Been watching some old episodes of The Simpsons today in the background as I was working and the character Disco Stu popped up and it made me wonder, why did the US turn against (and violently given stuff like Disco Demolition Night) Disco in the 80s to the point that just saying Disco was considered a joke in US Media for over three decades? Like I've seen many cartoons and live action works from those times and the only series that I can think of that didn't mock Disco when brought up was Transformers G1 with Jazz, Blaster and Soundwave's love of Disco and techno.
Honestly reading about it, it's hard not to see the undertones of racism, homophobia and sexism and feels like it was an attempt by white supremacists to shut down a genre of music that was popular, inclusive and produced by women, black and gay people and the media at the time latched onto it and encouraged it for decades through both children's and adults media.
It also feels connected to another thing about music that I never got; that only Rock music is "real" music and genres like techno, Disco, Jazz, the many different forms of pop etc aren't or too corporate to be "real. This is despite Rock music can be just as generic, follow the leader, limited (especially in what instruments can be used) and corporate as any other genre. Hell some of the most famous rock musicians were massive sell outs.
It comes across that white supremacist and the media at the time latched around rock music as a way to attack Disco (while completely ignoring Rock's origins and people like Wynonie Harris, Goree Carter, Jimmy Preston, Jackie Brenston & Chuck Berry) as I've seen similar (though nowhere near as extreme or as loud) when it came to techno in the early 00s (like Eminem's homophobic rants about techno performers in his songs) or the hatred toward Euro-pop and Eurovision by some rock fans seemingly because of it's popularity with LGBTQ+ people. To be clear I'm not accusing Rock performers themselves as racist, homopboic etc, just that hate groups attached themselves to it the same way that's happened so many times (like that time they attached themselves to Alita: Battle Angel to attack Captain Marvel and Brie Larson).
Am I correct or am I looking way to deep into it? I know it's repeated that a lot of hate was due to oversaturation, but we;ve seen musical genres and other media genres like Zombies in movies or MMOs, Military Shooters and Battle Royales in gaming become oversaturated as well and never was the backlash that big our loud. That also doesn't explain why the media just wouldn't let it go to the point it just became the "Aquaman sucks!" for music where people just seemed to repeat it over and over without actually knowing or experiencing it to the point it didn't make much sense by the end.
Honestly reading about it, it's hard not to see the undertones of racism, homophobia and sexism and feels like it was an attempt by white supremacists to shut down a genre of music that was popular, inclusive and produced by women, black and gay people and the media at the time latched onto it and encouraged it for decades through both children's and adults media.
It also feels connected to another thing about music that I never got; that only Rock music is "real" music and genres like techno, Disco, Jazz, the many different forms of pop etc aren't or too corporate to be "real. This is despite Rock music can be just as generic, follow the leader, limited (especially in what instruments can be used) and corporate as any other genre. Hell some of the most famous rock musicians were massive sell outs.
It comes across that white supremacist and the media at the time latched around rock music as a way to attack Disco (while completely ignoring Rock's origins and people like Wynonie Harris, Goree Carter, Jimmy Preston, Jackie Brenston & Chuck Berry) as I've seen similar (though nowhere near as extreme or as loud) when it came to techno in the early 00s (like Eminem's homophobic rants about techno performers in his songs) or the hatred toward Euro-pop and Eurovision by some rock fans seemingly because of it's popularity with LGBTQ+ people. To be clear I'm not accusing Rock performers themselves as racist, homopboic etc, just that hate groups attached themselves to it the same way that's happened so many times (like that time they attached themselves to Alita: Battle Angel to attack Captain Marvel and Brie Larson).
Am I correct or am I looking way to deep into it? I know it's repeated that a lot of hate was due to oversaturation, but we;ve seen musical genres and other media genres like Zombies in movies or MMOs, Military Shooters and Battle Royales in gaming become oversaturated as well and never was the backlash that big our loud. That also doesn't explain why the media just wouldn't let it go to the point it just became the "Aquaman sucks!" for music where people just seemed to repeat it over and over without actually knowing or experiencing it to the point it didn't make much sense by the end.
