Here is how to create yet another tear-jerking competition show. Take people with some dance talent (think: So You Think You Can Dance), pair each contestant with a professional who choreographs and performs a new weekly dance with them (think: Dancing With the Stars) and add a weight-loss competition (think: The Big Loser). Now, set up a panel of three judges, ensuring that – like most such shows – there is an arrogant white British guy and a woman with a personality disorder among them.
Voila! You’ve got the new Oxygen network competition series Dance Your Ass Off. The contestants are a diverse crew, even including the charming Ruben, whose long-term boyfriend is fighting cancer. You need people who are happy to cry onscreen, whether it is because her super-size prevents her from finding love or because he is afraid of dying young from diabetes like his father did.
Be sure to spike their energy drinks with an inordinate amount of vigor so that they are screaming and jumping up and down whenever they aren’t actually dancing. Then build a massive center stage scale which the dancers mount for their public weigh-in following each performance. The combination of weight loss and judges’ dance scores determines who gets sent home.
These competition shows are all about the transformation. We thrill when a street popper defies the low-ball expectations of an haughty judge and performs an elegant fox-trot (So You Think You Can Dance). We cheer on Jerry Springer in his awkward but sincere quest to master the waltz before his daughter’s wedding (Dancing with the Stars). And the 66% of Americans who, according to the CDC, are overweight identify with many of the ways in which the Dance Your Ass Off contestants mourn their social invisibility or their role as an object of derision. It’s not news that American society promotes an excessively slender image of beauty and success while selling the greasiest, saltiest, bulkiest food with a gusto that makes fast-food one of the few industries doing well in this economic meltdown.
The producers know that many viewers are also hoping to unleash their “inner thin,” as they call it, and what better way to get there than to be a dance star? Pinky is bummed out to be excluded from her brothers’ hip-hop dance crew and believes that once she sheds the pounds, she’ll be deemed good enough. Ruben, by far the oldest at 43, used to dance in musicals and loves the stage. Brandon is the shy virgin who finds the partner dancing embarrassingly (thrillingly?) intimate.
The team includes the requisite work-out and nutrition experts and is hosted by the excessively big-haired actress Marissa Jaret Winokur, who won a Tony as Hairspray’s plump Tracy Turnblad on Broadway. As the elimination weeks roll by, I figure that if I can’t be a contestant, then I’ll be a viewing couch potato. I like my tearful transformations as well as the next sap.
This review first appeared on EdgeBoston.com and other Edge publications. I meant to post it here for you a few weeks ago, but forgot, blush.
If you're around my age, then you grew up with Johnny Carson in the background, if not the foreground. In fact, have I mentioned that when we used to sit around in the 60s fantasizing about what our roles would be after the Revolution, while others wanted to be Minister of Peace or Secretary of Education, I planned to replace Johnny Carson. I'd have my cousin Sandy as my sidekick, just as Carson had Ed McMahon, who died today. A Facebook friend posted this clip and I think it shows the essence of their relationship.
If so, I'm going to be on the Michael Koran show on CCTV, live, at 7:00pm Sunday, June 14. Just talking. Later it may be shown on MichaelKoran.Blip.TV, apparently.
Britain’s Got Talent was won by a dance crew named Diversity, not by Susan Boyle, the Scottish woman whose lovely singing voice was successfully fetishized by the Simon Cowell publicity machine. There have been plenty of commentaries on how Susan Boyle, by singing quite nicely, confounded the assumptions (“spinster,” “dowdy,” asexual “virgin,” “simple”) that accompanied her first appearance on the competition show. More astute observers have pointed to the sexism, ageism and classism inherent in those assumptions.
Anyway, I always thought Boyle’s performances were quite “pitchy” – as Randy Jackson, a judge on competitor American Idol says when some notes don’t quite get where they are going. But her voice has never been the issue. Building on hundreds of millions (!) of YouTube views of Boyle’s debut, the show’s producers have kept her well in the spotlight, happily increasing their audience.
I didn’t want her loss to go unremarked, although the whole saga has ultimately been just another p.r. exercise based on distasteful condescension. Boyle has been very useful –Britain’s Got Talent has received huge international attention since the video of her first appearance went viral – but her job (and the season) is done.
