True Confessions: Can't Stop the Music

I must come clean, folks. Despite being a strong advocate of TV networks--especially premium and digital cable ones--showing films in their original aspect ratio, I watched an altered film recently, one I had recorded from Flix. Hey, I was lured in by the opening credit sequence, which was gloriously letterboxed, and I was so into the movie that when the picture squeezed, I couldn't...

Aw, who am I kidding. My confession is not that I watched a distorted movie on cable. My confession is that the movie was "Can't Stop the Music." Yes, the 1980 epic that not only stars the Village People, but tells the story of the creation of (a fictional version of) the Village People. All this and Steve Guttenberg. And Bruce Jenner. I watched the whole thing.

Can't Stop the Shame is more like it.

This is quite possibly the gayest movie ever made, and don't get me wrong because I am not using "gayest" as a perjorative. No, I mean "Can't Stop the Music" is literally gay from start to finish, and that's even before the movie finds an excuse to get to San Francisco. It's no shock that would be the case for a late-seventies flick (though released in '80) that features the Village People, but still!

It's amusing that Valerie Perrine is top billed in this one. She does play a lead role, but you can't help but think someone decided the only way to trick straight males into seeing this was to promote Perrine as the star and put her in lots of tight clothes . Of course, there's way more beefcake than cheesecake in the finished product, so there may have been some seriously miffed macho men (as opposed to Macho Men) at the theaters. Of course, it WAS the late seventies, so maybe it was no big deal...

I think the single gayest moment has to be when Jenner's previously uptight suit-and-tie-wearing tax attorney quits his job on the spot and becomes the lawyer for the Village People. Suddenly, in the next scene, Jenner is leading the gang down the street while sporting a half-shirt and cut off blue jeans, an ensemble that somehow looks even more flamboyant than the parade of Indian, biker, and cowboy costumes trailing him. Yes, even more than the song called "Liberation," even more than the commercial, "Milkshake" that the band stars in, this transformation is the epitome of the movie's gay ethos.

Again, don't misunderstand me. I'm not saying that "Can't Stop the Music" is terrible because it's gay. It's terrible because of the writing, the acting, and the songs. But if you want to see a grand example of how gay culture meets crap culture, proceed to right around the 1:15 mark and experience the spectacle that is the music video for "YMCA." This has to be seen to be believed, a jaw-dropping blend of ridiculous choreography, gratuitous split screen and other visual effects, and flashes of male and female nudity.

About the only good thing I can say about this one is that nobody's made a sequel. Oh, I laughed a few times, I'll admit, but...whew! What a movie!