Lisa Quijano Wolfinger’s “The War on Disco” is a great documentary—if you have minimal to zero knowledge about disco music. For an hour long documentary it does very little to take advantage and explore the lesser known corners of the Disco boom of the 1970’s. It’s all pretty much a superficial and speedily paced buffer about the entire craze called Disco Music. Known for a long time as an enemy to rock music, Disco was a sub-genre of dance music that allowed for a lot more diversity, which prompted a lot more people to hate it.
Considering the 70’s was rampant with homophobia, the disco genre became a much derided craze for the simple fact that it put the LGBTQ community in the spotlight. It also unapologetically churned out a ton of music that was fun to listen to, fun to dance to, but had little to no nutritional value. “The War on Disco” really doesn’t put out any new information, sadly. It was the antithesis to rock, rock fans hated it, it blew up thanks to the popularity of “Saturday Night Fever,” it eventually devolved in to kitsch and camp, and there was the infamous riot that began with blowing up a pile of disco records on a baseball field.
It’s all fairly standard information for music lovers that either don’t know much about this era or love to re-visit it constantly. It’s too bad we don’t get any insight in to rock fans’ general idea about disco, nor do we really get to dig deeper in to the clear fact that most hatred for disco music stemmed from gay panic and scathing homophobia. That said, at least the music is still a lot of fun. While I’ll always be a rock fan, I still loves me a good go around with “I’m Your Boogeyman,” and “Shake Your Groove Thing.”