British tabloids did their share by questioning her mental health. “The singer's increasingly strange behaviour has sparked fears that she may suffer a breakdown - or be axed from tomorrow's final,” the sleazy Sun wrote the day before the final. Even the quality papers couldn’t resist a post-performance judgment: “Oozing confidence and betraying none of the nerves that had reportedly seen her throw public tantrums in the days leading up to the final, Boyle nevertheless appeared more subdued than on previous appearances.” (You can see her final performance here, if you’d like.)
What was the nature of Boyle’s freak-out and temper tantrums? First, she apparently swore at police officers and then was reported to have “screamed "f*** off" and flicked a V-sign at the TV in the hotel bar as she watched judge Piers Morgan tell Shaheen Jafargholi, 12, he had given the ‘best singing performance so far.’”
If swearing at the cops and giving your television the finger are signs of madness, then reserve me a padded room immediately.
Piers Morgan (at left), one of the three judges, meanwhile, nicely fanned the fires on his blog. “Susan is finding it very difficult to cope, and to stay calm. She has been in tears many times during the last few days, and even felt like quitting altogether and fleeing all the attention."
Duh. The woman is ridiculed and then awarded for not living down to the most mortifyingly low expectations, based on all the dumbest of stereotypes about who best deserves to be onstage and onscreen. What's to be upset about?
[NOTE: Strangely enough, as I’m writing this blog, there’s a “breaking news” story on cable news that Susan Boyle has been admitted to the hospital with an “emotional breakdown,” complete with the continuing condescension of Piers Morgan who expressed his relief that Boyle came in second, saying “a victory would have ‘just carried on the mayhem’ for the unworldly Scottish spinster.” Sigh.]
But what about the winners? Diversity is a 10-guy dance crew comprised of three sets of brothers and their friends. Cowell liked them as soon as he learned that the older members were in college or working as IT engineers. Their energetic, creative routines were a lot of fun and their obvious affection for each other heart-warming. For anyone who follows America's Best Dance Crew, produced by Randy Jackson, has seen many astounding examples of this kind of street dance, combining hip-hop, gymnastics and synchronization. Here’s the winning performance.
Oops. I almost forgot to write about the Oscars. Desperate to stop the downward trend of viewing numbers (do numbers of any kind do anything but plummet of late?), the Academy Awards ceremony went through restructuring. The results were superior to those of bank restructurings, but not so exciting that I immediately remembered to blog about it. So by now you know whatever you intend to know about the results. I’ll restrict myself to personal observation.
Hugh Jackman was the host, apparently because he is young(ish), handsome(ish) and multi-talented. I admit that he did a perfectly adequate job in this revised format, but he’s a stranger to me. In line with my usual rigorous research, I looked him up on IMDb.com and turns out I’ve never seen a thing he ever did, unless I happened to catch that Saturday Night Live episode he hosted in 2001. One of his upcoming acting gigs listed on IMBb, however, sounds ever so kinky: “Guardians of Ga'Hoole (2010) (filming) (voice) (rumored)”
Perhaps I’m showing my age (and about time, too), but I remain firmly in the fan camps of hosts Billy Crystal, Whoopi Goldberg (hot tiger print cleavage this year!) and – my absolutely favorite Oscar night (2007) – Ellen DeGeneres. My most excited moment (1973) remains when Sacheen Littlefeather turned down Marlon Brando’s Oscar for “The Godfather” in protest of the misrepresentation of Native Americans in film. You can see it here. And there were those years early in the pandemic when all my tension was centered on not who might win, but on who would stand up and wear the Red Ribbon in solidarity.
Back to Sunday night. The biggest surprise of the evening was that “Waltz with Bashir” didn’t win Best Foreign Language Film. (The only other contender I saw was “The Class,” an excessively long yawn which I napped through one afternoon.) “Waltz with Bashir” is the much-awarded Israeli film about a soldier’s recovered memories of his own actions during the 1982 incursion into Lebanon and the massacre of Palestinians in the refugee camps Sabra and Shatilla. “Waltz with Bashir” has been praised not only for its content but for its extraordinary and unique style of animation. Coming out in theaters, as it did, during Israel’s recent attack on Gaza, only added to its relevance.
Like most people, I live a life of contradictions. I adore the Red Carpet sessions, but totally freak out at how narrow the permissibles of women’s fashion have become again. The one and only celebrity in the whole bleedin’ show that I spotted with short hair and pants was Shirley McLaine. Something is very, very wrong with this picture.
