary, the consensus seems to be that the  '70s are a
laugh -- a camp fad no more profound than pet rocks and Hula Hoops. "It all
so uncool, it's cool," one young vision in paisley polyester informed me.
And this time next year, no doubt, it will all have gone back to dust.

Much more intriguing than the youth-market hype, it seems to me, is the
revisionism of the middle-aged. Not that everyone past 40 has yet recanted.
President Clinton, tweaking his own penchant for useless apologia, saw fit
to tell the White House Correspondents' dinner in April: "And I am so sorry
about disco." But the President is child of the '60s, of course, and may
have misjudged the prevailing winds.

In general the mood among '70s survivors seems to have swung toward
forgiveness, even muted celebration. Friends who have always tried to give
me th impression that they spent the decade fas asleep, if not quarantined
in Kuala Lumpur, have now begun to change their stories. Flexing their
arthritic knees, they summon up tales of gaudy nights at Studio 54 and hum
a few bars of "I Will Survive." 'I must give Bianca a call," they sigh.

Where would mankind be without memory? All dead of reality, I suspect.

Still, there's more involved here than flock of dubious war stories. Beyond
the ebb and flow of fashion, I sense a hunger for lost intensity. Five or
10 years on, youthful follies seem excruciating, obscene. From the safe
distance of 20, however, remembered excess begins to take on a certain
glow. Present jobs and marriages stale, bills mount up,children run amok,
and the flesh does its dirty work, day by day. What then survives? An echo
of glory davs.

When I arrived in London for the musical's premiere, I found myself caught
up in an orgy of reminiscence. The papers and talk shows were rife with
recycled Fever, and every half-forgotten figure of the '70s seemed bent on
cashing in. Disc jockeys, club owners and fashion designers took turns
spilling their guts. One lady caller on a morning radio show confessed
she'd lost her virginity the same night she first saw Tony Manero dance.

'So who was the lucky bloke?" the host inquired.

"Well, actually," the lady replied merrily, "there was two of 'em."

These outpourings caught me off guard. I was aware that the film had been a
big hit in England, but the depth of its impact was news. One minicab
driver went so far as to claim that it had changed his life. His name was
Fred Hadley, but after seeing SNF, he started calling himself Rick. "It
sounded more Brooklyn," he told me. He had also belonged to a Faces-style
posse called the Stepney Soul Patrol, bought a pair of $48 oxblood stacked
heels (which he paid off at $6 a week) and strutted London's East End in
skintight brown flares and a beige shirt. "That was my golden age," he
said. "I felt like I owned the world."