5 screwed up things about "Dancing with the Stars"

I would love to ramble, but this is an exercise in to-the-pointness. Anyone who knows me, knows I usually fail miserably and take 4 hours to talk about something that lasted 1 hour. Yikes! Here we go:

1. If you are dancing "with the stars", then clearly, the dancers and dance as an art-form are not the "star" of the show. I realize the genre of the show is reality tv-ballroom dance competition. I realize that it gives people like my grandma, aunt, mom, and dad a bi-weekly exposure to ballroom dance. I hear them use "dance words" like: grace, finesse, rhythm, coordination, footwork, and partnering to describe the duets they see on T.V. But...what kind of message does the title send??? "Dancing WITH the stars" Who are the heroes here? The stars are the heroes. And more than that, the focus of the show is STARDOM NOT DANCE. There are celebrity (sort of) judges, there is competition, there is the idea of popularity (winners are chosen American Idol-style...by call-ins), and there are pop singer appearances and performances becuase I guess,clearly, the producers don't have faith that glitzy dance will be enough to hold the viewer's attention.
   
2. I'm not saying the show has to be didactic and teach us all about ballroom dance, but AT LEAST teach us something real about work ethics and dance! The ideas of discipline, competition, and hard work are bff's with the artform of dance. Freakin Martha Graham says...hey it takes 10 years to make a dancer! What does that even mean? The conflicting belief system that some hold is that: even if I have never "danced" before, if I put my mind and body to dancing and I begin to dance, well then, shit...I am a dancer. Both ideas are lovely and there are infinite shades of gray that lie between the two ideas. What complex and great concepts to really honestly communicate to viewers, but "Dancing with the Stars" sells us short yet again! If you've seen the short clips that they show of the stars and their professional ballroom dancer-partners in rehearsal, they usually just show the bloopers (ex. someone tripping over her partner's feet). We usually hear the critical, yet sometimes hopeful advice as the professional coaches the amateur star, but that is all we get. Morals learned: "Practice makes perfect" and "Never Give Up!" Any Kindergatener can spit out these basic principles. These are morals for children's books and kids shows, not for adults! Sesame Street teaches more complex values than this.
3. Censorship, SEX, bleh! Why do people do ballroom dance in the first place? Well...I should do my research, but from what I know, Tango is very much about sex, love, and dealing with pain or loss. Then I think of jive, swing, etc. 1920's type dances...jitterbug...and I think woah...they are about liberation, celebration, athleticism, real vigor and energy. No ballroom dance style I've named has been about Fake sex or Fake fun, yet this is all I see on Dancing with The Stars. I see grinding...almost (but then it is diluted with a cutsey smile to the camera or a twirling spin) I see skimpy outfits on the women...almost everyone has cleavage and exposed legs (but it is watered down just enough so nothing is actually erotic). I see pelvises almost touching, but not quite touching. I see men grabbing women's thighs, but the sexual content is kept luke-warm. This bothers me cause sex is something real...It is something that you, me, and the next guy can relate to. As a dancer, who is always interested in sensation, muscle memory, and imagination...I think that sex deals with these ideas in an even more real way than dance.(compare the last time you got some to the last dance class you took...which do you remember more? okay then!). Maybe part of the reason why my grandma, aunt, mom, and dad watch DWTS is because "sex sells", but what's being marketed is some"respectable" censored version of sex that reminds me more of JonBenet Ramsey than a porno. Isn't it hypocritical for someone to watch Dancing With the Stars and enjoy the wealth of boobs, and shaking, and spread eagle lifts and jumps...and then to harshly criticize the bikini-clad girls in Jay Z.'s new video who are backing their asses up toward the camera? What makes us draw lines between what is "respectably sexy" and what is lude. Is it race? Is it fame? Is it socio economic standing? Is it age? I think they all have something to do with it.
4. What is it we can realte to? My dad was making the argument that the popularity of DWTS is great and has even caused some inner city schools to expose the students to ballroom dancing during their physical education classes. I still can't see the good. How is that fair for hypothetical inner city school 3rd grader "A" ? Granted the learning of a dance form is always a positive thing, but do you realize how much money goes into ballroom dancing...how much it costs to actually compete or even continue taking lessons in the real world? If a kid actually wanted to pursue it, do you realize that the cost of the shoes alone would probably buy her text books for one whole year? I'm not saying its impossible, but to me it seems as if the wrong people are deciding what kind of dance to expose these kids to. I don't know much about the ballroom dance world, but I'd like to see the socio-economic standing of most of the dancers in the ballroom community. I am sure it is VERY high. It doesn't seem right that the corporate funders, the companies who advertise on commercial breaks of DWTS, can decide what inner city school children should be exposed to. It doesn't seem right to say, "Here learn this highly competitive dance form that in the real world requires money, prestige, body image, and talent to succeed in. Then go home, flip on the television, and watch celebrities look like heroes on DWTS. You can relate to that??? Right guys???" I wish I could articulate this thought better, but it just doesn't seem right. It feels like these rich people are mainly doing these outreach programs to give themselves another pat on the back.
5. Thats all...I rambled enough on 1-4...so who needs a 5th reason? These are my opinions...they are still morphing and changing, but at least they are some food for thought! Later.