What’s with the Noah’s Ark fashion vision – the men in a tux and the women in chiffon? Where’s the imagination? Where’s someone who looks even vaguely like a couture version of me and my posse? Why should biology be fashion destiny? Some of those guys – and I’m serious now – would love to be floating in ruffles and some of those girls carry off a suit brilliantly.
Even those women who started their careers with fiery toughness are ground into a homogenized image of which the mediocre Beyonce is now considered the gold standard. I didn’t even recognize the once-distinctive Alicia Keyes, except for that lovely uneven smile. There were self-satisfied cheers when Sean Penn called for civil rights for all, but damn, when there’s an absolutely universal feeling among the Hollywood women that a girl can’t wear flat shoes and fancy-pants (or eat a cupcake) without it being a risk to her career, the industry should get real.
Dustin Lance Black made a sweet Harvey-honoring speech when he won the Original Screenplay award for “Milk,” although for an escaped Mormon he surprised me with all his gratitude to god. I worried when he went out on limb in his pledge to all the lesbian and gay kids watching, “And very soon, I promise you, you will have equal rights federally across this great nation of ours.” Does he know something I don’t know? You can see his speech here.
I liked that Sean Penn, when he won Best Actor, mentioned the anti-gays demonstrating against “Milk” outside the ceremony and that he said that those who supported Proposition 8 (banning gay marriage) would have to “anticipate their great shame and the shame in their grandchildrens’ eyes.” He had opened with a good line - “You commie homo-loving sons-of-guns” – and went on to thank everyone except, whoops, his wife and Harvey Milk.
Random Baubles:
Tina Fey and Steve Martin did the funniest bit.
I was glad that “Slumdog Millionaire” won big-time, but I doubt that that will stop Hollywood from continuing to poo-poo independent films (“Slumdog” almost went straight to DVD).
The idea of having five past winners praise the nominees personally and then present the Oscar is adorable. Sophia Loren?! At the end of the last millennium, I voted for her for some Hottie of the Century Award. I liked her saucy hand-on-hip attitude at the Oscars (she praised the increasingly wonderful Meryl Streep), but I felt that she was somehow covered in a plastic that prevented me getting my usual heat-off-the-flesh flash when I see her.
I loved the idea of a big musical production as a tribute to musicals, but this one didn’t do it for me. It didn’t help that Beyonce was Jackman’s co-star. To me she’s neither milk nor meat, as we say, she is just the perfection of a stereotype that I could do without. (I read in the Enquirer Magazine that Michelle warned Beyonce off further flirting with Barack.)
We were able to sneer in a much more informed way at the special award to the annoying Jerry Lewis because one of my viewing guests is a key Boston figure in the disability rights world, which is in a long-term state of conflict with Lewis.
Finally, Queen Latifah, always smoothly articulate even when dressed up like a fake-femme package (here with Amy Adams), sang “I’ll be seeing you” while a memorial piece to some of those who have passed played behind her. Badly directed, we were as often as not unable to see the names or images of the departed. Perhaps that is why the Academy removed the clip of what they broadcast from YouTube, but replaced it with the tribute that had been playing behind Queen Latifah. Here it is:
I've watched Jon Stewart’s Daily Show regularly for years and his sexism and racism have pissed me off as much as his wit around being Jewish and his incisive political barbs have cracked me up. Last January I finally went public with my anger when Jon Stewart broke the writers’ strike.
This week, all is forgiven. Stewart has always taken a practical, common sense view of the situation in Israel and Palestine - something we need in these dire times. The mainstream media report that over 3,000 Palestinians have been injured and over 700 Gazans have been killed in the last 13 days, as well as 10 Israelis, some of them from their own “friendly fire”. Here’s what the UN and physicians on the ground say:
“Doctors in Gaza have also confirmed the report by The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), saying that the main victims of Israeli strikes are civilians, many of whom are women and children. Thus far, over 200 children have been killed in Gaza.
So it is amazing that Stewart can make us laugh about the illogic of the arguments of those who support Israel’s politically-motivated assault on Gaza. Check out the six minute clip below that he calls “Strip Maul”.
The blogosphere – ok, the women’s blogosphere, myself included – is a bit annoyed by a recent act of FCC censorship for “implying nudity.” And who are the filthy perverted sex fiends the FCC has saved us from? It’s a cosmetics company. Yes, they have stopped Dove soap from airing a cool ad for their new Pro-age (as opposed to the usual Anti-aging) line of skin products for older women.
