Moonlight win is historical an should have been treated much better.

since it’s a scary time to be trans: refuge restrooms is an app which maps gender-neutral/single-stall restrooms. it’s community-mapped, so it’s possible you might be the first person to log the restroom locations, but hopefully it’ll help some people.

please reblog this post if you’ve got trans followers. stay safe.

For my non-trans followers: please consider getting the app just so you can add neutral restrooms to the map when you run across them. Simple way to help.

I am screaming at everybody celebrating LeFou being gay in the Beauty and the Beast movie as a victory for representation

I am represented on screen as a desperate ass-kissing sidekick hopelessly in love with a hypermasc caricature! YES! The progress!

What are you talking about, we have tons of Disney representation, like [Villain], [Other Villain], [All The Villains] and [Meerkat].

1/14 Happy Birthday Rukia♥ 框(キョウ)

What are some advocacy organizations to help Muslims and other refugees in this trying time you ask?

https://www.muslimadvocates.org https://www.cair.com https://www.mlfa.org http://www.cunyclear.org/ https://www.aclu.org http://www.humanrightsfirst.org http://www.afj.org http://ccrjustice.org http://www.amnestyusa.org http://www.aila.org

Watch: Latina journalist Maria Hinojosa epically shuts down a condescending Trump adviser on the word “illegals”

EAT HIM ALIVE

He may stop the ads, but nothing beats old fashioned word of mouth. Make sure everyone you know (and those you don’t know) they can still sign up for obamacare/ACA until January 31st! 

the more people sign up, the less eager republicans will repeal it, especially those in swing states and districts, and we only need three GOP senators to vote no on repeal. 

Hey folks, PLEASE reblog info about this if you can today. They have cancelled all ads and emails alerting people to the fact that the deadline is at the end of this month in an attempt to sabotage enrollment. Jan 31st is the last chance people will have to get on this plan.

 Doesn’t have to be this post, just please spread the word however you can!

Disco Appreciation Post

If you go off of how disco is referenced in pop culture today, it’s easy to think that disco was an insignificant fad that had no depth and played obnoxious, repetitive music. I want to tell you all the ways that that is wrong, and show how totally radical and significant disco actually was, especially for women, people of color, and gays. I also want to address the reason that disco isn’t better appreciated today. Get ready to get excited, empowered, mad, and addicted to the boogie.

Music:

In the early 70s, music was changing a lot. The 60s were dominated by Rock n’ Roll, Folk, and Soul. The songs that came out of those genres were designed to be heard live in a concert, either by the artist themselves or a cover band. That means that to listen to the music as it was intended, you have to go out on a specific night that your band is playing, and if you want to dance, it’ll be for maybe an hour or less, depending how long the performers’ set is. 

Disco came out of the urban black populations of cities like Philadelphia, New York, and Detroit. Instead of being played live by bands, it was played on vinyl discs, which could be played indefinitely. As such, the music became focused on keeping people dancing all night. The upbeat rhythm that some people criticize disco for as sounding all the same is actually very intentional: it’s a good, danceable rhythm that is consistent between songs, so instead of having dead noise as you wait for the next song to start, you can just fade out of one song and into the other without stopping the dancing. 

What’s more, since it wasn’t live, you could go to a discotheque any night of the week and know that there would be good music to dance to. This totally changed the culture of nightlife. Instead of going out on a pre-scheduled date with your sweetheart, now you could just get together with your friends at the last minute and head to the disco! Many women at the time found this liberating, because they were no longer tied to a man on a date, but hanging out with their girlfriends. Some even said that disco was better than sex. 

Shifting Sexuality:

That being said, disco and sexuality were closely linked. Sure, singing about sexual desire was nothing new, but the approach as well as the message were pretty different: 

Rock n’ Roll’s focus on fulfilling one’s own sexual satisfaction, without much concern for the (presumed female) partner was being slowly replaced by the more sensual, affectionate attitude presented in soul. Take for example a contrast of the Rolling Stones’ “Satisfaction” and Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get it On”:

“Satisfaction” (1965)

:Let’s Get it On” (1973) 

Not only was there a shift in message, but there was a huge shift in who was singing about sexual desire. White women, black men, and especially black women dominated the charts with catchy songs about love, dance, and sexual attraction. 

