'Studio 54' documentary makes case for disco's cultural value

Studio 54, the new documentary film, posits that the legendary nightclub (which peaked at crashed after just 33 months!) was a rare safe haven for marginalized people. A place where people of color, members of the LGBT community and various other outcasts were the equals of celebrities like Liza Minnelli and Andy Warhol.

I have no idea if that's really accurate, but I love the concept of it.

I've often joked that as a black man I've never been one to romanticize or fantasize about the past much. Every moment prior to one I'm currently in was probably worse for my community. And yet, I have always been drawn to the late 1970s aesthetic of New York City and have wished I could have been in that world, even if just for a night or two.

There is something so uniquely glamorous, hedonistic and carefree about that period -- it just jumps out of not just the movies and documentary footage, but also the photos of that era. In this new doc, they point out that club's ascendance came during this sweet spot between the invention of the pill and the outbreak of AIDS, and it shows.

This is also not a new insight. And for anyone who grew up watching the stellar Behind the Music about Studio 54 there isn't necessarily a lot of new, profound insights out of this 2018 film -- although its impossible not to see how it echoes so intensely with the cultural moment we're in now.

In many ways, Studio 54 represented the mainstreaming of black and LGBT underground culture, which was only underground because white people had yet to discover it.

With the exposure of this fantastic, expressive music, dance and fashion came a perhaps inevitable cultural backlash. For the club it was a justifiable crackdown from the feds (for tax evasion, among other transgressions) but also the rise of Reaganism and the religious right. When 'disco sucks' became a rallying cry, it was not just a criticism of the music, it was a condemnation of a culture.

Seeing the nightclub now, about 40 years out from its heyday, it's easy to see how it was more than just a decadent diversion. It was a prescient look at where the culture was inevitably headed, a place where acceptance and love overpowers hate.

Now, we haven't gotten there nationally, not by a longshot. But my takeway from this doc, besides the fact that the club's creators were both wildly creative and smart, but also wildly naive and arrogant, is that we need more safe spaces like this where people of different walks of life can come together and have a great time.

I have always been fond of the phrase "it's always darkest before the dawn" -- even if that isn't always something that has rung true for me. I need to believe, on a day when a woman is poised to become the deciding vote to advance the nomination of a man credibly accused of sexual assault to a lifetime appointment on the Supreme Court, that we're experiencing that darkness right now.

This look back at Studio 54, in all its ribald, effervescent glory -- had me thinking about what it would feel like to stand in the light again with some pride.