Thursday, August 16, 2007

SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DRINK: Last night, whilst four dancers were dancing, I was participating in a somewhat different ritual: three ladies drinking margaritas. Consequently, I have not yet watched the penultimate SYTYCD. Nor have I watched last night's Top Chef, and thus did not know that the ThingThrowers were hijacking the Top Chef discussion thread with their quest for a SYTYCD discussion thread. Our Fearless Leader having enlightened me as to all of this, I continue to have nothing to say on the dancing at this time, and so will stop talking and let you all discuss Danny, Lacey, Sabra, and Neil by yourselves. I'll chime in again tonight after I watch both the dancing and the results.

Edited by Isaac to add:

Earlier this season, I posted about the weird case of SYTYCD’s inclusion of what I interpreted as a coming-out story, meaning a coming-out-as-a-gay-man story, edited as a coming-out-as-a-dancer story. My take on it was that the show has a weirdly ambivalent relationship with homosexuality. It operates in a world, like the art and fashion worlds, in which a disproportionate number of prominent people are gay, it frequently celebrates the work of gay artists (how many times have they trotted out Adam Shankman?), and it appears – though I hesitate to say this, because I can’t confirm – to select contestants on a sexual-orientation-blind basis. On the other hand, the show needs to appeal to the broadest audience possible, which includes viewers who may not be as disinterested as the producers and judges in sexual orientation.

The show’s compromise appears to be: (1) assume an implicit don’t-ask-don’t-tell agreement with its audience; and (2) promote the (implicitly heterosexual) masculinity of the male dancers at all times (SYTYCD, like a lot of other things, has this problem only with male homosexuality). Hence Cat Deeley, who already comes across as the most genially-clueless giantess in Hollywood, repeatedly talking about how Pasha and Neil made the girls go crazy with their shirtlessness; hence the camera shots of the Claymatesque tween girls with their Neil signs; hence Nigel’s manic-repetitive proclamations that this contestant or that one has made dancing cool for tough boys in the inner city. To people who haven’t chosen to pretend that homosexuality doesn’t exist, two of those three things may actually seem more unintentionally gay than intentionally butch, but whatever.

Last night, the show found itself with a dilemma. I don’t know if it has done this in past seasons, but it committed itself to having each dancer pair up for a piece with each other dancer. M-F dances, no problem. Two women, no problem (well, slight problem in that nobody knew what to make of it – what’s the deal with Robson and the Wild Kingdom, anyway?). Two men, problem. I think the program didn’t want to show men dancing together – not together as a couple, mind you, but even the kind of together you might see at any dance recital, with dancers creating space with their bodies and doing synchronized jumpy-stuff and what-not, not to get too technical on you. Too confrontational for our audience, one might imagine Lythgoe saying. So I am guessing (and it’s just a guess), that the show asked Mia Michaels to choreograph something totally ungay. And what’s less gay than senseless violence? Voila, Sharks vs. Jets dance-fighting, but with totally-not-phallic sword-handling. I don’t know, I just find it comical the extent to which this show will go to avoid alienating bigots (or at least the advertisers who fear them).

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