bad luck streak in dancing school
i attended a fine dance recital this weekend, marveling at my daughter's ability to move in time with music. like tor's athletic skills, i have no idea where that came from. in truth, young esperanza has worked hard on her dance (and her singing) to further her opportunities as an actor. smart kid.i sometimes get a little creeped out by dance recitals, where young girls are dolled up in makeup and adult-like costumes. don't get me wrong -- it warms my soul to see the 3-6 year-olds stomping around, beaming in the spotlight and cheers. the more traditional lyrical dances are often quite beautiful too, and some of the more avant garde high school routines are wildly creative. i often marvel at the fitness, strength, dedication, and coordination required to pull off many of the routines.
that said, other routines made me feel as though i walked into an r. kelly video shoot. the moves, costumes, and music are often either suggestive (hot line) or straight-on sexist (should girls be dancing to hey big spender and my boyfriend's back in 2006?). think about casting chicago or all that jazz with twelve-year olds and you'll see what i mean. i'm not sure whether others are creeped out about this or whether i'm just becoming prudish or overly protective. having kids sort of changes you that way. but having kids also means supporting them as their interests develop. so i'm a full-on dance booster at this point.
one clue about the kids' costumes came during the "dancing moms" portion of the program. i noticed that the moms' flapper-esque costumes were far less revealing than those of their teen and tween and pwe-tween daughters. i didn't stick around for the "dancing dads" portion of the program, but i understand tutus were involved. that's more like it. we shouldn't parade our kids around in anything we wouldn't wear ourselves.
posted by christopher uggen @ 3:42 PM
5 comments
5 Comments:
I've been struck by this too... I was a little embarassed at some of the dance routines performed by 10-12 year-olds at Timberwolves games during halftime. Also, before we took the littlest Wakefield to Miami for spring break I tried to find a swim diaper for her -- no luck with that at Babies-r-us, but there were a number of bikinis in the 3-month-old size. Huh? Why? Randall's comment was "Wait until she decides to take dance lessons..."
Chris, take heart. You're not getting old, or I suppose I should say that old...yet. I (breifly) dated a dancer in high school, so of course I was required to be in attendance at thousands upon on thousands of recitals (it's amazing how many of those sonsabitches they can cram into a single month). All of these dance recitals featured kids that were from what seemed to be a year old up to kids from the community college. And even I, bastion of youth and all that youthfulness entails at the spry age of 17, remember quite distinctly being disgusted by the dance moves and cotuming for the young girls, whilst quite enjoying what appeared to be the same size costuming on the girls my age. It could have been partly attributed to my budding feminism (hey mom and dad, way to teach your daughter to be nothing but an object), but I think most red-blooded Americans would have a significant problem with that stuff.
Oh, and the snap-front shirts are totally only for going to town and dancing and the like. No one actually wears those on the farm...such a rural poser...
Somebody please tell me that that is not a picture of Jon-Binet Ramsey!
i'm glad i'm not alone. dance is so cool and beautiful and transcendant that i really want to support it. but i guess that means subjecting my daughter to lectures on gender politics at least a couple times per year (sorry, kid). or finding a new studio?
i took the image from a dance costume brochure. i didn't want to use anybody's personal recital pictures (though these would have made the point far more effectively).
as for objectification, i should point out that male coaches sometimes want to measure certain young uggens for their "D-I wingspan" as well as prodigious height and weight. this is creepy too, but in a less-threatening football/cannon-fodder way.
So I've been pondering the objectification of the young Uggen's for a bit now, because your comment realy got me thinking. My initial reaction to Tor's objectification was that it was a false parallel when compared to the objectification of female dancers, but I couldn't put my finger on it. First, I thought about how male objectification (nearly always in the arena of sports) can lead to large sums of money, but then again, so can the objectificaiton of women. But in the end, I realized it was more a matter of power/status. The objectification of men through sports, while still objectification, not only leads to great money (in some instances) but also leads to power, high status, respect, etc. Football players are viewed as semi-gods in this country, whilst even the most attractive woman (pretty much regardless of what she does) is afforded little status, and in fact will often lose status due to their status as a conventioanlly attractive woman. So there's the difference.
But you did get me seriously thinking about male objectification. For instance, I've been watching the Cup a lot (spent too much time with Arturo this year, I guess) and there's been a running scroll bar on the bottom of the screen focusing on Big Ben's motorcycle accident. There will always be a 4-word sentence on his overall condition (he's in fair/critical/poor/etc. condition), but there are extended messages on his body as it relates to football. For example, it was breaking news that the doctors have confirmed that his knees are still in fine condition to play football. Basically, he's just a piece of meat that can play football, so he can feel free to crash his motorcycle as much as he wants as long as those precious, precious knees are ok.
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