.Saturday Night Fever
Saturday Night Fever's Reflection on Italian-American Youths
Saturday Night Fever is one of the most popular and critically acclaimed depictions of Italian-Americans in film. It follows the life of Tony Manero, a young man, who at the beginning of the film is content to spend his life working at a local hardware store. Historically, Italian-Americans were concentrated in a few neighborhoods in Queens and Brooklyn. Adult children stayed close to their parents and the rest of their family, often working in family businesses. Tony and his friends are resigned to spending the rest of their life in Brooklyn; they have no ambitions beyond their current place in life. Even though they recognize the hopelessness of their situation, they don’t have the means to succeed.Even the gender relations in the movie demonstrates the traditional superior male role over the female, as the men in the movie have their choice of women and take advantage of them while the women easily succumb to these pressures. It is often perceived that in this youth culture, girls are seen as inferior to boys and are expected to fulfill the traditional domestic roles as they grow up. The movie also portrays the family dynamic. The Maneros sit down together for a family meal every night and Tony's brother's involvement with the Church always makes the family proud. When the brother returns and says he quit being a priest the family is devastated and speechless except for Tony.
In addition, the film is a groundbreaking performance of non-normative heterosexual Italian American masculinity. The movie does a great job at sexualizing John Travolta’s character Tony. Specifically, with the self-grooming scene before he goes out. This scene helps to change the binary in representations of gender. The whole scene is a process. A ritual of sorts. As stated by Stelios Christodoulou in his article “‘A straight heterosexual film’: Masculinity, Sexuality, and Ethnicity in Saturday Night Fever”, he says “never before Saturday Night Fever had a heterosexual male movie hero spent so much time on his toilette” (Christodoulou p.8). The scene starts with Tony using a hairdryer and then shifts to him using a hairbrush to precisely comb his hair. The rest of the scene shifts to a series of “fetishizing shots of Travolta’s body” (Christodoulou. 9). The scene focuses on his chest, his biceps, and his crotch. His body is viewed as a spectacle. It is evident Tony cares a lot about his appearance. This is shown during the dinner scene when his dad hits his head and Tony responds with “Would ya just watch the hair. Ya know, I work on my hair a long time and you hit it. He hits my hair”. Tony could care less that his dad hit him, he just cares that he hit him on his head. Instead of saying he hit me, he says he hit my hair, prioritizing his hair and looks over himself.
Also, Race is a major aspect of the portrayal of Italian-Americans in the movie. In the racial hierarchy of America, ethnic whites were considered inferior to the WASPs. They constantly had to differentiate themselves from minorities like the African Americans and Hispanics. This resulted in outbreaks of racially motivated violence. The situation was exacerbated by the fact that poverty forced minorities and ethnic whites to live in the same neighborhoods. One of the most explosive scenes in the movie is when Tony and his friends go fight a group of Hispanics who they believe beat up their friend. Not only are they avenging their friend, they are also staking their claim on the neighborhood and defending their turf.