Donna Summer was a black woman from Boston who became known as the “Queen of Disco,” as she sold over 140 million records and earned 32 hit singles throughout her career. Her songs made it clear that she wouldn’t let anyone define her sexuality for her. On one occasion, her assistant was accosted by a cop because she was wearing sexy clothes and he thought she was a “streetwalker.” She convinced him that she wasn’t, but when Summer heard the story she asked, “Well, what would’ve been so bad if she was?” This prompted her song, “Bad Girls,” in which she is unapologetically sexy and emphasizes that sex workers are “Like everybody else, they come from near and far,” ordinary people who are trying to make money. 

My favorite example of black women owning their sexuality is in the music video of “It’s Raining Men,” by the Weather Girls. The group consisted of two overweight black women, Izora Armstead and Martha Wash, who in a hilariously low-budget video sing about how there’s no need to be lonely when you’re single, you’ve got many men to choose from for your sexual satisfaction:

Gays and Disco

Disco wasn’t just a place of open sexuality for straight people, it also was huge for the growing gay community. Underground gay discos began as early as 1969, but they became so popular that soon they became regular stops for straight people as well. This led to what the Village Voice refers to as the “mainstreaming of gay”:

Within 10 years of Stonewall, gays reached unprecedented visibility both on the dancefloor and the records themselves. One of the best known openly gay music groups of disco was Village People, who always wore these costumes:

Their message was that gays are everywhere: we are ordinary people, who do ordinary jobs, like construction or military service. (And, before you get upset by the war bonnet, that’s Felipe Rose, who is actually Native American)

As the Village Voice article suggests, the presence of gays in disco challenged mainstream masculinity. In their song “Macho Man,” Village People lift weights and show off their large muscles, while also being flamboyantly gay, which at the time was stereotyped as being very feminine. 

You’re probably familiar with their song “YMCA,” but you may not know just how gay it is. Answer: very gay. The song addresses the experience of young gay men who wanted to escape the homophobia and isolation of their small towns and move to the big city. With locations in every city, the YMCA was a cheap resource for temporary housing and meals, and it soon saw an abundance of young gay men. This was huge for three reasons: 1) the individual realized that he wasn’t the only one with these kinds of feelings and began feeling much more validated/justified in his sexuality, 2) he was able to make friends and form a proud, gay community, and 3) he was surrounded by horny, sexually available potential partners!

Let’s take a look at some of the lyrics of YMCA:

Like I said, very gay. 

Discophobia

Unfortunately, as I’m sure you can guess, all of this increased visibility and sexual autonomy by women, people of color, and gays was not universally well-received by mainstream culture, and a new movement began that spread quickly like an anti-disco inferno. 

This movement was called, and I’m not joking, “Disco Sucks.” It was founded by this guy:

This is Steve Dahl. He was a Rock n Roll DJ for a radio station before he was fired when his station transitioned to disco, and as a result he made it his life’s mission to to launch a “war on disco.” When he got a new job at a different radio, he spent all of his time lambasting disco, criticizing it for all sounding the same and having no depth. 

Dahl became widely popular, to the point that the Chicago White Sox invited him to come entertain the crowd during one of their games. On July 12, 1979, White Sox fans paid $.99 if they brought a disco record that could be destroyed as a part of Dahl’s “Disco Demolition Night.” A video of the event can be found here. The event quickly went out of control, as the explosions destroyed part of left field, the crowd ran onto the field, and many people stole bases (no pun intended) and even home plate. 

