Last year, Jamie Lee Curtis went to Jimmy Fallon’s show, where he performed a parody of the famous aerobics class sequence from ‘Perfect’ (1985), the film that, along with ‘Staying Alive’ (1983) – a sequel to ‘Saturday Night Fever’ (1977), directed and written by Sylvester Stallone! – most contributed to sinking John Travolta’s career during the 1980s.
The scene, which over time has acquired the status of a camp gem (the entire film is not enough), was conceived at the time as a vehicle for the show off of a sensual and toned Lee Curtis, whose powerful and ultra-shaved groins, barely covered by a tiny leotard, challenged the conventions of the corporal and genital aesthetics of the time.
However, the sequence contained a second, even more groundbreaking reading. The clever James Bridges, who had already made Travolta dance country in ‘City Cowboy’ (1980) dressed in tighter jeans than those of the Tom of Finland characters, went one step further in ‘Perfect’: he made Hollywood’s main male sex symbol do aerobics in shorts to the rhythm of Whitney Houston’s ‘Shock Me’.
In ‘Dance No More’, Harry Styles recovers the festive spirit of ‘Perfect’ and claims the power of attraction of retro-style red mini shorts, legs as strong as the pelvic floor of the Curtis and a good microphone in permanent and hypnotic swing.
The video clip is conceived as a great collective choreography articulated around the magnetism of dance: each hip bump and each movement of the microphone by Styles seem to exert an irresistible force of attraction on those around him, progressively dragging them towards the singer. A dance that works almost like a spell: Styles casts a spell on his audience, who end up surrendering to the (pop) idol in a kind of Dionysian coven.
