960.jpg)
It's not the fact that it took the show 5 seasons to have the first two guy couple audition.
What I hate isn't that the two guys fell during their routine.
Or that one of them had to make a point to assure us viewers that he's straight.
It's not even that Misha and Mitchel were all puffed up about how "masculine" their dance was going to be (as they had double the masculine energy) while they stood there with their flowing hip scarves and plunging necklines.
What I hate is how UNCOMFORTABLE a romantic same-gender dance made the judges.
Check it out:
Oh, and that line of Nigel Lythgoe's
WHO does Nigel think is watching his show??? It made him uncomfortable, and the only cover he could come up with for his own homophobia was to try to put it off on saying 'oh, America's not ready for this...'
"I think you probably alienate a lot of our audience."
Argh!!!
And he continued...
"I'm certainly one of those people who like to see guys be guys and girls be girls on stage. I don't think I liked it. To be frank."Oh, it made him (and all the judges) squirm!
And then, that final line of Nigel's:
"You know what, I'd like to see you both dance with a girl."
And then the other two judges agreed!!!
When they saw them dance with women (in the choreography section) shockingly enough, neither Misha or Mitchel got to go to Vegas.
While the judges were polite on the surface, their VAST discomfort with the whole notion of two men being romantic with each other SCREAMED out. Nigel even had to cover his eyes at one point during the audition! He couldn't even look.
Ugh.
How do you spell homophobic?
S-o-Y-o-u-T-h-i-n-k-Y-o-u-C-a-n-D-a-n-c-e
I don't know if I can watch the show again. Someone let me know if a gay dancer makes it into the top 20, okay?
Namaste,
Lee
7 comments:
I'm getting the message This is a private video. Please make sure you accept the sender's friend request
argh!
I'll try to find another feed of it,
namaste,
Lee
OH NO!!
I missed Vegas week so I didn't see any of that. DAMN. Of course you know Simon & Nigel have been business partners in the past; it reeks of Adam all over again
This show is my one summer pleasure. I think I still have to watch it. But I'll boo and hiss the whole way through and throw popcorn at the judges' (none of whom I like, anyway) faces on screen.
Interestingly, maybe?, is that I did notice this seems to be the most ethnically diverse year. I will be curious to see how that plays out.
Okay, it's fixed - try clicking play on it now - 8:11am
Namaste,
Lee
Maybe it's because I'm in the UK but it's now saying invalid parameters.
I get the gist anyway and I'm with you on it. I'm surprised that level of homophobia is considered acceptable by anyone in a public role today.
before 'so you think you can dance' became the global thing it is, we had a much lower rent version of the show on the ABC (the national broadcasting channel in Australia) in 2004-5 - the then host, Paul McDermott insisted on the inclusion of same sex couples as a condition of being part of the show, and there were quite a few, especially in the first season - I'm pretty sure no same sex couples won any of the three seasons but I remember them at least getting to final stages on more than one occasion.
I always thought it was awesome to see same gender couples trying to re-interpret the dances - and I seem to recall that the m/m couples generally were more confident & sexy with it, while the women tended to have more of a 'well I couldn't find a male partner' vibe about them.
They were certainly never treated as being anything other than dancers equal with the m/f couples! That was one of the nice things about the show. Sorry to hear that things are still so BACKWARD in a far more mainstream show...
I couldn't get the video to load on your site but was able to watch it on Youtube. I don't think the fact that they weren't moved up was homophobic (their performance wasn't exactly seamless) but the laughter was, and the comments were so inappropriate. Part of the reason why I never watch this type of show. As a person with common decency, I'm generally alienated by the judges, LOL.
Post a Comment