Tonight's teevee double feature

[spatch]

First, Neil Diamond's wretched remake of THE JAZZ SINGER (complete with Neil in blackface!) followed by the Village People magnum opus CAN'T STOP THE MUSIC which launched (and pretty much ended) Bruce Jenner's acting career.

Our cup is so runnething over tonight ("I am," it said, to no one there, before continuing to runneth) it's crazy.

Comments

[kyree.livejournal.com]

I am morbidly intrigued by Can't Stop The Music, but can't bring myself to spend money on a copy and also can't talk the folks I watch musicals with into watching it.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

The weirdest thing about it, from a present-day perspective, is the way parts of it seem to be trying to de-gay the Village People. It's a movie about a manufactured gay camp act that doesn't directly mention homosexuality. The song lyrics are full of innuendo but the dialogue pretty much isn't, except for some strangely hetero double entendres; what romantic angle is there revolves around supposedly straight secondary characters. It's hard to imagine who the target audience for the movie would be, though I think they might have been trying to make it kid-friendly.

[spatch]

I think they were just trying to make it Mainstream America-friendly, and from today's perspective, the attempt was so transparent and so feeble that it's funny. They threw in a sex-obsessed female character who declares herself "the number one roadie for the Village People" and made sure that all the women in the cast fawn over the hot men, but then they throw up the YMCA number featuring guys in tights gettin' all buff and wrasslin each other and you just gotta wonder.

There is also a quiet message of tolerance in the film, too; Valerie Perinne mentions to Bruce Jenner that she doesn't care if folks let their freak flags fly as long as they ain't hurting nobody, and there's a song near the end that touches upon it, too, but it's all done in a vague fashion and never is homosexuality actually spelled out; the tolerance being requested seems to be more for just weirdos in general who like to hang out all day dressed in full Indian war getup.

[susskins.livejournal.com]

The Homo-ness was never explicitly mentioned, but it sang to the rafters every time Glenn Hughes (the leather guy) opened his mouth.

"Sometimes you really can tell." -- Buddy Cole