The Secret Disco Revolution (2012) Reviews

• Revisionism 101

  ultravio132014-01-17

  There is a part towards the end of the film when felipe Rose of the Village people, half joking/half irritated, starts to choke the director, and snaps " stop reading so many books". You will feel like doing the same. It's obvious the director did not grow up during the Disco era, otherwise he would never have tried making the clearly ridiculous arguments the film pushes. Alice Echols is featured in this movie as well, her book 'Hot Stuff' using the same BS argument about Disco being some black/gay/womens musical revolution. She looks like she would've been of age during the Disco era, but I'm guessing she spent the 70's burning her bra, growing out her armpit hair, and buying food for her 50 cats. I turned 14 at the end of 1979, so let me debunk some of the claims made in the film -Rock radio, run by (but of course) racist white males conspired to keep Disco from radio play- Complete nonsense, there were plenty of other stations (top 40, R&B, College) that would play Disco music, How else did songs like rock Your baby, or Cant get enough of your love go to #1 ?? I remember hearing all these songs on the Radio as a kid. -Disco was empowering women by allowing them to sing about overt sexual stuff- Unfortunately for the Alice Echols of the world, almost all of these Women had their material written for them by Men. Love to love you baby was written and produced by Girogio Moroder for example. -Disco was a black form of music that was "whitened" for the masses by the BeeGees and others- Disco was never seen by anyone that I knew as a "black "form of Music, the way Funk or Motown was, It was always multiracial from day one. George McRaes 1974 hit,. Rock your baby is considered by many to be the first Disco song. And while George was Black, KC and Rick Finch, who wrote and produced the track, were White. Giorgio Moroder who was from Europe, wrote and produced all of Donna Summers classic hits, and also pioneered the concept of the 12 inch/remix/extended play single. For every Anita Ward and Evelyn 'Champagne' King, you had Alicia Bridges and France Joli -The backlash against Disco was really because of bigotry and hate towards Blacks and Gays- To the 99.9 % of Americans who didn't live in New York, or work as Music journalists. Disco was Saturday Night fever, Disco style was largely based on what the Italian American Kids wore in that movie.The biggest band of the era was the very white and straight BeeGees. that gays or blacks were supposedly the only people listening to Disco in the early 70s in New York was irrelevant and unknown to most people (not to mention incorrect). I didn't grow up in the midwest, I grew up in Miami, and no one saw Disco as a black or gay thing at all. And how exactly were gays represented in Disco back then? The Village People? They never admitted to being gay, and just played it off. It wasn't unusual to see straight guys playing at being effeminate to shock people, the 1970s was the decade of Glam rock, Bowie/Ziggy, the New York Dolls and the Rocky Horror picture show. So a lot of those who knew what was meant in songs like YMCA or San Francisco, thought it was a gimmick, others were totally clueless. For example, I remember a lot of girls in my Middle school had a crush on the construction worker LOL. Yes, the quaalude popping, dope smoking, long haired white kids at my school who worshipped Zeppelin and KISS hated disco, but they all hated Punk/ New Wave too, and that particular genre was as White as you can get. Disco inspired a backlash because of pure overkill, TV commercials had disco music playing, so did cartoons, Radio Stations were switching to all disco formats. You had all these established stars putting out disco records, even James Brown released a Disco record. plus they were saying all the time back then, that rock was dead, and disco was going to dominate for the next twenty years. Aside from that Newsweek cover story ( disco takes over) Even a popular rock magazine like Circus devoted an entire issue to Disco, and wondered if rock had run its course. We were all sick of it. I can guarantee that was the main motivation for those people at the infamous anti-Disco rally in 79. a few other points that I want to mention, Sylvester, who was the only openly Gay Disco artist back then, is never mentioned at all in this movie. "Its raining men" by the weather girls, wasn't a hit until late 1982. so it was not a part of Disco's golden age, and should not have been included My Parents, and all of my Friends parents, LOVED Disco, they were glad that it was making short hair popular with boys, and making it popular to dance together. Two of the claims in this movie, that Nile Rodgers was a Black Panther, and that the Savage Skulls (a swastika wearing Puerto Rican/ black gang from the Bronx) invented the "Hustle ' dance that was all the rage in 75.. lets just say i'm highly skeptical of both claims lol. All that aside, I'll give it 6 out of 10. It had some great footage, The Blonde actress who played the revolutionary was gorgeous, and the director had the balls to include interviews in which almost every Artist/Producer disagreed with his premise of disco being revolutionary or political.

