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Jay Leno square dance brouhaha
Tuesday night, Jay Leno's talk show sent Chelsea Handler to the 54th National Square Dance Convention held late June in Portland, OR. I didn't watch it that night, but I did set the VCR to record it and watched last night after club night.
There has been much gnashing of teeth on the sd-callers and squaredancing e-mail lists, but overall, I didn't think it was all that bad.
For starters, Jay Leno's show is supposed to be comedy rather than news reporting. What did we really expect? Yes, the humour frequently went low-brow, but that's pretty standard fare on these shows. I also noted that a great deal of the cheap shots were by Chelsea at herself: it really was all about her, while using the NSDC as a backdrop.
IMHO, making fun of straight square dance event is kinda like shooting fish in a barrel anyway.
Yup, much of the mocking concerned the ritualized dress code some dancers maintain. I make the same jokes: the flash-frozen 1950s, impractical, overpriced, overdone and rabidly-enforced dance uniforms rightly deserve to be ridiculed. It's supposed to be a square dance, not a petticoat fetish society. Unless one is attending a costume party, valuing the clothing before the activity itself in a social event strikes me as mildly deranged.
Some e-mails complained that the demographics presented weren't representative of square dancing as a whole. All I can say is that it perfectly represented the DC area straight clubs: 90% white people over the age of 60 with a handful of youngsters under 25 and almost nothing in between. Can't fault Chelsea for that one.
It's commonly said that there is no such thing as bad publicity. I suspect Michael Jackson, Scott Peterson and Karl Rove might have a different opinion. I'd qualify it a bit by saying that sometimes publicity can be damaging but it's a rare circumstance. The Chelsea Handler piece doesn't qualify as bad publicity. Yeah, it wasn't overly flattering but it's been a looooong time since there was any mention of square dancing in the national media and it didn't us cost a dime. True, it's not going to encourage anyone to take up dancing but I think it was also too focused on Chelsea to turn people off dancing. We have the dress code to do that.
There has been much gnashing of teeth on the sd-callers and squaredancing e-mail lists, but overall, I didn't think it was all that bad.
For starters, Jay Leno's show is supposed to be comedy rather than news reporting. What did we really expect? Yes, the humour frequently went low-brow, but that's pretty standard fare on these shows. I also noted that a great deal of the cheap shots were by Chelsea at herself: it really was all about her, while using the NSDC as a backdrop.
IMHO, making fun of straight square dance event is kinda like shooting fish in a barrel anyway.
Yup, much of the mocking concerned the ritualized dress code some dancers maintain. I make the same jokes: the flash-frozen 1950s, impractical, overpriced, overdone and rabidly-enforced dance uniforms rightly deserve to be ridiculed. It's supposed to be a square dance, not a petticoat fetish society. Unless one is attending a costume party, valuing the clothing before the activity itself in a social event strikes me as mildly deranged.
Some e-mails complained that the demographics presented weren't representative of square dancing as a whole. All I can say is that it perfectly represented the DC area straight clubs: 90% white people over the age of 60 with a handful of youngsters under 25 and almost nothing in between. Can't fault Chelsea for that one.
It's commonly said that there is no such thing as bad publicity. I suspect Michael Jackson, Scott Peterson and Karl Rove might have a different opinion. I'd qualify it a bit by saying that sometimes publicity can be damaging but it's a rare circumstance. The Chelsea Handler piece doesn't qualify as bad publicity. Yeah, it wasn't overly flattering but it's been a looooong time since there was any mention of square dancing in the national media and it didn't us cost a dime. True, it's not going to encourage anyone to take up dancing but I think it was also too focused on Chelsea to turn people off dancing. We have the dress code to do that.
no subject
And I was under the impression the costumes are actually frozen in the early 70's late 60's, in the 50's early 60's, women wore much the same skirt/petticoat combo they wore for any dance party, nothing like the demented baby-doll look that they wear today.
no subject
I can't say with authority when the costuming insanity took hold but it's well past time (IMHO) to let it go.
Perhaps some future IAGSDC convention should host a let's-dress-like-a-straight-club speciality tip like we do the leather tip, bear tip, kilt tip, etc.. Or would that be excessively scary?
no subject
(and, judging by some of the flesh on display at the leather tip this year, a specialty tip that emphasized wearing lots of clothing would actually be an esthetic improvement no matter what the clothing...)