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The profound irony of Trump's Kennedy Center honoring LGBTQ icon Gloria Gaynor

The profound irony of Trump's Kennedy Center honoring LGBTQ icon Gloria Gaynor

Boston Globe2 days ago
Gaynor is best known for her 1978 megahit 'I Will Survive,' which became an anthem for those dancing the night away in New York discos during the '70s. Disco itself remains widely misunderstood. It wasn't about 'Saturday Night Fever.' It was an after-hours scene of cultural and social tolerance, where everybody – Black, white, Latino, gay, straight – was welcome as long as they liked to dance (and, at some of the harder doors, as long as they were dressed well enough). Disco was multi-ethnic, pansexual, and progressive in nature. This, as much as anything, helps explain the white working-class backlash that reached its apotheosis with Disco Demolition Night at Comiskey Park in 1979.
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In other words, disco represented much of what the Trump administration abhors. So it makes sense that this iteration of the Kennedy Center, which Trump has pledged to remake in his own image and name, would honor a socially conservative disco queen, even if her biggest hit still makes the playlist at just about every pride parade. This is Trump's disco counter-narrative: disco wasn't about celebrating diversity. It was really about...Jesus? Ready the Kennedy Center dance floor.
Chris Vognar can be reached at
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