Look at the disco era, as portrayed by the movie Saturday Night Fever. You have all the things that define this era. There is the reckless personal behavior, the pointlessness of the character’s lives and the denigration of bourgeois values. The main character is basically a bum who works in a hardware store so he can make enough money to party with other degenerates. He treats his girlfriend so poorly, she eventually becomes a whore that his buddies pass around, so she can stay in the group.
Everything about the movie, like the lifestyle it portrayed, was degenerate. The disco era was basically just an effort to take the underground homosexual scene in New York City and vomit it onto Middle America. It largely worked too.
Despite growing up in the 70s I’ve yet to see Saturday Night Fever. Probably because I couldn’t stand Vinnie Barbarino. This just seemed like a movie about Vinnie after he dropped out of Kotter’s high school.
Anyway, I think the zman is on to something here.
Source: The Age of Ugly