Dancing with the stars

My family loves Dancing With the Stars...
to the point that when I call home when an episode (or even a rerun)is on, they ask me to call back when its over.

My grandma sits on her couch, her heating pad cranked up to soothe her arthritic back. She eats popcorn and drinks some root beer and has a night of pure enjoyment.

My aunt calls her friend in New York after each episode to chat about who got kicked off and how lovely XYZ performed and how ungraceful and cocky ABC was.

My dad dotes over DEF's foxtrot and my mom criticizes the judges for being too harsh on GHI. My dad grabs the remote and cranks up the volume when a good ballad with jazz chords is chosen as a couple's accompaniment. My mom reaches for the remote to bring the volume back down to normal at commercial breaks.

Basically they all really and genuinely dig this shit, and my guess is that they are just a microcosm of a Dancing With the Stars-loving-society.
This leaves me thinking and then mumbling under my breath, "What is this world coming too?"
hmmm...this line sounds all too familiar. Why have I heard that before?

My Pop pop used to say it "What is this world coming to?" about the Beatles and their long hair. A barber,Pop pop was as straight edge as the razors he used. He was pretty sure that long hair would lead to the downfall of the country. But even my Pop pop, I think, if he were still alive, wouldn't like Dancing with the Stars. He'd shuffle past the cable box and flip on horse racing instead, my grandma, all the while, hopelessly pouting and pleading with him to go back to the dance show.

My dad used to say, "what is this world coming to?" to me. I'd be watching MTV Real World, and it never failed. As soon as Dad would walk into the living room the parts where Ruthie was sobbing and squealing out "I just can't do this fucking shit anymore. Its just too much" and then guzzling liquor or the parts where Lindsay and Cara were grinding in the club, or the parts where Jay was revealing that he was Bi-sexual in the hot tub... Dad would always walk in at these moments and would shake his head, roll his eyes, and say "What is this world coming to?" Sometimes he would follow it by saying, "These people are all unstable, and they all have emotional problems. Don't they?"
But Dad, Don't we all?...have emotional problems? Don't we all just want to feel good?

So Dancing With the Stars is a FEEL GOOD show. It is entertainment. It exposes the world...the football loving, un-artsy world that may never experience dance in their day to day life, to ballroom dance. It makes people smile. It makes my grandma forget about her aching back, my Aunt forget that she lives alone, and my parents forget that they are almost senior citizens. So I pose the question to myself:
What is wrong with a show that does this? AND What is wrong with the world that appreciates it? Maybe I am the pretentious bitch for being completely opposed to the show.

I have lots of reasons why I oppose to the show and enjoy thinking of myself as a fairly unpretentious and unbitchy person. I will post them soon.