Image Credit: Party Monster - Rotten Tomatoes. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/party_monster/. [Accessed 14 November 2014].
During today's lesson with Sharon, we were introduced to the idea of Contemporary Club Culture through watching the film Party Monster, which was made in 2003. 'Party Monster'' tells the story of a young man from the provinces who finds glamour and fame in the big city, allow he finds fame he soon ruins his chances of stardom through excessive use of drugs.
Whilst watching the film we see what New York nightlife was like in the 1980's and early 90's. Ruled by chaotic, colourful kids, their passion for drugs, celebrities and disco led to the birth of the 'Club Kids' - a colourful gang of hedonists riding the cusp of ecstasy culture in 90s New York before addiction and murder blew their high.
Image Credit: Holeh Pocket: [inspired by] Party Monster. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.holehpocket.com/2014/06/inspired-by-party-monster.html. [Accessed 14 November 2014].
Alig (played by Macaulay Culkin) used his life as his art and his body as his canvas, showing the personification of Andy Warhol's inescapable adage about everyone being famous for 15 minutes. Party Monster definitely captures the numbing excess of hedonism without any boundaries.
To me, Party Monster and Cabaret are linked when it comes to the extreme party lifestyle, many of the characters lives in Party Monster and Cabaret are full of drugs and extremely sexual. In Berlin in the past, it was common to see people having sex on the dance floors. In the venues’ “dark rooms”, specifically set up for anonymous sex with strangers, there were mass orgies involving hundreds of people. The blatant sex was fuelled by brazen drug-taking just like that of the Club Kids of the 80's and 90's.
Image Credit: Review: The Rep’s “Cabaret,” a blockbuster with guts - Urban Milwaukee Dial. [ONLINE] Available at: http://urbanmilwaukeedial.com/2010/09/18/review-the-reps-cabaret-a-blockbuster-with-guts/. [Accessed 14 November 2014].
Even now, you’re only allowed into the KitKat in Berlin if you’re wearing fetish clothing or nothing at all. In the KitKat, the walls are lined with huge pornographic paintings, caters to as many as 1,500 people each weekend. Kate Moss has said it’s her favourite club in Berlin, a city she rightly calls “dark and erotic”. This was the same in Weimar Berlin and Party Monster is eerily reminiscent of the decadence of Weimar Berlin in the 1920s and early 1930s.
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