by Raine Petrie, Staff Writer

The first time I pressed play and entered the fantastical realm of Xanadu, I, like Sonny Malone after being kissed by a beautiful rollerskating stranger, was immediately entranced. As a lover of both eighties cheese and seventies disco, the infamous Olivia Newton-John-starring flop felt as though it was made by cocaine-fuelled scientists in a lab for a gay person like me, the bafflingly bizarre extravagance presented on screen, countless flaws and all, living up to the title’s meaning of idyllic opulence in my eyes. Critically panned and a box office bomb, this last hurrah of the roller-disco era is, outside of its hugely successful double-platinum soundtrack, perhaps most remembered now for spawning The Golden Raspberry Awards, aka The Razzies, the notorious “anti-Oscars” award show dedicated to celebrating cinematic “failures”. As I sat in pure awe as the credits rolled, I couldn’t help but notice a trend — that many cult films beloved by predominantly women and LGBT audiences also happen to be some of the most critically shit-on films in cinematic history, and how movies such as these with over-the-top campy elements apparently cannot hold actual value and be genuinely enjoyed outside of the veil of pure irony.

To make one thing perfectly clear, I am in no way arguing that Xanadu is undeserving of negative criticism. Almost every decision in the film is legendarily strange — The story itself, of a frustrated artist encountering a mysterious rollerskating Greek muse who motivates him to team up with a former big-band star to create a roller-disco, is in many ways a good precursor to understanding the film’s messiness going in. While Olivia Newton-John’s role as Kira is one of the only non-human characters in the story, by the bewildering dialogue and behavior of the other characters in the film, you wouldn’t know it. Our protagonist Sonny Malone moves through life like there are no consequences to his actions and there oftentimes seemingly isn’t, such as when he is begrudgingly invited back to his album art reproduction job at AirFlo Records, a job he quit on bad terms, and then immediately leaves for hours at a time to go roller-skate around Venice Beach and hang out with a clarinet-playing old man.

In under 24 hours before the official opening of Xanadu, he goes from saying its debut will be “the most beautiful night in the world” to grumbling that “Xanadu doesn’t matter anymore” the next morning, a fact that somehow doesn’t cause his business partner Danny McBride (Gene Kelly) to lose his mind, despite sinking his fortune into the nightclub. Michael Beck’s performance of Sonny Malone has what I call the “Streets of Fire dilemma”, wherein the lead actor’s performance bogs down a film with otherwise engaging elements and vast potential. And don’t even get me started on the corny overly-sentimental lines about love and dreams…

Yet, to me, that is what makes Xanadu all the more magical, and is why I believe many critics struggle to take the film on its own terms. Expressed perfectly by one Letterboxd user, “This is not a film - it’s an extended music video experience culled from the frequency of another planet’s broadcast waves.” In a disco fairytale, the true main characters are the music, the choreography, the fashion, and the set pieces, and all of these (for the right viewer) are still dazzling, completely unironically. Olivia Newton-John is so ethereal that she radiates even without the help of wonderfully dated sci-fi neon effects, and Gene Kelly, in his final film role before his retirement, brims with the same charisma as he did back when he was still singin’ in the rain. The infectiously upbeat energy generated from ELO and Olivia Newton-John’s smash-hit soundtrack paired with the mesmerizing excess of overcrowded dance sequences is absurdly entertaining, and to me makes the weak script more forgivable. After all, when you watch magic performed in front of you, you’re not meant to look for the logic behind what you are seeing, you’re meant to believe it and be in awe of what’s unfolding in front of you. With Xanadu, whether you watch it ironically or unironically, I have a hard time imagining any viewer not being in awe of what they are seeing, let alone not having at least a little bit of fun with it.