Featuring a half dozen luscious women over 50 is a lovely nod to the new parameters of what is beautiful and sexy. These fabulous women appear to be having a great, relaxed time during their nude shoots. Close-ups on age-spots and wrinkles are combined with long-shots of bodies of varied sizes and hues, posed so that the discreet placement of arms and thighs hides breasts and crotches. There’s no ridiculous posy-ness, no artificial come-hither crap – just some fine women de-robed and delightful.
It is such an unusual and buoyant “take” on how to market to boomers, that I’ve read some blog commenters who say they are buying the products just to support Dove.
Here’s the ad.
I hate being trite, but I simply have to wonder about these FCC freaks. Rape? No problem showing it – in fact there’s a Law & Order stream devoted to rape. Shootings? Beheadings? Fist fights? Smacking women around? Bombings? People buried in vats of live worms while being shot up by Uzi-wielding kids? They rock!
Don’t even get me started with questions of why women’s nipples are so hysterically banned (the FCC fined CBS $550,000 for Janet Jackson’s “wardrobe malfunction” and rules were tightened) while men’s nips are exposed everywhere. Or why there are uncounted ads and TV shows using the “implied” nudity of young skin, while these over-50s are considered obscene.
Hey FCC. Is it really just about flesh? Or are your fixations on youthful femininity all shook up by these older women’s succulent ease in the buff?
I’ve been intending for years to write to you, not only because I’ve long followed “The Daily Show,” but because I’ve generously wanted to share my ideas for improving it. But more about that later. Right now I’d like to be clear: I don’t watch scabs and I won’t be tuning in to your strike-breaking show anymore.
I disagree with one of my friends who tells me that since I’m not a Nielsen family (I’m actually not any kind of family, but that’s another story), that my protest is impotent. Actually, I prefer the cozy sense of solidarity with other writers and unionists to any stray chuckles I might derive from “The Daily Show.”
But let’s take a short break to let Jason Ross, one of “The Daily Show” striking writers, speak authoritatively about the strike.
Now here’s a strike by writers who provide the content for lucrative new media without a hint of compensation, asking the biggest entertainment conglomerates in the world for a shekel or two for their work. Meanwhile, these mammoth companies sue each other for appropriating “their” product without compensation. Chutzpah, thy (screen)name is Viacom. These strikers, some of whom miraculously make a real living from their pens, are objects of respect and admiration to the rest of us starving writers for their stand and gumption.
Ironically, this betrayal by you of your fellow union members and your fellow writers prompts me to air my long-held observations on your work. Excuse me for the present tense: even though you and I are oh so over, it’s all still fresh in my ex-fan mind.
Here are my four points.
1. Whether by plan or unconscious inclination, you seem to surround yourself with people doing such inane Borat-like schticks that it makes you look terribly clever in contrast. Your opening bits and your interviews are, far and away, the best part of the show – the most political, the most hysterical. The interviews and reports by your sidekicks are too often based on humiliating other people for the sake of it and they give me an unpleasant, squeamish feeling.
2. What oh what is up with your show’s most ubiquitous insult? Come on, Jon, you can do better that using “pussy” every two minutes. I remember when I was in Israel, the most foul and oft-used swear phrase was a rude Arabic term “Coos Ey’mach,” which translates as “Your mother’s pussy.” (Well, actually it’s the “c” word.) To make a point, each time I heard it, I would reply, “Peen Ah-vee’kha” – a phrase I devised that means, “Your father’s cock.” If you reinvent the news, why can’t you reinvent curses? Hint: I’ve learned they don’t have to be based on human genitals. Why not call chicken-shit people a Bush instead of a pussy?
3. For me, you’re just too gay for comfort. On the one hand, your obvious assumption that queer-haters are irrational assholes is very welcome. But your self-satisfaction over being so right-on seems to encourage you to riff off of the most annoying queer stereotypes. It’s often just “off” enough to be sadly unfunny.
4. And that brings me to the tired but true purity of the “Daily Show” team: the white men. There are virtually no women on your writing or on-air team – to which fact you have agreed gleefully when confronted. I say “virtually” with the full awareness that I’m not “counting” Samantha B, whose routines are indistinguishable from the undistinguished secondary characters mentioned above. Okay, you have grudgingly made room for a man of color or two onscreen – but unfortunately these performers are too often asked to deliver adolescent-level bits that are meant to be ironic, but which just come off as self-mocking racism masquerading as anti-racism. I’d give you a recent example or two from your show except that, oops, I don’t watch scabs.
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