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Culting the Club Kids
So tonight I watched the 20/20 interview with Mac Culkin about his latest film, the Michael Alig bio-pic "Party Monster." I've been waiting for years for this movie to be released. I've been fascinated with the Michael Alig case since I first heard about it. I remember when the Mike Musto articles about Alig were being run in the Voice back when I was in high school. The whole thing hit kinda close to home because clubbing was such a big thing when I was in high school. It was the preferred form of Friday night entertainment for most of the people I went to high school with. Hell, the Limelight was one block away from my high school. Spent half of my teen years wishing I could be as cool and extravagant as club kids were.
What interests me most is how, ten years later, the media is portraying the culture in which the Angel Menendez murder took place, and the portrayal of Michael Alig. I've watched countless documentaries about the murder, and in each and every one of them they hail Michael Alig as "the leader of the club kids, a group of outrageous misfits who roamed the city streets in the early to mid 90's."
That characterization pisses me off for several reasons:
1) They make it sound as though "The Club Kids" were a unified group like the Crips or the Bloods. Club kids are not (note my use of the PRESENT tense,) a cohesive group. The term club kid refers to young people who frequent dance clubs in NYC. THere are as many different types of club kid as there are types of dance clubs. There are MILLIONS of clubbers in the tri state area. They do not all identify with one another. Lumping them all tongether into a single group is like claiming there is a nation wide group called "The College Kids."
2) Since club kids are not a unified group, by definition they can't have a leader. Michael Alig heavily participated in the scene and he was very popular in his particular group. Not every club kid knew him, nor had all of them heard of him. He was a popular guy, he was not the leader of a youth oriented criminal underground.
3) They always refer to clubbing as a specific trend of a particular era. "The Club Kids reigned in the early to mid 90's." Last time I checked, clubbing hadn't gone out of vogue. Poeple still club, the culture is still very alive, and it is completely incorrect to make it seem as though the activity died when Michael Alig was locked up. Because after all thats what clubbing is AN ACTIVITY, not a Club unto itself.
This misunderstanding of club culture gives outsiders a very skewed and incorrect sense of what clubbing really is, and since I know club kids, and still somewhat admire club culture, that aggrivates me.
Hope that didn't come off too garbbled and incoherent.
What interests me most is how, ten years later, the media is portraying the culture in which the Angel Menendez murder took place, and the portrayal of Michael Alig. I've watched countless documentaries about the murder, and in each and every one of them they hail Michael Alig as "the leader of the club kids, a group of outrageous misfits who roamed the city streets in the early to mid 90's."
That characterization pisses me off for several reasons:
1) They make it sound as though "The Club Kids" were a unified group like the Crips or the Bloods. Club kids are not (note my use of the PRESENT tense,) a cohesive group. The term club kid refers to young people who frequent dance clubs in NYC. THere are as many different types of club kid as there are types of dance clubs. There are MILLIONS of clubbers in the tri state area. They do not all identify with one another. Lumping them all tongether into a single group is like claiming there is a nation wide group called "The College Kids."
2) Since club kids are not a unified group, by definition they can't have a leader. Michael Alig heavily participated in the scene and he was very popular in his particular group. Not every club kid knew him, nor had all of them heard of him. He was a popular guy, he was not the leader of a youth oriented criminal underground.
3) They always refer to clubbing as a specific trend of a particular era. "The Club Kids reigned in the early to mid 90's." Last time I checked, clubbing hadn't gone out of vogue. Poeple still club, the culture is still very alive, and it is completely incorrect to make it seem as though the activity died when Michael Alig was locked up. Because after all thats what clubbing is AN ACTIVITY, not a Club unto itself.
This misunderstanding of club culture gives outsiders a very skewed and incorrect sense of what clubbing really is, and since I know club kids, and still somewhat admire club culture, that aggrivates me.
Hope that didn't come off too garbbled and incoherent.
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