• Sucked

  subshive2013-07-01

  This movie sucks. If you have a basic knowledge of the Disco era, this movie offers no new information but alludes to a new perspective which it fails to demonstrate and eventually abandons. The movie offers less info than a Wikipedia article about the origins of Disco, the first Disco hit, major disco DJs, producers, etc. It's like watching an infomercial for piles of Disco CDs. Skimming the surface of interesting information. with a twist. A weird framing device. The whole premise is that Disco was revolutionary for gays, blacks and women. So they have a gay, a black, and a woman acting as "the masterminds" while a kitschy voice-over explains their actions as though they were gods with a Disco based agenda. These are annoying characters and their purpose seems to be to support the claims made in Alice Echols' book "Hot Stuff: Disco and the Remaking of American Culture." But the scholar Alice Echols is presented as a joke, with heavy focus on unsubstantiated academic over-reaching. It seems possible that the Disco era had a social impact, but calling it a "Disco Revolution" and adding that bullshit framing device is the filmmaker's cute way of saying, he's not sure he believes it. Highlight of the movie: interviews with Ronald Kool Bell and Nicky Siano.

• Very Enjoyable!

  ch-m-davis2013-05-28

  Honestly, if you have an appreciation of the 70s, than you'll be very thankful for this documentary as much as I was. My parents grew up in this time period, so I grew up with them telling me stories and playing songs from that era. Writer and director, Jamie Kastner, did a great job in explaining how the American 70s was revolutionary. He explains how disco was the starting point to rock, techno and just about any other genre in today's society. After seeing this movie, it definitely makes me wish I could go back in time just to visit this music era and come back because first it's a quick turn around and secondly, it was all about anything goes, which is how I live my life!

• Reliving a part of my adolescence

  rodrig582016-07-12

  Somehow entertaining documentary about the "Disco Revolution" in the '70's. It was something with subversive intentions, a secret political movement? The question makes sense only because mankind was at the top of the Cold War(but nobody mention this in the film). The truth is that everything was about free love and sexual liberation, including women liberation, black people liberation, gay liberation. And, most of all, was about Music, a very unique genre in the history of music. The Bee Gees, Donna Summer, Gloria Gaynor, Thelma Houston, The Trammps, Chic, Kool And The Gang, etc., they are all heroes of the history of mankind, not only the history of Disco. And, the leader of all this, a guy called Giorgio Moroder, he is not mentioned at all. That's political, because he is not American, he was born in Europe, in Italy. He took what was best in American black music and rearranged everything and created what was called DISCO. He done it since 1970 in Europe, continuing with Donna Summer in Germany... Much the same as did Sergio Leone, reinventing the Western. And, you know what, I don't give a damn s..t about that "Disco Sucks" event, that did not killed anything, just the minds of those gathered there in that American stadium were dead. In what concerns me, DISCO lives on, is alive and healthy. In my mind, heart & soul.

• Disco-mania!

  strong-122-4788852017-12-13

  "Get down and boogie!!" This decidedly silly documentary actually has the gall to seriously suggest to the viewer that there's a whole lot more to the 1970's disco dance-craze than meets the eye. Believe it, or not - This ding-dong presentation actually goes so far out on a limb as to say that (are you ready for this?) the roots of disco can be traced all the way back to Nazi Germany. (Spare me!) Yes. Indeed. I do admit that there were some very entertaining moments spattered throughout "Disco's" 85-minute running time. But, generally speaking - This is a pretty laughable and decidedly dumb documentary for the most part - Arrogantly suggesting that disco actually improved the world (Oh? Really?) - And, that its invention was, of all things, masterminded. (Ha! Give me a break, already!)