Why did people become so enraged at disco? The messages in the songs were pretty innocuous (at least on the surface level), mostly dealing with love, attraction, and hopes for world peace. Perhaps a key to understanding it is to look at the demographics of the anti-disco movement, namely: young, straight, white men. Maybe some of them really were just tired of disco music, but for a large number of people disco threatened the cultural landscape that they were familiar with and which favored them. Instead of the Rolling Stones, they were now hearing the Weather Girls, Village People, and Earth, Wind & Fire. 

Disco saw a sharp, painful decline after Disco Demolition Night. it was pretty much gone by 1981. 

To highlight the difference: in 1979, the top 10 Billboard Hits had 6 songs by black women, two songs by black men and women, and one song by an openly gay band, leaving only three songs that were sung by straight white men. Only three years later in 1982, the top 10 only had 2 songs by white women, and one collaboration between Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder. The other 7 songs were all straight white men. Whereas in 1978 the charts were “majority minority,” by 1982 it had flipped and being straight, white, and male was once again the default. Some even argue that mainstream music hasn’t been as diverse as disco was since.

tl;dr Disco was a musical movement that gave unprecedented visibility to minority groups, especially women, black people, and gays, giving them a voice and a space to own, explore, and be proud of their sexuality. 

this years holocaust remembrance day is very important, given the current political climate. take today to remember the horrifying acts committed against jewish and romani people. take today to recognize the beginning of those same acts forming against PoC in america today. take today to resist those in power however you see fit, and after today, dont stop resisting. i am a jew still personally affected by the holocaust even 2 generations later. every jew is affected by the shoah, but there is a special pain to know what happened to your own family. or worse, not knowing what happened to the unknown people you see in old family photographs. we as a people will never be the same. remember the holocaust today. dont let this happen again.

non-jews are absolutely allowed/encouraged to reblog this

Since there are no date stamps on tumblr I wanted to add that Holocaust Remembrance Day is today. Jan 27th.

It doesn’t take much to call out Richard Spencer

Keep. Punching. Nazis.

Millennials, let’s be the generation that ends the “bitterly criticize the youth” cycle. When we’re old, let’s embrace and nurture them and commend them for facing challenges we might have created.

Also, let’s start doing this right now, with the people younger than us who exist right now. Teens hating on children is just as uncool as adults hating on teens.

“Make a Man Out of You” from Mulan was sung by Jackie Chan in Mandarin Chinese.  

I just thought you should know.

So for some reason this post is exploding in my notifications.  So enjoy it, maybe?

They wanted him to play the part in English as well (I think?), but he was worried about his accent. If you look up the video on YouTube, he does fight demonstrations while he’s singing.

Oh my gosh, tell me how to be a man, Jackie Chan

Thanks, @anniecardi! I should learn to embed videos. ;)

#sit down donny osmond - a new player has entered the ring  #and he is not playing around

In case y’all didn’t know: Jackie Chan is an operatically trained vocalist. Like, he’s LEGITIMATELY AN OPERA SINGER. Truly one of the most talented men alive.

My skin just cleared watching this. OMG!!

THIS MAN IS PURE GOLD!!!

I HAD NO IDEA JACKIE CHAN WAS A TRAINED OPERA SINGER HOLY SHIT.

holy fUUUUUUUUCK

That original concept for III Padme wearing a red sash and her newborn twins slung on her back going after Anakin on Mustafar to kill him herself with a knife in her hand while P!nk’s “So What” plays in the background was so in character and they should have kept it

ok so i lied about P!nk but the rest was true

I can’t fucking believe George Lucas took Murder Mom Padme away from me.

cinematic parallels

BLESS THESE REPRESENTATIVES 

oh ya’ll thought that was it? nah, there’s plenty more where that came from. 

Trump supporters are just figuring out that the Affordable Care Act and Obamacare are the same thing. It would be funny if it weren’t so sad and pathetic. Unbelievable.

somebody please discover these are trolls and this many people were not this dumb

in case you haven’t cried enough about the Obamas leaving the White House