The Gimlet Eye

Stayin’ Alive

IREAD the other day that young people in Los Angeles are lining up for midnight showings of the movie Saturday Night Fever. They make a party of it, apparently, costumed in duds plucked from the rack at St. Vincent de Paul. The lime-green leisure suits sport lemon-yellow piping, the floral shirts of synthetic fabric open up to the sternum, and gold pendants swing gaily, as in days of yore, through the chest hair. The girls crown themselves with great flopping coiffures in the manner of Farrah Fawcett-Majors (as she then was known). The news unsettled me. I shuddered as I did a couple of years ago, when a younger friend invited me to a “Seventies Party” in a rented ballroom. I walked in and stopped cold. The sound system blared K.C. and the Sunshine Band. A mirrored ball threw shards of light across the dance floor. There was much giggling and self-congratulation among the youngsters.

About the Author

Andrew Ferguson

Andrew Ferguson, a former columnist for NR, is a contributing writer at The Atlantic and a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

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Stayin’ Alive

IREAD the other day that young people in Los Angeles are lining up for midnight showings of the movie Saturday Night Fever. They make a party of it, apparently, costumed in duds plucked from the rack at St. Vincent de Paul. The lime-green leisure suits sport lemon-yellow piping, the floral shirts of synthetic fabric open up to the sternum, and gold pendants swing gaily, as in days of yore, through the chest hair. The girls crown themselves with great flopping coiffures in the manner of Farrah Fawcett-Majors (as she then was known). The news unsettled me. I shuddered as I did a couple of years ago, when a younger friend invited me to a “Seventies Party” in a rented ballroom. I walked in and stopped cold. The sound system blared K.C. and the Sunshine Band. A mirrored ball threw shards of light across the dance floor. There was much giggling and self-congratulation among the youngsters.