It has been awhile, but having now finished a big project, I’m back to regular blogging. And what better topic for getting back into it than the current election stuff. I do have a lot to say. In particular, about this strange ascension of Hillary Clinton and the genuinely baffling coverage of the “race.” OK, that’s a cheap pun, but I had to. I’ll pass over the saucier stuff on, say, Vincent Foster, whose case would send lefties over the edge (rightly) if the name had been Bush or Cheney, not Clinton. There are other things to discuss. Read the rest of this entry »
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OK, so the really important summer television is over. The finale of So You Think You Can Dance? is finished and I’ll admit to being a little surprised at the results. I had assumed the winner would be Lacey or Neil, so imagine my surprise. A damn happy surprise, seeing Danny and Sabra as the final two finalists. The finale competitive show (not the final final show) also brought out a whole lot of stuff I’ve been writing about for the past two months. Namely, anxiety about masculinity and the strange place of dance in mass cultural consumption.
Last week, I wrote up the week’s So You Think You Can Dance? with a focus on the role of choreography, namely, how bad or indecisive choreography was hurting certain dancers. That made this week’s episode so interesting – everyone dances the same routine? Hmmm. Still, that didn’t keep choreography from sinking Jaime. Sadly. And this week’s episode also revisited an old motif: anxiety about masculinity and sexuality.
Let me add to the way-too-many posts around the internet concerning Cindy Sheehan. She’s such an odd player on the media-politics scene, really. Few real vocal sympathizers in the image-media scene – though, it is worth saying, her take on the War in Iraq has been pretty much mainstream for the past year: back that shit up and come home.
What has been so divisive, if not uniformly hostile, about Sheehan’s presence? I get the hostility from the Right. They want her to go away because she’s too public and too sensitive of a figure for blunt, mean-spirited critique. You could almost hear the Right’s sigh of relief when she met with Chavez. Read the rest of this entry »
Tonight’s results show begins with a little taste of the Other, as the show often does. One of the things that makes the show so good is the way that we as the audience are exposed to all forms of dance. At the same time, this demanded accessibility changes the dance form itself. Read the rest of this entry »
I really just don’t get So You Think You Can Dance? judging. Which is to say, I think I bring the wrong set of principles. Naively, I’ve been watching the show with the expectation that marginal dancers are on the way out, exceptional dancers staying around to develop. Especially since this year’s group is exceptional. This week’s goodbye to Jimmy means I’m wrong. Read the rest of this entry »
I’m late with this one. Alas. So, I’ll start by just saying it: the fact that Ricky got cut is really obnoxious and wrong. Sure, this season’s competition is extra-tense and close and all that, but, seriously, Ricky was an amazingly beautiful dancer. He’s off the show and brings with his ejection all sorts of quirks about So You Think You Can Dance? Read the rest of this entry »
It’s my obsession in this writing space: the gap between the spectacular play of images and the material reality of those images. It’s actually too easy. We’ve really lost that connection, or, at the very least, we’ve decided that that connection can be set aside without explanation. Sports is an exemplary site, but one shaded by gender issues. Witness Mechelle Voepel’s write up of Chamique Holdsclaw’s sudden retirement. Read the rest of this entry »
I am so happy to move beyond the humiliation teasers on So You Think You Can Dance? and into the real competition. Cuts, dancing for your life, focus on how people manifest their talents through exhaustion and pressure. You know, the real reason one might tune in if one imagines oneself as not a complete jerk. I’m still a little traumatized by the humiliation thing, but I’ll pretty much leave it behind. Except to say that it is totally unnecessary. This is a compelling and exciting show without juvenile antics. Seriously.
A recent episode of CSI: NY opened with a beautiful woman strutting her stuff at what appeared to be a strip club. Flash to the bathroom: she’s dead, head in the toilet, and the CSI crew is there to solve the crime. But who would kill this foxy Jane Doe in her prime? Read the rest of this entry »