Ultimately, this is why I find it difficult to lump in this mythological musical with other notorious “so-bad-it’s-good” titles. As someone who has watched way too many bad movies in their day (movies that, interestingly, The Razzies seemingly never make their targets despite being failures on every conceivable level, such as The Room, Birdemic: Shock and Terror and Neil Breen’s entire filmography), Xanadu in comparison is never a boring slog nor devoid of genuinely great qualities— From performers like Kelly and Newton-John, the dancers and choreographers, the costume designers, the incredible forties big band and eighties rock mashup number (one of the absolute highlights of the film), and even in one animated segment the work of legendary artist Don Bluth, legitimate talent is on display, and despite its (admittedly many) shortcomings, these moments still shine bright, just like the sequins on Kira’s iconic jumpsuit. In this way, a large bulk of the intensely negative backlash this film received upon release reminds me of an angry man wearing a “DISCO SUCKS” T-shirt — It was never going to work for him anyway.

John J.B. Wilson, the founder of The Razzies, is the man in that T-shirt. A man who, after watching a disco double feature in 1980 (the other film being the iconic gay disco group The Village People’s fictionalized origin story Can’t Stop The Music) demanded a refund, and from that day forward made it his mission in life to tear down mainstream movie mistakes. To be explicitly clear once again, it is not my intention to take a “let people enjoy things” approach to cinema. It cannot be stressed enough how necessary media critique is, and there’s no problem with making fun of movies you do not care for. I do however notice a pattern at the Razzies wherein some of the award show’s biggest offenders, such as Xanadu, Mommie Dearest and Showgirls, are all films that have amassed devoted cult followings predominately made up of women and LGBT people, making me wonder if these films were ever truly meant to be for the audiences that tore them to shreds in the first place (remember the demographic that makes up the majority of film critics). Sure there are many members of these cult fanbases who would also call these films terrible, but they still find genuine value in their camp aesthetics — Their theatricality, hyper-exaggeration and lavish excess genuinely appeals to them. The severity of these film’s critical backlashes have a sinister underbelly to them. It’s not that there’s nothing to criticize, it’s that the extremity of harsher criticism often verges on becoming (if not explicitly becomes) misogynist and/or homophobic in nature.

This is par for the course though when it comes to The Razzies, an award show that has been criticized numerous times for these exact issues. It is depressing to me that a movie so oddly original, joyous and full of heart like Xanadu spawned such a mean-spirited ceremony that nominates child actors for their performances, has been known to be particularly cruel in their targeting of certain women for their notations, and has infamously repeatedly abbreviated “Transformers” to “Trannies”. If the subject matter and special effects in Xanadu are considered dated then The Razzies are long dead, yet they are still reanimated every year with less and less cultural value and relevance. But hey, if Shelley Duvall’s performance and Stanley Kubrick’s directing in The Shining and Ennio Morricone’s score for The Thing are apparently considered Razzie-worthy, then at least Xanadu shares in good company.

The founder and the philosophy of the Razzies reminds me of Sonny Malone’s hard-ass boss Simpson at Airflow Records, who reprimands Sonny for not painting what he’s supposed to paint. Like the production of Xanadu, wherein the script was constantly changing during filming and took risks with its ridiculously over-the-top and silly moments, Sonny takes chances by improvising his art and getting creative, something that doesn’t always work out (especially critically and financially) but still has an undeniable talent and an artistic spirit behind these decisions. His boss doesn’t acknowledge this however, and instead lectures him on the importance of following the rules of the company. Simpson himself followed this lesson, as he was previously an artist before “smartening up” and becoming a businessman, now spending his time chastising artists for failing to live up to his expectations. Before founding The Razzies, John J.B. Wilson previously studied film and television in university and became a film marketer, ultimately abandoning this to pursue his cynical ceremony that, coincidentally, also chastises artists for failing to live up to mainstream filmic expectations. Both Simpson and Wilson are quick to insult artists who dare to be different, only Simpson does so sitting behind his desk, while Wilson does so behind his podium.

Olivia Newton-John would’ve turned 75 this September, and if you are someone who has previously dismissed Xanadu, I urge you to give it another try in her honor. The campy disco delight is definitely not for everyone, but even if watched from a “so-bad-it’s-good” perspective, it’s very likely that you will leave the film thoroughly entertained, in a bewildered sense at the very least. For God’s sake, Gene Kelly gets his very own 80s fashion montage, complete with new wave-styled mannequins dancing to life to help him, what’s not to love about that? Xanadu is far from perfect, but it’s a special kind of magic that’s power lasts for maybe just one moment, or forever. I keep getting them mixed up.