Village People in Argentina: the band that spread gay culture without the military dictatorship realizing it

THE nostalgia It’s a fabulous business that even revives the zombies killed by Daryl’s crush Walking Dead. They don’t get up anymore. In the world of music the phenomenon is completely different but equally supernatural.

A joint recital of two bands who knew how to give vent to the summer skin of the old carnivals when the 70s inevitably fade has just been announced: the next May 9th at Luna Parkwill be presented Kool and the gang AND Village people, two groups that the public usually includes in the generous baggage of disco music. Even if they are very different things.

Big-funk combo Kool & The Gang had a long, normal life; Some members have already left, others are gone for eternity, and the group has renewed itself due to natural causes or conflicts of interest.

The Village People are a completely different group and probably not even a band: It is a design product which fermented in the minds of two French producers, Jacques Morali and Henri Belolo, attentive to another phenomenon produced by disco music and which was not clearly evident in their time: the emergence of gay culture.

A masterful idea

At the beginning of those 1970s, gays resisted the attacks of heterosexual culture by hermetically closing the doors of special nightclubs so as not to be disturbed. They were places without promotion, far from the public eye.

With the advent of disco music, it was inevitable that this trapped culture would come to light in huge venues like Studio 54. Not only that, the gay ecosystem began to be legitimized and celebrated by the boldest members of New York’s artistic elite.

For Morali and Belolo, it all started with a redskin wearing all his ornaments, his makeup and his feathers, who they both followed as detectives. The man went straight onto the stage at a club called The Anvil, to dance in front of an all-male audience, driving patrons crazy as they sighed as the man danced on a table.

Observing him, Morali began to draw a masterly idea in his mind. Just as Berry Gordy designed the Motown label as a hit factory aimed at white audiences, Morali thought of a group field (the extreme branch of kitsch) where each member will represent a stereotype of male culture. But everyone could consume it

Felipe Rose, the unproven Native American who intrigued them, was the first recruited. The others responded a notice published in the Village Voicea name they took into account when naming the project: “Village People” alluded to the population of Greenwich Village, which in New York is linked to art, culture in general and bohemian life.

The key piece was Victor Willis, who was the only one who could sing seriously and who played a policeman, a Patovica and other characters. The payroll was completed with a construction worker, a biker, a cowboy and a soldier.

They also had to bring in two lyricists, Peter Whitehead and Phil Hurt, and a producer to outline the music, Horace Ott, because Morali was not a musician. But he wasn’t improvised either; He had already demonstrated his sense of smell with a previous creation: The Ritchie Family, which had similar successes Brazil AND The best nightclub in the city in 1975 and 1976 respectively.

The first successes

Village People would begin with a disconcerting step; his first single, San Francisco (You got me), he just moved the ammeter. The second, the ridiculous song male man, reached number 25 on the overall charts. That success pushed them to hastily put together a real band to accompany the dancers in their performances.

The main course would be served in 1978, the golden year of disco music, which found in YMCA to one of the biggest hits of the year, despite reaching number two in the charts: the monster Who is there Da Ya, you think I’m sexy Rod Stewart was banned from the summit.

It’s impossible to watch the video for the song today and not burst out laughing at the dilapidated discography of people in costumes and the double meaning of the song. The YMCA (Christian Youth Association) is an organization founded in the mid-19th century to keep young people away from the bad lifestyle and danger of alcohol. He has a very cheap hotel in New York that still works: members of the Village People danced in front of it in their video.

The lyrics of the song talked about the benefits of belonging to the YMCA: “Boy, there’s no need to feel bad (…) It’s fun to be at the YMCA, they have everything for young people to enjoy and you can hang out with all the people .” Boys.”

The irony and the gay wink went completely unnoticed in Argentina. YMCA It sparked a furor with choreography that physically replicated the initials without much effort and took over nightclubs across the planet.

In 1979 Tato Bores danced it on Sunday on television as the closing of his unforgettable Tattoos for everyoneand choose another topic I can’t stop the musicfor the 1980 season of its cycle which coincided with the arrival of the Village People in the country.

The military dictatorship did not pose any obstacles despite Flash magazine considering the group “musical leaders of the homosexual movement”. There was an affront to Tato Bores when the Village People, hired by Channel 13, refused to dance alongside the comedian “because they didn’t do clowns”. It was clear that success had gone to his head and that they didn’t realize how ridiculous he was.

Not only in Argentina was military immunity to double entendres demonstrated, because in the United States the Navy was one step away from adopting its 1980 strike, In the navy as a recruiting topic. The song alluded to the fantastic possibilities that could be found in that lineup; The text was mischievous, they used the word “seamen” which sounds like semen.

However, the sponsorship was limited to the loan of a boat to be able to shoot their video clip, equally ridiculous as the YMCA one, in the facilities that the Navy has in San Diego. They also made the ship’s crew available to them. Delights of parody.

The interesting thing about the Village People sham was this the gay community clearly got the joke, but the general public didn’t realize this and thought it was innocent fun. In his book, The secret history of the recordauthor Peter Shapiro ventures that “Village People was probably the most effective weapon in the battle for the inclusion of gay culture in the American mainstream since the birth control pill.”

Training changes

The success story was short, as disco music went into serious decline in 1979 and the Village People were already showing signs of wet dust in their latest hit, Go westwhich would be revitalized in the 1990s by Pet Shop Boys.

Anyway, the group made a movie (do not stop the Musicwith Valerie Perrine and Bruce Jenner) went forward with huge lineup changes made possible by the format of anonymous and costumed dancers. Every now and then they take advantage of a disco revival.

The only remaining member of the originals, Victor Willis, returned to the Village People in 2017, already rehabilitated and having resolved his legal problems. How ironic for someone who could play a police officer!

It was also the law that gave him satisfaction for his request for royalties YMCA“, and which allowed him to legally use the name Village People along with their costumes. Jacques Morali died in 1991 of complications from AIDS, and Belolo died much later, at the age of 82.

The music continues and every now and then the Village People release a single, but above all they tour the world which continues to claim its presence as the group that embodies “gay” in the other sense that the word offers: “happy”. The mirror ball may have stopped spinning, but the music can never stop.