McClung
Editor’s Note: Views expressed in guest columns and letters to the editor reflect the views of the author, not the views of The State News.
I come from an exceedingly frugal family. My parents decided at a young age that instead of taking lavish vacations, they would rather pay for me to go to college debt-free. Although when I was younger I was angry when spring break would come around and I would be home alone while others were on vacation, I appreciate it now more than ever.
For this reason, I had never been out of the country besides a few trips to Niagara Falls for my dad’s business trips, up until this month.
At the beginning of the summer, my dad decided to surprise me with a 10-day trip to Europe. I was eager to experience the many European cultures in the different countries we planned to visit.
Although I had never experienced it firsthand, I have studied European history and culture in many different high school and college classes. One of my freshman-year college classes required me to study the many different facets of globalization. We studied the spread of goods and ideas, as well as cultural globalization and its effects on developed and undeveloped countries.
But, during my visit to Europe, one aspect of globalization was more conspicuous than any other: the spread of music, specifically disco.
I arrived in Paris July 14 during a holiday known as Bastille Day, or the French’s version of Independence Day. Before my arrival, I expected the same patriotic disposition in the French that is displayed every year on July 4 by U.S. citizens.
But if I had not known it was Bastille Day, I would have had no idea they were celebrating a national holiday. I saw a couple of small parades of militiamen and marching bands, but the same patriotism and pride we have in our country that we like to boast on Independence Day, I did not see displayed by the French.
I was confused. The French have a reputation for being as patriotic as Americans, loving their country and the culture it promotes. But for them, Bastille Day almost seemed like a normal day, besides the inconvenience caused by parades blocking the streets.
That all changed in the evening, when the French had a spectacular ceremony planned: a disco-themed fireworks celebration at the Eiffel Tower.
Apparently, the newly elected French president, François Hollande has a deep love for disco music and decided the best way to celebrate their revolution was with flashing lights, disco balls and fireworks.
And so, my friend and I decided to go to the celebration, joining hundreds of thousands of French men and women on all sides of the Eiffel Tower in their celebration.
My friend and I wondered what French disco music would sound like, wondering if they had the same dance moves as those famously displayed by John Travolta in “Saturday Night Fever” or if any French artists attempted to cover American disco classics.
When we arrived at the Eiffel Tower, we had to push our way through a crowd of thousands in order to get a spot where we could see the fireworks. Hanging from the Eiffel Tower with hundreds of lights reflecting its many mirrors, was a gigantic disco ball. The tower itself had hundreds of flashing lights that made it sparkle in the darkness.
As the music started and fireworks began to burst in the night sky, my friend and I could not control our laughter. The first song picked for the celebration was, in fact, the ‘80s disco classic “It’s Raining Men” by The Weather Girls. Although the song choice was humorous, what I found to be funnier was that every citizen around us, who was minutes before speaking to one another in their own French dialect, knew all of the words to the song.
American disco music continued to play for the entirety of the celebration, with only a few exceptions. Donna Summer and Gloria Gaynor were blasted through speakers for the crowd’s enjoyment. But the most striking part was watching as hundreds of thousands of French men and women knew all of the words and dance moves to Village People’s “Y.M.C.A.”
This was their country’s chance to celebrate its independence and revolution, and they chose American disco music as their method of jubilation.
The classes I have taken on globalization taught me western culture is hegemonic in nature; that developing countries often incorporate our political and cultural ideas into their own while still trying to preserve their culture, and, oftentimes, western culture becomes dominating.
Yet France, which is considered a part of western culture, chose to celebrate its revolution with a historic period of American culture, a culture not their own. This taught me that even in the west, American culture is the most hegemonic.
The part that still baffles me is why, out of every genre of music, they chose disco.
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Alex McClung is The State News opinion writer and an international relations and journalism sophomore. Reach him at mcclung3@msu.edu.
